A company whose stock value I have questioned (see What edge does Rivian have in the truck or EV market? (11/16/2021; market cap $127 billion) and How is Rivian still worth $78 billion? (1/6/2022); market cap recently closer to $30 billion) now has the feature that I begged for in 2003: dog mode.
“Rivian Just Added a Pet Comfort Mode” (MotorBiscuit):
Rivian has addressed this by creating a pet comfort mode that will maintain a temperature between 68 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit in the car while you are away. All you need to do to turn it on is hit the paw icon in the upper right corner of the climate control screen. This will stay on while you’re taking care of business away from the vehicle. If you don’t set a specific temperature, it will automatically set to 72 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Rivian addresses this by alerting anyone who passes by that the pet comfort mode is on and your dog is OK.
The companies that could easily do this with a bit of programming, e.g., Ford, GM, Toyota, Hyundai/Kia, Mercedes, BMW et al., apparently can’t be bothered. Only the startups (Tesla, Rivian, and maybe Lucid (according to a salesperson I talked to in a San Diego mall in June 2022)) provide this.
In other car news, a dealer here in South Florida had a new C8 Corvette in stock(!). With the Z51 (but not Z06!) performance package, convertible body, 3LT trim, and 75th anniversary color scheme, the machine carries an MSRP of $108,000. They expressed a willingness to sell it for $138,000, which includes a $30,000 “market value adjustment.” The high-end used car lot at the northeast end of Jupiter says that C8 Corvettes in yellow are the easiest to sell and that, within a day or two of being parked within sight of the road, are gone.
Related:
- “Buying a new car in the U.S. has never been more expensive” (CBS, August 11, 2022): “The average price Americans paid for a new vehicle in July hit a record high of $48,182 … And prices are likely to continue rising because demand for new vehicles is unusually high while inventories are low compared to previous years, experts told CBS MoneyWatch. … Prepare to pay through the nose“
- “Ford Raises Electric Truck Price By Up To $8,500 After Democrats Pass $7,500 EV Tax Credit”
Soros Fund Management sold about 8 million shares of Rivian stock between March 21 and the regulatory filing on August 12th. I guess Rivian decided to add Dog Mode to encourage Soros to reconsider.
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/george-soros-deals-a-big-blow-to-tesla-rival-rivian
“We’ve seen unprecedented levels of inflation especially across our raw material, inputs and lithium prices that have gone up north of 115% over since the start of this year, in particular coupled with Covid and other factors that have driven a challenging supply chain and inflationary environment as well as part of that.”
But the company said it was making “progress” with its suppliers: “We expect to be able to add a second shift for vehicle assembly towards the end of the third quarter.”
As of June 30, Rivian had only manufactured 6,954 cars. In other words, it must manufacture at least 18,046 vehicles during the second half of the year to meet its goals.”
In other words, it has to make and sell 259% more trucks than it has so far. That had better be a very good Dog.
I blame Doug DeMuro: “The Rivian R1T is the Coolest Pickup Truck Ever Made” – Nov. 26, 2021
> All you need to do to turn it on is hit the paw icon in the upper right corner of the climate control screen.
Would you really trust it not to malfunction and allow your dog to cook to medium-rare on a sunny, hot day?
> The companies that could easily do this with a bit of programming … can’t be bothered.
Small benefit to sales (since everyone would copy), but big potential liability?
They would not cook medium-rare, in all likelihood. Whatever supply chain partners Rivian has in China must be laughing at the whole thing.
“Here, we have a festival and cook them to feed our people and raise our country up! In America rich people drive around in their Rivian to visit the mall!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=589NAoC9Q6Y
Don’t insult them, or you won’t get the microchips, the fake watches and high-end luxury goods, Yankee!
We have the same ethics justifications everywhere (beginning at 4:02) especially after these two videos from that burbling wellspring of journalistic ethics, “Vice”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=589NAoC9Q6Y
“The Media have been talking a lot about this recently. How would you respond to them? Don’t you think it’s cruel?”
“I’m not forcing them to eat dog. Why should they be able to stop me from killing dogs? What right do those people have?
Your warning is valid, though: I would try it a couple of times before trusting it. Does it have a failsafe mode to alert you if it conks out? Because if it works for dogs, you know people will use it for their kids also, and if the truck’s AC system fails, well, you might also have medium-rare children.
Maybe people should be less lazy. The more we try to lard up these cars with features that can fail, the more I see trial lawyers licking their chops.
Am I wrong?
Sorry, here’s the link to the point in the video where the intrepid Vice journalist asks the Dog Chopping Lady for her opinion, and is basically told to shut up, go home, and buy some Gwyneth Paltrow Goop stuff.
https://youtu.be/589NAoC9Q6Y?t=240
And you know, depending on how broad-minded your perspective is, the guy at 2:40 or so makes a lot of sense. He sounds pretty angry at being questioned:
“There’s no need to eat pet dogs, but regular dogs are for food.
There’s nothing extraordinary about that.
We’re building our nation. Don’t you need to make money for that?
People raise dogs to make money.
It’s also to help China flourish.”
So it’s patriotic to many in China also. Here in ‘Murica, we’re prepared to pay for Dog Mode to keep our dogs in a Safe Space while we shop for food and other luxury goods in our expensive electric cars and trucks because, since we’re too lazy to take them home and visit the supermarket without them. In China, they eat dogs to build their nation and flourish.
Ethically, who is more screwed up?