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Old 01-21-2023, 01:10 AM   #331
Terri Kennedy
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Personally though, I don't have the risk tolerance to plunk down that much money with an unproven company producing a brand new vehicle.
I did that with the Atom and the manufacturer (Brammo) initially had no idea how much it cost them to build a car (or how long it takes). They proceeded through a series of massive price hikes and priced themselves out of the market - an Atom is a very fun car, but by the time you get to $120K there are a lot of fun cars. They pivoted to making electric motorcycles, got a round of funding from Best Buy and eventually got acquired by Polaris.

There were at least 2 very dangerous problems with some Brammo Atoms. The first was that on early cars they used a massively under-rated rod end in the suspension*. I had a rod end failure on the back that dropped the frame onto the highway at speed. If one of the front ones let go instead, my passenger and I would have both been killed. The second one was a design error that caused a high stress point on the alignment thimbles with subsequent cracks and failures. That never happened to me, but there were a number of crashes (including one with a fatality) that were allegedly caused by thimble failure.

Nope - not doing that again.

* When I visited Aurora Bearing with my Atom (they made the rod ends), pretty much the whole company turned out to see it. When I was discussing the under-rated rod end, one employee chimed in with "Isn't that the model we sell for lawn mowers?" (it was). I asked what she did and she said she swept the floors under the end mills. So, essentially, even the janitor knew they were the wrong part.
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Old 01-21-2023, 08:02 AM   #332
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Originally Posted by Terri Kennedy View Post
I did that with the Atom and the manufacturer (Brammo) initially had no idea how much it cost them to build a car (or how long it takes). They proceeded through a series of massive price hikes and priced themselves out of the market - an Atom is a very fun car, but by the time you get to $120K there are a lot of fun cars. They pivoted to making electric motorcycles, got a round of funding from Best Buy and eventually got acquired by Polaris.

There were at least 2 very dangerous problems with some Brammo Atoms. The first was that on early cars they used a massively under-rated rod end in the suspension*. I had a rod end failure on the back that dropped the frame onto the highway at speed. If one of the front ones let go instead, my passenger and I would have both been killed. The second one was a design error that caused a high stress point on the alignment thimbles with subsequent cracks and failures. That never happened to me, but there were a number of crashes (including one with a fatality) that were allegedly caused by thimble failure.

Nope - not doing that again.

* When I visited Aurora Bearing with my Atom (they made the rod ends), pretty much the whole company turned out to see it. When I was discussing the under-rated rod end, one employee chimed in with "Isn't that the model we sell for lawn mowers?" (it was). I asked what she did and she said she swept the floors under the end mills. So, essentially, even the janitor knew they were the wrong part.
Horrifying.
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Old 01-21-2023, 09:24 AM   #333
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I thought Brammo just licensed the Atom design from Ariel? Wouldn't think that would require re-engineering things outside the powertrain changes made to conform to EPA regs?
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Old 01-21-2023, 08:34 PM   #334
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I thought Brammo just licensed the Atom design from Ariel?
They licensed the name and the right to build something that looks generally like an Atom. In the finest tradition of British car building, all of the UK Atom specs were held in a combination of the employee's heads and the various fixtures they used when assembling cars.

Brammo got a UK Atom and essentially reverse-engineered it. They did make very detailed engineering drawings (I have a few of them) and they used CNC equipment to make parts - very different.

Brammo's license with Ariel UK (as I understand it) required Brammo to make their drawings available to Ariel UK at no cost. That turned into one of the contentious issues between the factories as Craig Bramscher got summoned to Ariel UK to discuss things like my rod end failure (and subsequent 5-digit repair bill), the fact that the Brammo "300HP" cars weren't anywhere even close, etc. and when he got there he was apparently told to hand over his drawings and specs to the people from the new Ariel China who were there at the same time. That is all hearsay of course, but from people I trust.

Quote:
Wouldn't think that would require re-engineering things outside the powertrain changes made to conform to EPA regs?
The Atom was never FMVSS-compliant and could not be made FMVSS-compliant. That's why they were sold for track use only (and some people registered them in states which didn't require compliance). When TMI took over US Atom manufacturing, one of the first things they did was introduce the Spec Race Atom (SRA) which removed all of the "street" things like turn signals.
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Old 02-01-2023, 02:11 PM   #335
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Rivian orders placed after 20% price hikes appear to jump line: https://stocks.apple.com/AMzodXbMOQo2FxA_r2PDmxA

Rivian to Lay Off 6% of Workforce in EV Maker’s Second Round of Job Cuts: https://stocks.apple.com/Apga8enfpSPCqbyqlfvc6cw

I’ll say it again, I will be highly surprised if they make it. Someone will have to eventually purchase them.
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Old 02-02-2023, 12:58 PM   #336
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Is Rivian Stock a Bargain for Under $20? https://stocks.apple.com/AkmR5SY5ST3-TECWXMHlihQ
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Old 02-22-2024, 09:07 AM   #337
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so Rivian is now losing $40,000 on every vehicle delivered
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Old 02-22-2024, 09:18 AM   #338
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so Rivian is now losing $40,000 on every vehicle delivered
Holy cow.
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Old 02-22-2024, 10:17 AM   #339
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Pretty sure it was more than that when I acquired mine in July of 2022. It is also why they had the significant pricing increase that they took some backlash on from the placement holders that had yet to receive their vehicle, but had been waiting years to acquire.

We are beginning to see a rather large influx of the R1S (SUV) around town. I am seeing multiple units on a daily basis. So far every driver has also been a female.
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Old 02-22-2024, 10:28 AM   #340
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I looked it up--they were losing $139,000 per vehicle in Q3 2022!

$32,000 per last quarter and then back up to 43,000 this quarter
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