Repairing a minor dent on an electric Rivian cost the owner so much that he could have had a whole new car instead

The car may not be bad, but the design is so poorly thought out that repairing even minor damage means a huge expense. The tax on production savings, which do not lead to a low price anyway, is enormous.

A few days ago I already noticed the Rivian R1T in Prague. That is, an American electric pick-up, which, although not as extravagant as the Tesla Cybertruck, still stands out from the crowd. Especially thanks to its oval and vertically styled headlights. At that moment, of course, I thought about a possible loan, but then I quickly pushed such an idea out of my head. Not because I have an aversion to every electric car, but with regard to possible problems related to its construction.

When you look at the car, you will notice that the body panel that starts above the windshield continues to the rear, where it forms the body. On the one hand, the car is aerodynamically clean, because its profile is decorated with only a minimum of joints. But this can be seen as the proverbial two-sided coin, because all it takes is a minor accident, and suddenly you are facing an enormous repair bill. Which, after all, has already been confirmed in the past. Now a similar knock happened again, only it was not aimed at the rear bumper, but higher towards the light, as we learn from the discussion of Rivian owners on Reddit.

This turned out to be a stroke of luck, because the owner of this fun “only” cost USD 21,419.16, i.e. about CZK 491,000. That is, for the same money that you can buy, for example, a brand new Škoda Scala. Or even several perspective used cars of different brands. The Rivian had to go to the service center for a long time, where the technicians worked on it for an incredible 94.1 hours. The reason was precisely that one-piece panel, which had to be cut in half and then a new part welded. Something like this with batteries under the floor is not easy.

But why happiness in misfortune? This is due to a previous accident, as the battery had to be checked due to the impact on the bottom. Even though the car was visibly even less damaged than in the current case, the service finally issued an invoice for an incredible $42,000 (about CZK 975,000). This is already an amount for which you can buy any electric car, but in the end, of course, the insurance company paid for everything. We do not yet know whether this was the case this time, when it was not an accident caused by the owner.

In the end, however, absolutely all owners of electric cars will pay, because the often truly absurd amounts for repairs logically lead to an increase in insurance premiums. In addition, it sheds light on why very few electric cars actually return to the road after an accident, even if, for example, an internal combustion car would never disappear from it in the event of similar damage. Repairs are often so expensive that it is better to write off the car as a total. However, such a thing has nothing to do with the ecology of laundromats.

At the same time, the Rivian is just icing on the cake, mainly because of the bad design of the pick-up. However, even with the related SUV R1S, where there are far more joints between the individual body panels, you cannot have deep pockets. And that’s why what we’ve been saying for a long time really applies, i.e. that electromobility is not for everyone. After all, just participating in the aforementioned amounts would lead many people to declare a month of hunger, and we are talking about 5 or 10 percent.

The R1T may seem attractive, but considerable resources are required to operate it. Not because of high consumption, but mainly because of ill-conceived construction leading to potentially very expensive repairs. Photo: Rivian

Hit by semi trailer while parked. $21K for Rivian certified fix.
byu/tortito inRivian

Source: Rivian@Reddit

Petr Prokopec

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