The owner of a new Rivian R1S electric vehicle recently experienced his “honeymoon phase” ending abruptly after the car got stuck in the snow. The owner had waited years to receive the car and was eager to get it out and test its capabilities. However, within days of ownership, a safety feature caused it to become stranded in the snow, leading to an expensive repair bill.
Business Insider reported that Chuck Merrill put a deposit down on the electric truck three years ago after being convinced by family members to switch from his gasoline-powered Ford. Despite worries about an electric car being reliable in the remote Adirondack Mountains of New York, he fell in love with the vehicle after sitting behind the wheel. “I was in a honeymoon phase,” Merrill told Insider. “It’s an incredible car, and it handles unlike anything I’ve ever driven.”
However, two days after first receiving his long-awaited EV, he attempted to drive to his family property in the mountains to test the SUV. The car was then immobilized by a large snow drift. “I hit about 2 ½-feet of snow and it just stopped right there,” Merrill said. “I had seen all the Rivian marketing campaigns with the cars just eating through the snow so it was kind of like, man this is disappointing.”
When attempting to dislodge the vehicle from the snow, Merrill accidentally triggered a safety feature that locked the car between the park and the drive gears. The car was completely immobile and had to be transported on a flatbed truck hundreds of miles away to a service center. Merrill incurred a towing fee of $2,100 to have it transported. The costly event has Merrill considering trading the Rivian for a similar style gas-powered vehicle like the Toyota Tacoma.
However, Rivian executives told Insider this is what the car was designed to do in situations where the vehicle is sliding dangerously. “There was an unfortunate cascade of events and edge cases that led to this situation,” Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s senior vice president of software development, said. “But we take this feedback as a gift. It’s great input for us to improve the product.”
Reportedly, many early consumers like Merrill are voicing their frustrations with Rivian. Alongside this, Rivian also reported disappointing earnings that sent its stock price into a spiral:
CNBC reports that the electric vehicle startup Rivian released mixed fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday, which led to a decline of about 16.6 percent in its stock price during morning trading on Wednesday.
Rivian only managed to make $663 million in revenue when analysts were expecting the company to report revenue of $742.4 million. Although the company’s revenue was off the mark, its adjusted loss per share was lower than anticipated, at $1.73 instead of the estimated $1.94.
The adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization reported by Rivian for 2022 was close to $5.2 billion, which was less than the guidance of a $5.4 billion loss provided in November.
Electric vehicle technology in still extremely new to the market, and accordingly, there have many errors reported with these vehicles that are not observed in traditional, gas-powered vehicles.
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