A Rivian owner was in a fender bender. The repair bill was $42,000.::The repairs cost over half the starting price for the Rivian EV. The owner said he’d expected it wouldn’t be cheap, but it was a “shocking number.”
One of the primary reasons for the high price was that the accident affected a panel that reaches from the back of the vehicle all the way to the front roof pillars of the truck and fixing the panel required service workers to remove the ceiling and front windshield, the Times said.
What a terrible design
Even removing a ceiling and windshield, $42,000 seems stupidly excessive.
Yeah this. I was reading expecting some critical board got damaged or something with the electrical system that also had to be replaced, but nah, they just had to take more apart to get to it.
My uncle was a mechanic, he’d have to take engines apart he wasn’t charging no $42k for even 3 days labour.
Just dealership shenanigans it sounds like.
EV’s have a much smaller pool of people qualified to repair them.
but also, one of the reasons I’m not buying a tesla or a rivian is because a “traditional” car maker would have known about repair-ability and made plans to simply things. the lack of automotive experience is telling, especially in Tesla’s.
You think non-EV car manufacturers don’t make their vehicles deliberately more obtuse to maintain, in order to make their repair and maintenance a specialism? They’re all at it, it just happens that EVs can be created as far more of a black box of proprietary systems.
not exactly, no. they do design for their people to be able to repair it efficiently, though. generally, it’s more in the “you need this super special tool only we make” kind of thing, as apposed to a fender bender causes needing to basically disassemble the entire vehicle just to reach a part.
Yeah I agree that while EVs might require special training or additional skills, car manufacturers have been gating repairs for decades. Lots of the late model cars my uncle worked on required special codes only available thru the manufacturer. They would also withhold data and repair info to third party shops. It got so bad that my uncle was turning away BMW and others that would require codes for simply things like oil changes. Hell take you if the check engine light came on!
I feel like EVs may simply allow them to charge more simply because it’s an EV.
At that price don’t you call it totaled?
Remember that this is a truck where the base model costs in the neighborhood of 70K, even with whatever depreciation, wear and tear, etc. it has picked up (which probably isn’t too much since the truck is, at most, not quite 2 years old) playing around with the kelley blue book website, it looks like the value of that truck is still almost definitely 10k+ more than the cost of the repairs (and honestly probably more like 20K+ unless this guy has seriously beaten the crap out of his truck and racked up a ton of miles)
So the insurance company basically has the option of paying out either 42K for repairs, or 50, 60, 70K+ for the full value of the truck to total it.
That’s some pretty easy math to do to see why it’s not totaled.
I really don’t understand the second hand market for stuff like this… If you can’t afford it new… You probably shouldn’t be buying it used…
It’s like a dude trying to buy a used yacht because he can’t afford it new… You’re not in the yacht club my guy, buy yourself a sensible boat you can afford and maintain.
To remove rhose things probably disconnects them from other things, further increasing the amount of car that has to get fucked up before its fixed
I would disassemble and reassemble the entire thing for less than $42,000, down to the last bolt
Depending on how early the build is. Sometimes poor design decisions like that are allowed for earlier builds while other kinks are worked out.
i would have done it for 200 bucks
Pretty sure this is the same with most vehicles, there’s one piece of metal that goes the length of the roof.
Honestly, this just sounds like people out of touch with how expensive the repair process is.
Standard unibody design. You just don’t hear about it with normal cars because they have enough production to cover shit.
Doesn’t the insurance have an onus in understanding of cost of repairs to vehicles they cover? How can they only offer$1600?
Also, I thought Tesla and others were also looking at these unibody designs for manufacturing purposes.
Fender bender?
He crushed the roof under a streetlight and had to have the unibody structure repaired.
Maybe they will challenge Tesla for the title of most expensive insurance.
I think the environment is just going to have to suffer a bit more on my part. Until someone puts out a simple EV that doesn’t constantly surveil me Imma stick with used ICE vehicles
I’m not sure why people are down-voting you. Asking for a car that doesn’t have remote data logging and other BS that a bunch of electric cars have now is not an unreasonable ask. Just make a plain car that works.
Yep I don’t think it’s too much to ask to not be tracked every waking moment
This surveillance thing is not EV exclusive. Remember the whole BMW heated seats fiasco? This is the future to come am afraid. The moment manufacturers realize they can squeeze some more money out of you, we are done for.
Technological serfdom. We won’t ever own anything. It’s all subscription/rent/taxes.
According to the article, the reason the repair was expensive was structural and had nothing to do with it being an EV.
That being said, I ran over a rock with a 1 year old EV and totaled it because it put a 4” crack in the battery pack and cracked the high voltage power harness. (Insurance covered it…that’s what car insurance is for folks)
It sounds like a lot more than the fender got bent then, what a stupid title.
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Must be some great engineering!
You can pry my 2008 Honda civic from my cold dead hands.
Cars were always terrible. And yet somehow someway they have gotten so much worse recently. I will continue to repair my car until I die.
This is why my only electric vehicle is a bicycle lol, still waiting on prices to come down to something sane. In the meantime, I have my trusty old Honda and Subaru.
This is the exact wrong way of thinking. This has nothing to do with the fact vehicle is electric. This has everything to do with the fact Rivian is young company. People will often neglect the fact Toyota (and others) exist for decades and has been pouring time and money in figuring reliability and ease of repair. It’s not an easy thing to achieve. It’s decades and number of different models of improvement upon improvement that we take for granted today.
Of course Tesla’s quality is going to suck ass, they’ve been around for far shorter, and have an idiot for owner who thinks he’s the best thing. And not only Tesla, Rivian but all new manufacturers will struggle with issues like these. Some manufacturers are smarter than others and they will hire experienced people to help work and design. Musk is not one of those smart people as his tendency is to make sure smartest people leave in every company he buys.
Or, in short: dude likes Honda, Honda makes EVs, get one of those 😁
Are they on par in terms of quality, price, and reliability as their traditional vehicles now? I’d been under the impression that they were still really expensive both to buy and to repair. I guess I haven’t really researched it lately though.
As far as I understand (I’m in the market myself) the traditional makers have essentially caught up. You can expect the same build quality as other cars by the same makers.
(I’m specifically looking at Renault, Volvo and Mercedes, haven’t tried others)
I’ve heard Volvos are nice and very sturdy, was kinda looking at that EX30.
Yup. Pretty much.
This has nothing to do with EV, it has to do with extremely overcharing customers. A BMW fender could run you 5000 just for the part. My fiancee worked in the automotive sector so she has the gross prices: under 100 Euros.
I have nothing against EVs as a concept, but there are no good EVs that are reasonably priced and even the expensive ones can be shitty and ridiciulously expensive to maintain or repair. If there was a true electric equivalent to something like a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Closest thing I can think of would be a Prius but they’re still pretty expensive.
I’ve been debating purchasing a vehicle in the coming years, but found a electric bike for much less that I think I want instead.
I love my ebike! Feel free to stop by [email protected]
