Newcomer EV manufacturers such as Rivian and Lucid have been making buzz and many tech reviewers prefer them over the Tesla Brand Name.
Rivian!
Rivian is a USA based EV automaker, that deals in automotive tech and Electric Vehicles(EVs). The company was founded by Robert “RJ” Scaringe, as Mainstream Motors. After being renamed as Avera Motors, the company was finally renamed Rivian Automotive in 2011.
Rivian had a major breakthrough in 2015, when it received a bigger investment and opened research facilities in Michigan and the Bay Area(cities in the USA). In January 2017, Rivian bought a manufacturing facility in Normal, Illinois from Mitsubishi Motors. The manufacturing plan and its facilities cost Rivian $16 millions.
In December 2017, Rivian revealed its first two vehicles, a five-passenger pickup truck dubbed A1T and a seven passenger SUV named A1C. At the LA Auto Show, November 2018, A1T and A1C vehicles were unveiled and renamed to R1T and R1S, respectively. The vehicles were described as ready for rough terrain and semi-autonomous. At the same show, the company outlined a plan for its next generation of models to be fully autonomous.
At the start of 2018, Rivian had 250 employees. This number shot up to over 9000 employees, across facilities in Michigan, Illinois, California and the United Kingdom, in November 2021.
Lucid Motors!
Lucid Group Inc. is an American EV manufacturer based in Newark, California. The company was founded by Peter Rawlinson in 2007, under the name Atieva, originally centred around manufacturing batteries and powertrains for other EV manufacturers. In October 2016, the company was rebranded to Lucid Motors with the focus on developing all-electric high-performance luxury vehicles.
In December 2016, Lucid motors unveiled the Lucid Air. The Air was designed to compete with the EVs in the industry, particularly the Tesla Model S Plaid, the Porshe Tycan, and other brands in the segment from manufacturers such as BMW, Mercedes and Audi.
In November 2020, the Lucid Air Pure was announced with 406 mi (653 km) of projected range and 480 horsepower (360 kW) and a starting price of US$77,400.
Why are these a big deal?
In September 2021, Rivian became the first automaker to bring a fully electric pickup truck to the consumer market, beating the established players such as General Motors, Ford & Tesla. The shipments of the R1T began in October 2021.
Rivian became a public company through an IPO(initial public offering), on November 10, 2021. 153 million shares were sold at an initial offering price of $78.00, valuing the company at $66.5 billion. The shares began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker "RIVN." On its first trading day, the stock closed at $100.73 per share, valuing the company at just under $100 billion.
On November 19, 2021, Ford and Rivian announced that the two automakers no longer plan to co-develop an electric vehicle. Ford announced the company would retain a 12 percent stake in Rivian, which reached a value of more than $10 billion after the IPO.
On September 17, 2018, Lucid Motors announced that they were in talks with the Public Investment Fund, which is the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Investment Fund, for funding valued at over US$1 billion. The investment was completed in April 2019. In February 2021, Lucid Motors announced a deal valued at US$11.75 billion to merge with Churchill Capital Corp IV, a publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). CEO Rawlinson announced Lucid's intention to produce its Project Gravity SUV by 2023, then offer a competitor to Tesla's Model 3 by 2024 or 2025.
In July 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Public Investment Fund will own over 60 percent of Lucid when the company goes public. The fund will record a profit of nearly US$20 billion from its investment in Lucid in 2018.
Since, before the rise and success of these newer all-electric vehicle manufacturers , Tesla had enjoyed the benefit of being the industry first. Other industry giants such as Ford, BMW, Mercedes also had to play catch up. Trends show that Tesla’s were not particularly famous among the more ‘car-enthusiastic’ people, but instead appealed more to the ‘tech-enthusiasts’. This mixed with the bad customer service and other criticisms that Tesla had to face over the years. Whereas, EV automotive manufacturers such as Lucid and Rivian have been taking special care not to repeat the same mistakes.