Today on the flagship podcast of scaled EV production: Verge producer Will Poor tags along with a former Uber Eats driver who ditched the delivery apps and is trying to start a one-man gig work revolution. The Verge's David Pierce and Andrew Hawkins discuss Rivian's new vehicles they announced last week, and what it will take for the company to compete with Tesla. David and Allison Johnson answer a question from The Vergecast Hotline about foldable phones.
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TechTranscript
00:00:00Welcome to the Verge cast, the flagship podcast of Scaled EV production.
00:00:04I'm your friend David Pierce and I am in the park walking my dog, but also doing some headphone
00:00:08testing. So I discovered a month or so ago that I was wearing headphones too often and it was
00:00:13actually making my ears itch. And I had switched from like the AirPods Pro Sony Link Buds style
00:00:19that actually shove into your ear to just a normal pair of AirPods that just kind of hangs there.
00:00:25But even that wasn't solving my whole problem. So now I'm on this weird quest for what I guess I
00:00:29would call non-headphone headphones. I'm trying to find something that doesn't go in my ear but
00:00:35will still play music and won't annoy everyone around me. So I've been testing smart glasses
00:00:40like this stuff you get from Meta or Amazon. I've been testing things like these, the Shox
00:00:45headphones. They're bone conduction headphones. They just like send sound through your cheekbone
00:00:49instead of your ear. It's all sort of fascinating. I'm not sure any of it is as good as what I left
00:00:53behind, but at least my ears don't itch anymore. So we're making progress. Anyway, we have an
00:00:58awesome show coming up for you today. We are going to do two things. First, we're going to
00:01:02tell a delivery story. Will Poore went out on the streets of Seattle and met a guy who is taking on
00:01:08Uber Eats and DoorDash and this whole crazy delivery industry all by himself. Super fun.
00:01:14You're going to like it. Then we're going to talk about Rivian, which just launched two new cars
00:01:18that people are very excited about. But in the process of that, I discovered I don't really
00:01:22understand anything about this company or why we think it might win, because there's really no
00:01:29evidence to suggest that it's going to. So we're going to get into that. We're going to answer a
00:01:32question from the hotline, all kinds of fun stuff. But first, I just got the notification that these
00:01:37batteries are about to die, which means it's the end of the dog walk. This is the Verge cast. We'll
00:01:41see in a sec. Welcome back. All right. I made it home. Everything's charging. I have to say I like
00:01:47the bone conduction headphones so far, although the Shox ones that I was wearing were pretty
00:01:52expensive. And I also bought another pair from a brand I can't pronounce that is just like a bunch
00:01:56of consonants in a row on Amazon for like a sixth of the price. And they look basically identical.
00:02:02So we'll have to see if you really get what you pay for there. Anyway, let's get into the show.
00:02:06For years now, I've been conflicted about these delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats.
00:02:12They are super convenient and they're helpful. And sometimes I don't want to cook or go out.
00:02:16And most of us don't live within walking distance of a million good restaurants. Like I
00:02:20get it. I get why they're helpful and good. But I also can't shake this idea that actually,
00:02:25these services are bad and they're bad for everyone involved. They make your meals more
00:02:30expensive, often more than, you know, through sneaky price increases like the menu on Uber
00:02:36Eats is sometimes just more expensive than the menu at the restaurant. They also don't pay
00:02:41delivery people enough or offer them the protections or benefits that the people who work there should
00:02:46get. And for the most part, historically speaking, they're not even a very good business for the
00:02:50companies running them. It's hard to make money for anybody, including the restaurants, the drivers,
00:02:56everybody. It just seems bad. So what are we doing here? Anyway, a couple of weeks ago,
00:03:01there was this guy who went viral online because of some posters he had put up around Seattle
00:03:06saying, basically, skip the apps. Call me instead. I'll deliver your food. He became kind of a folk
00:03:11hero online. So we sent our producer, Will Pour, to go see what's going on. This is one of those
00:03:18stories that exists because of a perfect storm type situation. Here's what happened. For years,
00:03:25gig workers here in Seattle, notably delivery drivers, have been pissed at the lousy pay they've
00:03:30been earning in this very expensive city. So in 2022, the city council stepped in and mandated
00:03:36a higher pay rate for app-based delivery workers. It's a good day for gig workers as the city of
00:03:41Seattle's new ordinance takes effect. The new pay scale went into effect this past January,
00:03:46and the apps didn't take the change graciously. In reaction, apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash
00:03:52began charging customers $5 in what they're calling a local operating fee. That's on top
00:03:58of the service fees and delivery fees that apps routinely charge to say nothing of tips.
00:04:03And customers are finding their limits. Fewer people are ordering from the apps,
00:04:08gig workers are feeling even more squeezed, and everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else.
00:04:13Food delivery orders plummeting since Seattle implemented new minimum wage requirements for
00:04:18delivery workers a month ago. This kind of battle is playing out in other markets too.
00:04:23New York City enacted similar rules last year, which the apps have also been fighting tooth and
00:04:28nail. But there's one thing Seattle has that no one else does. A guy named Tony Ailes,
00:04:34who I am trying to literally chase down right now. I always carry like a tennis ball in my pocket
00:04:40for like the round fluidity of a ball. I just like the idea of like, when I was in San Francisco,
00:04:44I had a conversation with my buddy. And I was like, do you think shapes have thoughts? And I
00:04:49think I do. I think they do. I think that they influence the way that you think. And I, I always
00:04:53carry that tennis ball. So I always feel like I have like a fluid mind. Tony is telling me this
00:04:57while flying across downtown Seattle on a rented e-bike in the pouring rain. I'm on my own rental
00:05:04trying to listen and keep up at the same time. We're weaving in and out of bike lanes dodging
00:05:09construction and crashing through puddles that could be potholes. It's chaos, which is partly
00:05:16the setting and partly Tony's fluid mind. In the first 30 minutes or so of pedaling, we have talked
00:05:22about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, China's social credit score, and the Stanford prison experiment.
00:05:28And I haven't asked any of the questions I came to ask. There's this idea called the method of
00:05:32Loki. I don't know if you know what that is. I don't. It's like this way of remembering things
00:05:37verbatim historically in like these ancient societies. It was this, this book that I read,
00:05:42it was called Moonwalking with Einstein. Uh, take a left. Hey, if we get separated for any reason,
00:05:48just go finish your delivery and text me when you're done. I'll, I'll find you again. All right.
00:05:52Okay. Oh, cause I'm hustling. Well, I just realized that I, uh, signed up to do a story
00:05:57about a delivery guy and I don't know how I expected this to go, but it's a pleasure meeting
00:06:02you. I gotta up my game here. Tony's backstory is pretty simple. He was driving for Uber Eats
00:06:10when those new fees suddenly killed demand. So at the beginning of February, he decided
00:06:15to go it alone. He put up some very DIY flyers downtown with an offer, text him a food order
00:06:22from any restaurant within a couple square miles, and he'll get it to you for five bucks.
00:06:27No taking a cut from restaurants, no service fee, no delivery fee, no local operating fee,
00:06:33just a tip if you're feeling generous. He went viral pretty much instantly.
00:06:38Right now on Cairo seven tonight, growing frustrations for Seattle's new food delivery
00:06:42rules. One driver becomes his boss's competitor. I think now just a few weeks later, Tony is a
00:06:48full-on local celebrity. He's all over the news, Reddit, Twitter slash X, and he says the orders
00:06:54have followed. The biggest challenge is cadence. He might get five texts all at once and then
00:06:59nothing for a while. So he's trying to figure that out along with the fame. Has this amount of
00:07:04attention been weird? Oh, it's crazy. I mean, it's just like, all of a sudden my opinion matters.
00:07:11A lot of people are asking me, they're just like, how much money are you making? And I'm like,
00:07:15I'm like, well, I'm not a monetary guy, not a business orientated person. But what's interesting
00:07:21is, is like, I feel like I've introduced a solution for like a social thing.
00:07:27Tony's social solution goes something like this. Because of apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash,
00:07:33yes, delivery has gotten expensive, but more than that, it's gotten rushed and sloppy and
00:07:38impersonal. It's just bad vibes all the way down and it's ruining takeout for everyone.
00:07:44It's such a hard position to be in. For who? For everybody, every party that's involved,
00:07:49the restaurants, the city, the people that are working as a deliverer. They're in this terrible
00:07:55toxic relationship with somebody. Like the restaurant owners and the apps and the drivers
00:08:01and just like that whole thing. Well, just like think about the last time you went into a
00:08:05restaurant and some driver goes in and is like, cuts in front of you and you're just like, what
00:08:08in the world? Like, hey, man, I've been standing here for five minutes. What's your problem?
00:08:13You know, that person is, they're like, they're hustling, right? So they're going in and they're
00:08:17not thinking about that at all because that's not their psychology. No, they got to keep moving.
00:08:21Right. And from where Tony's standing, the apps are moving in precisely the wrong direction.
00:08:27I think that they, the apps have this kind of misaligned misdirection of where they think
00:08:32the market is and what they're planning for. I think that their whole goal is to like,
00:08:36send robots to the buildings and, you know, send automated cars and it's like, okay, well,
00:08:42if that's your solution, then you might bleed for a while, right? And so it's like,
00:08:46I'm not a monetary guy, but I could tell you how to make it work a little bit better.
00:08:50Tony's whole thing is to strip all the tech and anonymity out of the process and be your
00:08:56friendly neighborhood delivery guy. And he thinks people will actively prefer a more
00:09:00social alternative, even if that care and attention limits him.
00:09:04I'm almost like, kind of certain once I get to a certain number of people that order from me,
00:09:08I almost kind of want to cap it to kind of ensure the law of Dunbar.
00:09:14Dunbar's number is another favorite Tony topic.
00:09:16It's a theoretical limit to the number of social relationships any one person can maintain.
00:09:22You want to cap the number of people that order from you so that you can
00:09:26stop and chat for a couple of minutes, so you can get to know repeat customers.
00:09:30I wouldn't even call them customers. I would just, I'll just call them my friends,
00:09:33the homies, you know, they're literally like, yo, Tony, can you get this for me?
00:09:38And I think that's kind of the thing is, is like, when you try to turn it into a business
00:09:41to customer relationship versus a person to person relationship,
00:09:44they're not going to be as understanding. If I, if I forget your drink right now,
00:09:48someone will be like, Tony, it's fine. You don't have to go back to Chipotle.
00:09:51Totally.
00:09:52But if I forget on Uber Eats, they're gonna be like, yo man, what's going on here?
00:09:56In short, Tony thinks that there is a whole lot more to delivery than speed and cost.
00:10:02But yes, he is cheaper than the competition and often faster too.
00:10:07I've never seen anybody run through a Target.
00:10:09I picked up somebody's Target stuff and I was running through the Target.
00:10:14I'm gonna run here real quick.
00:10:15Yeah.
00:10:17I follow Tony as he makes two, maybe three deliveries back to back.
00:10:22Some chicken and a shake from Dave's Hot Chicken.
00:10:25Does it come with a drink or anything?
00:10:27A salad from a healthy bowl place called Evergreens.
00:10:31I'm honestly not 100% sure. It was such a blur.
00:10:34But at each pickup and drop off, Tony lives up to his own pitch.
00:10:38He's courteous, warm, casual, and chatty.
00:10:42So man, how are you doing today?
00:10:43We pull up to our next destination, a big apartment building.
00:10:46And while we wait in the lobby for Tony's customer, sorry, his homie, to come down,
00:10:51he's recognized by a stranger.
00:10:53You're the guy.
00:10:54Yeah, I am. Nice to meet you.
00:10:57I stop and chat with Tony's homie for a few minutes.
00:11:00He says that he and his roommates have ordered from Tony maybe 10 times in the past month.
00:11:04I was just scrolling through Reddit one day, and then I saw someone posting a,
00:11:09they posted a picture of one of his flyers that were posted like in the city.
00:11:13And I was like, oh, that's pretty interesting. It's cheaper than DoorDash.
00:11:15So I was like, let me give it a try.
00:11:16And then ever since it's like been me and my roommates, I go to.
00:11:20Oh, nice. You guys are like serious regulars at this point.
00:11:23I was like between the three of us, I think.
00:11:24And were you Uber Eats, DoorDash people before that?
00:11:28Yeah, exactly. DoorDash mainly.
00:11:30And then it was just like, got expenses. So we're like, let's see what else there is.
00:11:33What's the like the Tony experience like? And how is it different from the apps?
00:11:38I think it's a lot nicer because first of all, all you have to do is just like text him.
00:11:41So that's already a lot easier. He's much faster.
00:11:44And it's always nice, like having a quick conversation with him.
00:11:46And like the lobby, he always waits.
00:11:48He's fun to talk to. He's a, he's a very chill guy.
00:11:50Like we've had some nice conversations. It's cool.
00:11:55At the end of the lunch rush, Tony and I sat down at a cafe to talk some more.
00:11:59I went into the story wanting to know whether a guy like Tony can make it.
00:12:04Seattle's minimum wage is almost $20 an hour.
00:12:07So to match that, he'd need four deliveries an hour, not accounting for tips,
00:12:11which after seeing him in action definitely feels doable, but it is a hustle.
00:12:16In other words, it's still gig work.
00:12:19And Tony's only working the lunch and dinner rushes right now.
00:12:22So after this whole adventure, my question remains, can he make it?
00:12:27It turns out that is Tony's least favorite question.
00:12:30I'm looking at it as like, I just understand people.
00:12:33You know, people, they all have their perspectives.
00:12:35And all I'm trying to be is the glue that glues you in that connective tissue.
00:12:39So that way you can get off Reddit and stop arguing about how much money I'm making.
00:12:44Get off Reddit and stop arguing whether it's going to be financially responsible.
00:12:47I can figure that out on my own.
00:12:49I get the sense that Tony has become a kind of avatar.
00:12:53Everyone's putting all their thoughts and feelings about the gig economy onto him.
00:12:58I think that's why his story blew up online.
00:13:00If you're frustrated by big, powerful companies making life more annoying,
00:13:05he is the folk hero to root for, which is just way too much for Tony to take on.
00:13:10All of a sudden, like, people are texting me and they're like,
00:13:13you've got a great business mind.
00:13:15And I'm like, what are you talking about?
00:13:17And I think that what people are trying to do, they're trying to box me.
00:13:21They're trying to say, Tony fits here.
00:13:23And I think what they're lacking of understanding is, is like,
00:13:27I actually don't fit anywhere.
00:13:29I'm this, like, round ball that's just rolling down the street.
00:13:32Like the one in your pocket.
00:13:33Exactly, exactly.
00:13:37Tony has no idea whether Tony Delivers will make it,
00:13:40or what will happen to food delivery more broadly.
00:13:43He just knows that something needs to change.
00:13:45Like, what they tried to do is they tried to put food on a conveyor belt
00:13:49and deliver it like an Amazon package.
00:13:51And it's not going to work.
00:13:53They're winning right now.
00:13:54But at the end of the day, it's not going to work.
00:13:56It's too expensive.
00:13:57They're like waiting for things to be solved.
00:14:00And they're hoping, they're hoping that somebody down the line is like,
00:14:04intelligence is going to hit that S-curve.
00:14:06They're going to be able to plug in the robots and they're going to,
00:14:08they're going to be able to do it.
00:14:09And I'm here to tell you, it's not going to work.
00:14:12As cagey as Tony is about his own future,
00:14:15he will say that he's been fielding calls from all over the country.
00:14:18People who have heard his story and want to do what he does.
00:14:21So it's like, all right, well, how can I then be the energizer bunny
00:14:25for some things that we do like and that we do think about?
00:14:28And maybe that I can kind of more positively impact in a different sense.
00:14:33Just giving people the right direction, energizing their buddy,
00:14:37you know, so to speak, giving them the battery to kind of the right mindset.
00:14:42So what does this all reveal about the gig economy?
00:14:45Well, Tony has clearly tapped into something.
00:14:48And in spite of his grander pronouncements,
00:14:51what he's saying is pretty straightforward.
00:14:54I think that what it represents, I think personally,
00:14:57is like this idea that we don't need the apps.
00:15:03We're so used to apps mediating all of our activities that at this point,
00:15:08what if not apps, actually feels revelatory.
00:15:11But it's telling that Tony's customers are more than happy to ditch Uber Eats
00:15:16and DoorDash at the drop of a hat or the drop of a new fee.
00:15:20And if big tech companies really do double down on automation and robots,
00:15:25more people might actively seek out more humanity, more idiosyncrasy, more Tony.
00:15:33Tony himself wants to experiment and meet people and hopefully pay the bills.
00:15:38And if he accidentally starts a revolution along the way, all the better.
00:15:43It would be nice to be known as the guy that was trying to connect us back together.
00:15:47That'd be kind of cool.
00:15:48But not in like the sense of like, this was the guy.
00:15:50It was just more like, oh, like this, Tony Iles mentioned this,
00:15:54and we thought it was like a good idea and it worked.
00:15:56And then like, eventually, like we reconnected.
00:16:09Thanks again, Will.
00:16:10We got to take a quick break and we'll be right back to talk about cars.
00:16:21All right, we're back.
00:16:22So a couple of weeks ago, the EV maker Rivian launched some new cars.
00:16:26I'm so excited to have all of you here.
00:16:28Let me introduce you to R2.
00:16:30The cars look great, actually.
00:16:32And people got particularly excited about the R3.
00:16:35About R2's sibling, which we call R3.
00:16:39Which is a little crossover style EV coming someday.
00:16:44But I couldn't stop thinking during this event, like who even is Rivian?
00:16:49Over the last few years, this company has been set up as one of the most
00:16:52exciting companies in the car industry and a real genuine Tesla rival.
00:16:57But from everything I hear and read, it is very much still a startup.
00:17:01It doesn't make that many cars.
00:17:02It's bleeding money and it's not lighting up the sales charts.
00:17:06So what gives here?
00:17:08Is Rivian really the golden child we sometimes make it out to be?
00:17:12I asked The Verge's Andy Hawkins to come on and help us understand where Rivian came from,
00:17:17why it's so well liked, and whether it really has a shot to win.
00:17:20Like Tesla level win.
00:17:22Andy Hawkins, welcome back to The Verge, Cass.
00:17:24Hey, how's it going?
00:17:25I'm confused.
00:17:27Where did this company come from and how did it become kind of
00:17:30the one that we talked to next to Tesla?
00:17:32So I think the most interesting thing about Rivian was that it was a secret for a very long time.
00:17:38The company was actually, I think, founded in 2008,
00:17:42but it didn't come out of stealth, as they say, until around 2017, 2018.
00:17:49That's a long time.
00:17:50Yeah, which is, I think, a much longer time to be sort of secretive than I think
00:17:54your average company that's in stealth mode.
00:17:57So that was kind of interesting right out of the gate.
00:17:59And then secondly, they had a very compelling proposition right away,
00:18:02which was that we're going to make electric vehicles, only electric vehicles.
00:18:06They're going to be adventure themed.
00:18:08They're going to be for off-roading, for camping, for exploring nature.
00:18:12And it's going to have a very distinctive design language.
00:18:17And so if you look at sort of the first couple of products that the company
00:18:20introduced several years ago, the R1T truck and the R1S SUV,
00:18:25they're both very similar looking to each other.
00:18:27And they have this kind of design that is very friendly.
00:18:30It has kind of a cute face with big oval headlights that kind of look like eyes
00:18:35with a light bar that kind of runs across the middle of the grill.
00:18:39It just has like kind of a very friendly, approachable design to it.
00:18:44And also, I think the products themselves were very clearly meant to slot into those
00:18:50segments in the auto industry today that are the most popular,
00:18:52pickup trucks and large three row SUVs.
00:18:56So I think a lot of people saw this company as a very serious contender,
00:19:00that they weren't some sort of vanity play.
00:19:03They were going to try to actually
00:19:05compete with some of the legacy automakers as well as Tesla.
00:19:08And I think a lot of people were very compelled by the image,
00:19:12by the optimism and the friendliness that the company was trying to put out there.
00:19:15And so I think that those are the couple of reasons why a lot of people are very
00:19:18interested in Rivian and you hear a lot of people talking about them today.
00:19:21Okay. So part of why I've always thought this company was odd is that
00:19:25some of what you just described is kind of the playbook in this space, right?
00:19:29This is what a bunch of these companies have tried to do is
00:19:32go for the kind of most obvious segments of this thing,
00:19:36but also to kind of like sell you this beautiful vision of a better electric future of cars,
00:19:40which I think all of these companies have sort of spent a decade doing is like making grand
00:19:44promises about how everything's going to be electrified.
00:19:47So you might as well go along for the ride.
00:19:48But I feel like from the jump when Rivian came out,
00:19:52we put Rivian up in the kind of stratosphere of like one of
00:19:56the serious players in a way that I feel like we don't talk about Polestar that way.
00:20:00We don't talk about Lucid that way. We don't talk about
00:20:02kind of this other handful of companies that are actually, you know,
00:20:05out there producing cars in some volume.
00:20:08But Rivian from the beginning was like held up next to Tesla as kind of one of the great
00:20:13promises of the electric car. Why?
00:20:17You know, I don't know if that's true exactly.
00:20:19Okay.
00:20:20If I could just push back a little bit, please.
00:20:23I do think that they were, they generated a lot of excitement and a lot of people were
00:20:27very interested in them. And I think that the company's founder and CEO, RJ Scringe,
00:20:33presents sort of like a very interesting figure in contrast to Elon Musk.
00:20:37He was a lot more polished, not so prone to any racist rants on social media platforms or what
00:20:44have you. And just seemed like, you know, sort of like a very trustworthy, serious business guy
00:20:50who had like a definite vision for the company, which is not to say that the company, I think,
00:20:54was immediately elevated to the same status as Tesla.
00:20:58Because I think the fact remains, you know, they're a low volume company. They only sell
00:21:04several tens of thousands of vehicles every year as compared to Tesla, which sells over a million
00:21:09cars every year, or even the legacy automakers, which sell millions upon millions of cars.
00:21:13And so, you know, I think there was a lot of excitement. And I think through that haze of
00:21:18excitement, I think that people could make the assumption that this was like a company that was
00:21:23on par at the same level as the rest of the industry, or even some of the upstarts like Tesla.
00:21:30But I think that the reality of the situation was they only make a few vehicles every year.
00:21:34They only had two models that were available to consumers, plus an electric delivery van,
00:21:38which was only available to Amazon exclusively for a while, but is now
00:21:42supposedly going to be sold to some other companies as well.
00:21:45That was a big deal, right? Amazon made a lot of noise about buying a lot of trucks from Rivian.
00:21:49That was going to be a big thing.
00:21:50It was a huge deal. And I think that that was one of the things. Amazon's backing,
00:21:55their investment in the company, their commitment to buying 100,000 electric delivery vans from
00:22:00Rivian, plus an investment from Ford as well, gave a lot of people the impression that this
00:22:05was going to be the next big electric car company, when in reality, they were going to
00:22:09confront a lot of the same challenges as Tesla, and even as the legacy automakers are really
00:22:15confronting at the moment too. And if anything, it was going to be a lot tougher for Rivian,
00:22:20because as a new player, as what they call pure play EV, a company that only makes electric
00:22:26vehicles and not any hybrids or internal combustion vehicles, so they have no other
00:22:31revenue to fall back on if the market dips, which it is now, and I assume we're going to
00:22:35talk about, they're going to take it square in the chin. And I think that that's playing out.
00:22:39There's a lot of excitement still about the company. There's a lot of promise,
00:22:42but a lot of questions in the future is a little cloudy, I would say.
00:22:46Okay. Yeah, I am curious how the message from Rivian has changed over the years,
00:22:51because like you're talking about, I think if you rewind to even 2017, there was this sense that
00:22:56we're going to have EVs, they're going to be everywhere, and they're going to be everywhere
00:23:00soon. And everybody was talking about self-driving was going to be the thing,
00:23:03we were going to have like the Uber fleets of self-driving cars. And by now, the whole world
00:23:09was going to be different. And obviously, that is extremely not what happened.
00:23:12Yeah, I'm getting PTSD just from saying all of this.
00:23:16Do you remember when 2020 was going to be the year of the fleet of Uber robot taxis? Like that
00:23:21was the year they all gave us. It's insane in retrospect. But I think if I'm Rivian,
00:23:27you've sort of built up this story over time about what you're doing and why it's important.
00:23:31But I know we recently talked to RJ, the CEO after the most recent launch,
00:23:36which I want to talk about, there's a sense that they're just trying to still sort of beat that
00:23:39same drum that they're like, this is coming, it's going to work, everything's going to be fine.
00:23:43And I feel like we haven't done that yet. So like, should we keep believing this guy
00:23:48that this is going to come true? Great question. Answer? I don't know.
00:23:53So two things. I think that obviously, electric vehicles are not poised to take over
00:24:00all personal transportation in the next week or so.
00:24:03But by 2020, they will.
00:24:06I still have hopes for 2020. No, but it's not coming quite as quickly as we thought it was,
00:24:11which is not to say that it won't come eventually. And I think a lot of the serious people that are
00:24:17operating this business, a lot of the automakers, the people whose jobs it is, who get paid lots of
00:24:22money to make these types of predictions, are saying that electric vehicles are still the
00:24:26future, despite a slowdown in sales growth and a lot of investment pullback from some of the
00:24:32major companies. Factories are getting stalled. Even Rivian is putting a pause on its plan to
00:24:37build a $5 billion factory in Georgia as sort of a reflection of this kind of the reality that we're
00:24:43facing today. And that's because of a lot of different reasons. I think first and foremost,
00:24:47the industry kind of put all its eggs in one basket and rushed maybe a little bit too quickly
00:24:52towards this goal, not realizing that both the charging infrastructure was not going to keep
00:24:57a pace with their own desires to sell electric vehicles, but also that consumers were not going
00:25:02to be as eager to make the switch as they thought they would be. And that's because of a lot of
00:25:06reasons. The charging is not that great. The prices are still really too high for a lot of
00:25:12people. Politics have kind of reared their ugly head and have complicated a lot of this for some
00:25:17folks. So it's just looking a lot messier and it's maybe going to take a little bit longer
00:25:22than people thought it was. But that's not to say that eventually the majority of cars that are sold
00:25:28in this country and other countries will be electric. We're already seeing it in some
00:25:32countries in the world. China has been making a lot of progress in pushing up the volume of EVs.
00:25:39Europe is, I think, a little bit further behind, but they're making a lot of progress as well.
00:25:44Norway is this country where you would think, because of how cold it is, that nobody wants to
00:25:48buy EVs because EVs don't run well in the cold. But yet, I think over half of the vehicles sold
00:25:54in that country are electric. Tesla does very well there. Good for Norway. That's right.
00:26:00They're showing us the way, the Norway. Seriously.
00:26:03So I think it's just going to take a little bit longer. Customers are showing a lot of
00:26:06preferences for hybrids, for example. They want to be eased in to this hot bath that's being
00:26:11drawn for them by the auto industry. They don't want to just jump right in. That's a terrible
00:26:15image. You can feel free to edit that out. I don't know why I said that.
00:26:17It's good. It's a little gross in the way that all of these should be, I think. That feels right.
00:26:21So anyway, amidst all of this, you have Rivian, a small company with a lot of buzz,
00:26:27trying to do its best. And it's struggling. I mentioned the factory. They're losing a lot of
00:26:32money. Their cash pile is dwindling. So they're going to have to make what's called a volume play.
00:26:36They need to say, okay, we need to start selling a lot of cars. The cars that they have right now,
00:26:40the truck and the SUV, are very expensive. They're over $70,000, $75,000. You can get up
00:26:46to $80,000 with options. That's just too expensive for most people to afford. So they need to make a
00:26:51play for that middle segment, which is why we got the R2 reveal, a $45,000 midsize SUV that can go
00:27:00over 300 miles on a single charge and accelerate from zero to 60 in under three seconds, allegedly.
00:27:06So I think that that's why the R2 is a very important car for Rivian. It's their play at
00:27:11the mass market. They're saying, we need to start selling more cars to more people,
00:27:15and here's the product that's going to be the one to do it.
00:27:18Yeah, the R2 strikes me as maybe more than just an important car for Rivian,
00:27:22an important car for this whole industry right now. Because correct me if I'm wrong,
00:27:27but there's really not a ton out there in this price range and this specific level of coolness.
00:27:36We were talking before we started recording about Hyundai and Kia, and I actually think what those
00:27:39companies are doing in this space is really interesting. But I also think fundamentally,
00:27:43the people who want a car like this are maybe more likely than most to be looking at these
00:27:49cool new brands. I notice Rivians on the road. The amount of Rivians that I'm aware of relative
00:27:56to the amount of Rivians that exist is so much higher than any other car on the road right now.
00:28:00Do you know what I mean? It's very distinctive. It draws attention to itself, for sure.
00:28:05Right. And I think that's really powerful and important. And if you can do that with a car that
00:28:09many people can actually afford, that seems like a potentially huge deal. But then there are two
00:28:14questions where, one, is this actually something lots of those people want? And then, two,
00:28:18can Rivian actually get around to making enough of them to make a difference? And I do feel like
00:28:22those are both still pretty open questions, right? Absolutely. The fact that the car is
00:28:27not going to go into production until early 2026, I think, is also going to be an issue.
00:28:33That might as well be 2,000 years from now. We might have self-driving by then. Who knows?
00:28:37Exactly. So whether or not the R2 is still generating excitement then is, I think,
00:28:42very much an open question. But that's not to say that people were very excited,
00:28:47at least the people in my very narrow view of social media. Very excited about this car.
00:28:52Lots of people that were tripping over themselves to praise it. They loved how it looked.
00:28:57They liked the specs. They liked the price. But like I said, it's going to be up to the
00:29:02consumers as to whether or not it actually turns out to be a popular one and whether or not Rivian
00:29:06can survive long enough to actually put it into production, which is going to be a huge challenge
00:29:11for the company. Yeah. What's been the read on the R1T and the R1S so far? They're very cool
00:29:17when I see them. I like them. But what is the broad consensus on whether these are actually
00:29:22good cars? Yeah. No, people really love them. They have a very dedicated fan base. It's very
00:29:27different than the Tesla fan base. It's very interesting. If you go onto Reddit and some of
00:29:32the message boards and listen to what people talk about, they talk about the cars a lot differently.
00:29:38There's obviously less focus on RJ Scrooge, the CEO, as some sort of lord and savior,
00:29:43which contrasts very much with what Tesla does. Which I'm assuming RJ is pretty happy with.
00:29:48I'm sure he is. I'm sure he is. But yeah, these are well-loved cars. The people who own them
00:29:52love them. I think the software experience leaves a little bit lacking, but that's typical
00:29:57across the industry right now. The car industry as a whole is kind of fumbling the ball when it
00:30:02comes to software. The cars do not have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, which is not a very
00:30:06popular decision. And a lot of the owners would love to see phone projection brought into their
00:30:12cars. But that said, the cars themselves are very delightful, but they're expensive, as I mentioned
00:30:16before. And so the segment of the population that actually owns these vehicles is still very small.
00:30:22You notice them. They're very noticeable. But still, your eyes glaze over the Toyota Highlanders
00:30:27and the RAV4s and the Honda Pilots because there are just so many of them. Whereas the Rivian
00:30:33stand out, which I think is a good selling point, but I think it kind of obscures how actually small
00:30:39the population of people who own these vehicles actually is. Oh, for sure. I'm pretty sure there's
00:30:43just one in my neighborhood, but I just notice it every single time I see it. So I'm like,
00:30:47God, there's a lot of Rivians out there. It does seem like, to your point about Tesla,
00:30:51there's a thing that Rivian did kind of accidentally really well, it seems like,
00:30:56which is it grew right as Tesla, I think, was peaking in people's minds as like a
00:31:03cool company that was going to save the world and be good for it. And every time I hear RJ talk,
00:31:07you get the sense that he is trying to still be optimistic and happy and tell you about a better
00:31:13world in increasing distance from what people perceive about Elon Musk in particular, right?
00:31:19And Tesla, for better and for worse, has always been super attached to Elon Musk. So it feels like
00:31:25if I'm Rivian, or frankly, any of these other companies, like all the people who believe in
00:31:30the mission, but are falling out of love with Elon Musk for one reason or another,
00:31:34are looking for somewhere to go and care about and put their money in and put their fandom in.
00:31:39Those people are gettable. Those people are all gettable.
00:31:41Do you think they are? The other thing that I wondered is like, are we just
00:31:44going to get past that? And these are just going to go back to being cars?
00:31:48Well, yeah. I mean, something interesting that RJ said in our interview with Abigail Bassett,
00:31:53the writer who interviewed him for us, was that he was very impressed with what Tesla has been
00:31:59able to do, but that new cars that are electric sold each year has just reached about 8% to 9%.
00:32:05And what he was interested in, it was going after that 90% that are still not buying
00:32:11electric vehicles. I mean, that's the obvious line that he's going to deliver, of course,
00:32:15which helps sort of sell the prospect of the R2 as this mass market volume play
00:32:20that they are hoping it will be. But yeah, I think that he needs a Model 3,
00:32:26and Rivian is looking for a Tesla Model 3 moment, I think, with the R2 here.
00:32:30Because Tesla, for a long time, there was no guarantee that that company was going to succeed.
00:32:35In fact, they very nearly failed many times, especially during the Model 3 ramp up.
00:32:39Yeah. Tesla was just as precarious as Rivian is now.
00:32:43If not more so, absolutely. And it was only because of the car's popularity and the company's
00:32:50ability to get it out in the numbers that it did, which started slow and then eventually
00:32:56ramped up to a pretty steady clip that people were starting to actually get their vehicles,
00:33:00most likely at the expense of Tesla's employees, who have numerous of them have sued the company
00:33:05for many, many problems that they've had. But yeah, that prospect, I think, is still
00:33:11up there on top of the hill. And I think Rivian sees it up there, and it needs to get up to that
00:33:15moment where they're starting to produce cars at a steady clip and people are loving them and
00:33:20buying them, which is, I think, given the current situation around EV sales and the sales growth
00:33:28slowdown is why things are as complicated for the company. So yeah, I think he wants to get to that
00:33:35Tesla moment. What's most interesting to me about the image that he's projecting and how RJ talks
00:33:40about the company, especially just in the words that he uses during these events, is they may
00:33:44aspire to be like Tesla, but I think they would rather be more like Apple. The way that they talk
00:33:50and the way that they present their products and the way that people talk about their products
00:33:54feels more like Apple than Tesla, which is optimism and the design is very friendly.
00:34:00And RJ is out there literally talking about one more thing in revealing the R3 and the R3X,
00:34:07which is the classic Steve Jobs line. Although Elon stole it as well, I think a couple of times,
00:34:11but that's all Apple. So there's been lots of talk. Should Apple buy Rivian? Apple's own car
00:34:17project ended. I was going to say, being Apple in cars might not be the thing to shoot for here.
00:34:23Right. So I think a lot of people see a possible synergistic moment here, like,
00:34:27oh, you need a car, Apple? Here's a struggling car company that would slot perfectly in with
00:34:32your line of products. I don't know if RJ or Tim Cook are talking or whether or not that would be
00:34:38appealing to them at all, but that certainly doesn't stop the talk that's out there.
00:34:43Yeah. It's an interesting way of thinking about it. And it does make me wonder if
00:34:46somewhere RJ is sitting around being like, do I need a little more of a God complex if I'm
00:34:50going to make any of this work? You get the sense that too much God complex, bad,
00:34:55but maybe you need a little bit. If you don't believe it, how is anybody else going to?
00:34:59Right. Exactly. Just a little bit of confidence. That's all it takes.
00:35:02So that's what I tell you all the time, just a little bit of God complex and everything will be
00:35:06fine. But so I think this moment is so interesting to me for exactly the reason you're describing,
00:35:10right? There's the R2. And I think I also want to know what you think about the R3 because it was
00:35:16the, it was the one more thing, the sneaky little thing that kind of got everybody really excited.
00:35:21Like my favorite thing about the R3 reveal was everybody posting pictures of SUVs from the
00:35:27nineties that look exactly like the R3, but then everybody being like, yeah, I don't care. I still
00:35:30want it. And like, there is something about this space that people still like feel real feelings
00:35:36about, even though they're becoming these sort of increasingly mainstream family cars.
00:35:41Like, well, yeah. And especially because if you look at some of the design that's out there today
00:35:45and just the vast majority of cars that people buy, it's, it's, there's very little that
00:35:49distinguishes one car from the next. They've all, I think it's like the industry has all just sort
00:35:54of settled on this kind of shape of a car, this kind of SUV crossover shape that is the most
00:36:00popular amongst all the cars. And it kind of has scrubbed out a lot of the, the things that made
00:36:06like cars unique and interesting to people. There's just very little to differentiate
00:36:11one brand from the other. I mean, you like, yes, you can probably notice, you know, a BMW grill
00:36:17is different from a Ford, from a, you know, and the shape of a, of a Mercedes is a little bit
00:36:21different than maybe, you know, an Audi. But in the end of it, I think if you sort of did like a
00:36:26blind taste test with like a bunch of people, I think that they would have some difficulty
00:36:30distinguishing one car from the next, which is, I think a lot of why you see some excitement around
00:36:35Rivian, because there is something that's distinctive about it. There is something
00:36:38that's kind of, especially with the R3, that's very retro futuristic, right? It has like this
00:36:43kind of a hatchback shape that is very reminiscent of like, you know, seventies era VW Golfs, or
00:36:50I saw some people talking about the Lada Niva, which I was not overly familiar with. I'm not
00:36:55like a huge car guy, so I don't really go too deep into like the lore, but like the Lada Niva,
00:37:01I was, I've been like reading lots of articles because I'm fascinated now by this like little
00:37:06legendary Russian off-road hatchback that is like fascinating. And it does look a lot like,
00:37:11like the R3X especially, but you, you know, so I think that that was appealing to people,
00:37:16especially if you just sort of look at all of our products, our phones look the same,
00:37:19our cars look the same, our laptops all generally look the same, our TVs all look the same.
00:37:24So you just want something that's out there that gives you a sense that like, you know,
00:37:28I'm attaching myself, I'm making this consumer choice that gives me a little bit of a,
00:37:32an elevate, you know, it's distinguishes me from my neighbor or somebody else.
00:37:36And I think the Rivian kind of offers that to people, which is why they get so worked up about
00:37:40it. Totally. And I'm just, I'm just looking at a picture of the R3 right now and you're right.
00:37:43And I hadn't really thought about this, that it walks that middle really well,
00:37:47where like some of the electric cars we've seen really for a decade now are all trying
00:37:52to look like they're from like a thousand years in the future. And even there's a Hyundai
00:37:56dealership just down the street from me. And literally every time like an Ioniq 5 comes by,
00:38:01it's like, Oh look, a spaceship. Like you just, you built a spaceship that now just sits in my
00:38:06neighbor's garage. Like, cool, fine. Some people want that. Lots of people want a car and it turns
00:38:11out like it's okay that it can look like a car, but also like it's five years from the future,
00:38:17not 5,000. And I think like what you're talking about with Rivian, where they're just like,
00:38:21we took a thing people are familiar with and like, and just kind of like jazzed it up a little
00:38:26bit is like maybe exactly what people want. Yeah. I think people were especially eager to see some,
00:38:32some angles brought back in to the EV design because a common critique that you'll hear is
00:38:38that all the EVs look like jelly beans. So true. Is very much what the Teslas look like. And I
00:38:44think you're now just now starting to see some pushback against that. I think you're seeing it
00:38:50from Rivian. There's another company called Scout Motors. That's going to be coming on the scene
00:38:54pretty soon. They're owned by Volkswagen. It's an old also an old like seventies, eighties era
00:39:00off-road brand that's, that's being revived and brought back and made into an all electric brand.
00:39:05And, you know, Ford has talked about, you know, maybe electrifying the Bronco. So, you know,
00:39:10I think you're going to start to see some differentiation in sort of like what these
00:39:14cars look like. And Rivian needs to get out there before everyone else, because pretty soon that
00:39:19space is going to get super crowded, especially the midsize SUV space. I think we've got our fair
00:39:25share of crossovers. We've seen them all the Mustang Mach-E and the Model Y, the Volkswagen
00:39:30ID4, the Ioniq, the Kia. And now we need to start seeing something that's a little bit roomier,
00:39:36but also just something different that looks different. That gives somebody the idea that
00:39:40like, okay, this is not just the same jelly bean that I I've become used to in the EVs.
00:39:46I will never unsee the jelly bean now. And I feel like I hate you for that. Like,
00:39:50I can't, I can't stop thinking about jelly beans that I can, I can picture them in my head now,
00:39:54but it does seem like what that puts Rivian up for is a very consequential next like three years,
00:40:02because also, like you were saying a minute ago, every other car company has been promising to do
00:40:06this kind of stuff over the next few years. So this idea that, you know, Rivian was early and
00:40:12had some good ideas and made a cool car that a lot of people like, and now it needs to figure out
00:40:17how to make lots of them. Like, I think, to me, at least one of the lessons we've really learned
00:40:21over the last couple years is just how far ahead Tesla was. Rivian strikes me as not nearly that
00:40:26far ahead, and in fact, is kind of at a moment where like, it needs the R2 to work in a pretty
00:40:32big way, or else it's gonna have a pretty big hole to dig out of, right? Am I being too pessimistic
00:40:38about its chances there? Not at all. I mean, the stat that jumped out to me the most was that,
00:40:44I think in its most recent earnings filing, the company said that it loses $47,000 for every
00:40:50vehicle that it sells. Good Lord. So to give you a sense of how unprofitable things are for Rivian
00:40:55right now, that's the price of the R2. That's basically how much they're planning on charging
00:41:00for this new vehicle, which just goes to show sort of like how crucial it's going to be for them.
00:41:05Their cash pile is dwindling. They're running out of money. This factory plant is on pause.
00:41:11They did not sell as many vehicles as they thought they were going to. I think it was around 57,000
00:41:16last year. And this year, they're saying that it's gonna stay pretty flat. They're gonna sell
00:41:22basically the same that they did last year, which is not something that investors see a lot of
00:41:26confidence in. Obviously, they want to see growth. This company, and a company that sells the same
00:41:31number of vehicles that it sold last year, is not really exhibiting growth in the way that I think a
00:41:35lot of people would like to see. Is that because Rivian can't make enough to satisfy demand,
00:41:40or is it because maybe everybody who wants the stuff that Rivian is already making has one?
00:41:46So for a while, they were supply constrained. They were not able to make as many as people
00:41:50wanted. And now they are demand constrained because not as many people can afford the
00:41:57vehicles as they would like because they are expensive. The ones that they sell now, the R1S
00:42:02and the R1T. So yeah, it's been flipped on them, and they're running into these problems. And
00:42:09it's not just Rivian. All the companies are sort of in this weird liminal space right now,
00:42:14where they need to make more vehicles. They want to sell more vehicles, but people don't want to
00:42:19buy as many as they thought they would because the prices are still too high. The used market still
00:42:24is mostly Tesla. The vast majority of the EVs that are up for sale that are used are Tesla's,
00:42:30and those are on the used Tesla. That's 21,000, 22,000. That's pretty attractive.
00:42:35And Tesla keeps cutting its own prices, which is also driving other companies to cut prices as well,
00:42:41which reduces margins and makes things more difficult in terms of trying to eke out a profit.
00:42:45But the company does say that it will be profitable in the fourth quarter
00:42:49of this year, whether that's EBITDA profitable or operationally, whether they have free cash
00:42:54flow. It's not exactly clear quite yet. But they say that by pausing this plan to build a factory,
00:43:00which was going to obviously expand their ability to make more cars, they're going to be able to get
00:43:06the R2 out the door faster because they're going to make it at their factory in Illinois, and that's
00:43:11going to be able to reach customers faster, which they say was going to increase their chances of
00:43:16kicking that revenue stream up and getting it flowing a lot faster and improving their
00:43:21financial situation. So yeah, we'll have to see. So they know they need to be in the game here.
00:43:26If they do a Tesla and promise a thing in two years that ships in five years,
00:43:31they're probably dead in the water. Yeah. And they've already confronted a lot of
00:43:35issues around wait times and software issues. You can set your clock to it in terms of these
00:43:41companies and the same problems that they're running into. You would think seeing the Tesla
00:43:46playbook, you would also see the trade-offs and the pitfalls that were along the way,
00:43:52but it's the same thing there. I mean, they had a problem with their software was
00:43:55bricking the cars for a little while. They had to push a software update.
00:43:58I do think that the R2 in particular, this is going to be their Model 3. This is the one that
00:44:04they think is going to be the high volume seller. The R3 is going to be the icing on the cake.
00:44:10That's going to be the fun little cousin to the R2, but that's going to be the real play that
00:44:15they hope is going to be the one that takes over the streets and transforms them from a small
00:44:19company to hopefully one that's successful and has a future ahead of it. Okay. Fair enough.
00:44:24Does it seem like there's any other company of Rivian's size and prestige
00:44:31that might just totally eat its lunch? Yeah. Polestar, their performance brand,
00:44:36people who like to go vroom, vroom really fast, like the Polestars, which is cool. They're cool
00:44:41cars. They're really cool. They're also kind of Apple-ish in a way. They're all white. Even
00:44:45though it's Google's Android software native, there's just something that's very Apple about
00:44:50Polestar. But Polestar seems to, to your point, have no particular interest in like,
00:44:54they're not trying to be Toyota. Yeah. No, I don't think so. They're trying to be Mercedes.
00:44:57They're trying to be Audi. That's fine. There's a lot of money to be made in that segment as well.
00:45:04What they have to be worried about is Ford and Jeep. And I mentioned Scout as well,
00:45:09but I don't think Scout really has, we don't really know what they're going to be yet.
00:45:13But I do think Jeep in particular, given sort of the similarities and the overlap in the customers
00:45:19that are interested in these cars and Rivian's vehicles, has the potential to eat Rivian's
00:45:24lunch, as you put it. So, and Jeep has said that they are coming out with all electric,
00:45:29there's going to be an all electric Wrangler, there's going to be an all electric Grand
00:45:33Cherokee. They're coming. Also, I think if Subaru got off its ass and actually made some good EVs,
00:45:39that could hurt as well, because I see some overlap in customers there. But Subaru is sort
00:45:44of in the same camp as Toyota. They're kind of dragging a little bit on the EV rollout. So Rivian
00:45:50still has a possibility here. And I do think that they could have a first mover advantage if they
00:45:55can get the R2 out in the timeframe that they said that they will. Yeah. And as we've learned,
00:45:59there's nothing like an existential threat to your company to get you to actually ship your car.
00:46:03It's very motivating. I've heard, I've not experienced it myself, but yes. And then,
00:46:08yeah, but then like the China question kind of looms over all of this, right? Like it,
00:46:12will China eventually be able to sell its cheap electric vehicles in the United States
00:46:18is a huge question. Elon Musk has said himself, that would be a devastating blow to the auto,
00:46:23to the EV industry in the United States. And BYD in particular, China's biggest automaker
00:46:29has said that they're going to start building a factory in Mexico, which is right on our doorstep.
00:46:33So the tariff situation is still very unfriendly to Chinese made EVs. Obviously the policy situation
00:46:41is very bad for them. It would be very expensive for them to try to sell,
00:46:45but it's still an open possibility. Fair enough. So it's going to be in a big couple of years.
00:46:50I feel like we've been saying for 10 years, it's going to be a big couple of years,
00:46:54but this one feels, this one feels real. Yes, it does feel, I mean, like, I think like we're
00:46:59starting to see a lot of pieces fall into play. All of the automakers are jumping on the Tesla
00:47:04charging bandwagon. They're all going to start using superchargers. They're giving out adapters
00:47:08to their customers. They're going to have the Tesla port built in natively on the vehicle
00:47:12themselves. The R2, for example, is going to be the first Rivian vehicle to have the Tesla and
00:47:17NACS charging port in the vehicle. So those vehicles will be able to charge at Tesla
00:47:21supercharger stations. That's going to be huge as we start to see that get adopted widespread.
00:47:27And then you've got the incentive that are available. The federal EV tax credit can now be
00:47:33taken at the dealership. You go into a dealership, you're like, I want to buy an electric vehicle.
00:47:37Does it meet these criteria? Do I meet the criteria? If so, yes, great. You get a $7,500
00:47:42discount right at the at the point of sale. That's going to be huge, big incentive, I think,
00:47:47for a lot of people to buy electric cars. And I think more of these mass market cars,
00:47:51more of these volume players like the R2, I think the Chevy Blazer went through a bit of
00:47:55a software issue, but now is back and available for sale, as well as the Chevy Equinox EV is going
00:48:00to be coming out. These are common, normal, everyday vehicles that most people can afford.
00:48:06And if they are sold at a price point that car buyers think is right for them,
00:48:10I think you're going to really start to see things shoot up in terms of sales growth.
00:48:14Fair enough. So yeah, we're going to get a real answer on Rivian here one way or another pretty
00:48:18quickly, whether this company is like a neat brand that has sold a good story about itself
00:48:22or is a real power player. And it makes me feel better to know that that's coming because I've
00:48:26come into this being like, do we know anything about whether Rivian is actually going to work?
00:48:30And I feel like the answer is we don't, but we're about to.
00:48:33Yeah. And I think that, you know, they have a lot of smart people that work for them. And
00:48:37it seems like they have a lot of interesting partnerships, but yeah, there's a lot that's
00:48:40still up in the air. I think that it'll be a really interesting year for them and for the
00:48:45rest of the industry. Totally. I do love the headlights. I am normally a gigantic antagonist
00:48:51to all weird ideas about headlights because they're just all the worst and the Mustang thing
00:48:57where the turn signal goes awful. I hate it all. Rivian did a good job. So for that reason alone,
00:49:03I hope it works. The oval speaks to your, your need for rounded, you know, symmetry.
00:49:09It just feels right. It just feels right. It just, it just feels, it just feels nice. It's
00:49:12like it's smiling at me. Happy little face smiling at you. All right, Andy,
00:49:16thank you as always. Appreciate it. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks, David.
00:49:18All right, we got to take one more break and then we'll be back with the Vergecast hotline.
00:49:34We're back. Let's get to the hotline. As always, the number is 866-VERGE-11. The email is
00:49:39vergecast at theverge.com. We love all your questions and we try to answer at least one
00:49:44on the show every week. Before we get into this one, first of all, thank you to everybody who
00:49:48called and emailed about TikTok. You had awesome feedback. It was great to hear from you. I promise
00:49:53Nealey, Alex and I are also friends. We're going to get to a bunch of your feedback on Friday. I
00:49:57think I want to give all that stuff a few more days to play out just because there's a lot
00:50:01happening really fast. And one of the things we talked about last week was the huge lack of
00:50:06information that we have. And we're starting to get more information. So we're going to get to
00:50:09all of that on Friday. So stay tuned for now. We have a question from Terry. Hi, this is Terry in
00:50:16Philadelphia. And I'm preparing for a professional exam. And every time I do, I become obsessed
00:50:22about a particular piece of technology, thinking that if I buy one more gadget, that will make the
00:50:26stress of this thing that will define the arc of my life, or at least what my salary raises this
00:50:31year, just kind of go away. That current obsession are folding phones. I am a massive man with hands
00:50:39that can just hold an entire country ham. So it feels like a folding phone would be perfect
00:50:45for the fact that I seemingly have the hands of a steelworker despite being an actuary.
00:50:51And one of the things that gets me is whenever I read a review, and one of the dings is expense,
00:50:58is how to interpret the fact that I'm now like a year out from the Fold 5 and the Pixel Fold,
00:51:04and I can get them all used for like $800 off. Do I just effectively add one point to the Verge
00:51:12review score? How do you factor in the fact that stuff gets cheaper when you're interpreting
00:51:18the review on a review site? Any insight would be great. Love the show. Stay classy.
00:51:25All right. This is one of my favorite and one of the most relatable questions we've
00:51:29gotten on the Verge cast in a long time. Alison Johnson's here to help me answer it. Hi, Alison.
00:51:33Hello.
00:51:34Do we love Terry? I feel like we love Terry. I feel like the thing where I'm like,
00:51:37I have a big project to do, let me buy a gadget that will solve all of my problems is extremely,
00:51:42extremely relatable.
00:51:43I feel seen. Yeah. Like this planner is going to do everything for me.
00:51:50I have brought you here because I think there are two questions inside of this question,
00:51:54both of which I want to talk about. One is for our massive man friend,
00:51:59Terry with huge country ham hands, is a foldable phone the right call? That's question number one.
00:52:04And then question number two, which I want to get to is how do you think about price
00:52:08in a review like that? And how should we think about price of these things over time as they
00:52:13inevitably come down? But let's just start with the beginning thing. The foldable phone question
00:52:18is a foldable phone going to solve all of Terry's problems forever for the rest of his life?
00:52:23Yes, Terry, I have great news. All you need to do is spend upwards of $800 on a gadget.
00:52:30No, I think there's something there. I think that's fair to, to think that you have a phone
00:52:37that's like normal size. And when you want to do something kind of fiddly,
00:52:40or you just want more screen space, open it up and you have like almost a tablet.
00:52:46So I think that's real. I think Terry is, is on the right track.
00:52:50I'm curious what your experience has been with foldable phones in terms of like,
00:52:55the productivity they enable, because for me, I've used most of my foldable experiences with
00:53:00the pixel fold at this point. And what I have found is that as a thing for just more screen
00:53:06real estate, whether it's like I have a PDF that isn't, you know, scaling well to my phone or
00:53:11whatever, or a thing I want to actually mark up with a pen, foldable phones, awesome. The thing
00:53:16that has not worked for me that I have found very frustrating is I hoped that typing would be better
00:53:22on a foldable phone, because you can do the split keyboard thing and sort of type with two thumbs on
00:53:25a bigger screen, it would be better. I have not found that to be the case at all. But I'm curious
00:53:30what you what your experience has been like, what do you get from the bigger screen that way?
00:53:34Yeah, I for me, it is the productivity stuff. And like the, the scenario I keep coming back to is
00:53:41like, I just hate tabbing around between apps. And you just always end up doing it. I'm like
00:53:46planning dinner with friends, and you're in the little chat app, you gotta switch to Google Maps,
00:53:51you gotta look at a PDF of the restaurants menu, the foldable phones, let you put two things on
00:53:58the screen at once and like hold two thoughts in your head at one time. I so appreciate them for
00:54:03that. I'm will occasionally indulge in like, a game that's like fun on a bigger screen. But for
00:54:11me, it's definitely the like, oh, I can just like, breathe and like put all these things out or like
00:54:17I have Spotify in a little window and do a lingo. It's just like, a little bit more of a computer
00:54:24experience than a phone experience. I agree typing is weird. It feels strange.
00:54:30Yeah, I keep thinking I'm gonna get used to it. But I haven't. But you're totally right.
00:54:33The two apps side by side thing, especially for something like research and note taking is really
00:54:38useful just for me being able to have like the browser on one side and Google Doc or my notes
00:54:44app or whatever on the other is amazing. And I never noticed how annoying it is to constantly
00:54:49switch between apps on my iPhone as I have after using the pixel fold a bunch. So I'm with you. So
00:54:55okay, Terry, you should buy it. It's gonna be amazing. Let's talk about prices. Because I think
00:55:00you were on this show when all this stuff first came out. And I think we more or less agree $1,800
00:55:06is a ludicrous amount of money to pay for a phone. Like if you want to and you have the money,
00:55:10go with God, right? But $1,800 is a tremendous amount of money. But these things are now a year
00:55:17or in the galaxy folds case, sometimes a couple of years old, the prices are coming way down.
00:55:22Does that make you think differently about them?
00:55:25This is the question I asked myself every day. Just even when you consider when one of these
00:55:30phones comes out, especially Samsung will, they'll throw a new phone at you if you trade something in
00:55:38or if you sign up on your carriers, you promise to pay them 1000s of dollars over the next three
00:55:44years, they'll throw a phone at you. So what does a phone really cost is a question. I think there
00:55:50is kind of a calculus as you know, when you get to like a year out, the prices will kind of come
00:55:56down sometimes I think foldables have been a little more stubborn. But the thing to kind of
00:56:02balance that with is always like, what do we think is coming out next? Is it's going to be a big year
00:56:09like a big leap forward this year, I would argue that the galaxy Z fold four to five, like, not
00:56:18much change there. And if you if you were looking at a at a Z fold four and skip the five, that
00:56:25probably would have been a good call that I think there's some interesting things coming up this
00:56:30year where the the pixel fold looks like it might get a little thinner and kind of a less like
00:56:38rectangular shape where it's it's like real kind of squat and wide, sort of maybe something like
00:56:45the one plus open, which I think has the best format of like, when it's closed and when it's
00:56:52open. So all that's to say, I don't know, I don't know how you think about the price, you do want
00:56:57to factor in like, the years of security updates in the OS updates that your promise like you if
00:57:04you're buying a model that's a year out of date, you have to minus one year on all those things.
00:57:10Those are, you know, I keep that in mind. But I would kind of keep an ear to the ground on like,
00:57:15what's coming up and then see what the deals are now. And just don't forget that when the new phone
00:57:21comes out, you can usually do pretty well. Yeah, it's it's a tricky one. Because I think my go to
00:57:27advice on all technology for a long time has been by the most expensive, best newest thing you can
00:57:35afford, and then keep it as long as humanly possible. And that that advice, I mostly stand
00:57:39by except that I obviously recognize that many people can't, for whatever reason, afford the
00:57:44best and biggest and newest thing, right. And I think particularly with foldable phones, that's
00:57:48really complicated, because there isn't like you're saying that sort of graceful scaling that happens
00:57:53where like, if you want to buy an iPhone 13, in this the year 2024, I think that's a perfectly
00:57:59valid thing to do. It's not what I would do because of my aforementioned belief in buying
00:58:03the new thing and keeping it forever. But the iPhone for 13 is a really good phone.
00:58:07There is no version of that three years ago in foldable phones, and they're getting better so
00:58:12much faster. And they're so not yet mature that, and like, as soon as you brought up the pixel
00:58:16fold, I'm like, I just think about how much better like the pixel watch got from one to two, like the
00:58:21fold. Google has a long history of making like kind of new first things and then pretty good
00:58:26second things. And so even at $1,000, like, are you going to buy that phone? And then in six months
00:58:33be like, I should have just bought the $1,800 one because it's dramatically better. Or should you
00:58:38have waited six more months after that. But then at that point, you're waiting for the folder. It's
00:58:42like, it's just a forever. It's like a hamster wheel. Yeah, it really is. But I'm curious for
00:58:48you as a reviewer, like this is something I've struggled with over the years in reviewing
00:58:51products is how much to think about what they cost. And I think sometimes it's really obvious,
00:58:56right? Like we, I made a big show of yelling $3,500 a lot when we talked about the Vision Pro.
00:59:03But in terms of like, as you're reviewing a phone, a foldable phone, or even just,
00:59:07you know, the most other kind of $1,000 ish phones, do you spend a lot of time thinking about
00:59:13the price? As you're reviewing it? I do kind of trying to bear in mind like the
00:59:18the way that most people buy phones, especially in this country is looks very different that you
00:59:23know, nobody's walking into Verizon and just putting $1,000 on the table. So that kind of
00:59:29figures in. But yeah, even when that's the case, like, you have a whole lot of capital with like,
00:59:35if you're ready to switch to a new wireless carrier, you can like easily get $1,000 phone
00:59:41out of that. So like, just the just kind of keeping in mind the weight of that, that,
00:59:47you know, anybody is potentially putting down on one of these devices. And I do think of them
00:59:53as they're kind of a moment in time the review. So I, I bear in mind like the prices of the other
01:00:01things out there, and they may be discounted, they may have some special deal going. But I think
01:00:09I come back to the MSRP a lot as kind of an apples to apples, like gut check of, you know,
01:00:16this costs this amount of money for real, and this one costs this, or is that a good deal? And
01:00:23there's just a lot of like 4d chess going on and in my mind somewhere, but it all has to kind of
01:00:30come out in a way that hopefully makes sense to people.
01:00:34Yeah, I was used to try to think about like, okay, if you gave this to me as a gift, and it was free,
01:00:39would I like it? And that's kind of one version of the question. And then the other one is,
01:00:43is it worth the cost? And the problem with phones is, is they exist, literally on every single part
01:00:48of the spectrum between? Yeah, right. It's so complicated. Yes. In a way that like, I pretty
01:00:53much know what an iPad costs, right? Like, you just have no idea what your next phone is going
01:00:58to cost in the strangest way. But okay, let's let's answer a couple of quick questions here
01:01:03for Terry. And then we're gonna get out of here. Question number one is should Terry just buy an
01:01:06iPad? Oh, well, is that the better idea? I you know, there's something to that I'm sort of coming
01:01:15around to this idea of like, wouldn't it be nice to have more gadgets that are just good at doing
01:01:20the thing that you want them to do? Like we've just I know, we've spent a lot of time like
01:01:26cramming as many things as we can into a phone. And like, that's fun. But sometimes, like we were
01:01:31both looking at this, like standalone voice recorder today, which is like, what a novel idea,
01:01:37your phone can do that. But anyway, that's a long way to say, like, that's an option. And if the
01:01:43kinds of things he wants to do with it are just better on a tablet, you know, think about a
01:01:50tablet. Yeah, I've been debating this ever since I first heard Terry's question. And I think the
01:01:54thing I've come around to is the question is, do you need to have it in your pocket? Right? Because
01:01:58Terry's like, I'm a big guy of big hands. If the answer is like, I want to carry this thing around
01:02:03with me all the time, foldable phone, because like, you can tell yourself you're going to carry
01:02:07an iPad with you all the time. I have told myself that many times. It's just never true. The idea
01:02:11that I'm just going to have it with me all the time. Not true. But if you're like, I'm mostly
01:02:16at home, and I want a thing that I can like sit with for my reading and research or whatever,
01:02:20I think the iPads the better place. The other thing is, if Terry wants a foldable phone,
01:02:26which one would you recommend right now? And and the thing for Terry is Terry does care about the
01:02:32price. But But we are here to tell Terry, all things considered, here is the one we think you
01:02:36should buy. What do you think the answer is right now? Yeah, I like my general pick right now is the
01:02:43Samsung is the Galaxy Z Fold five. I think they've just kind of they kind of had a head start. And
01:02:48they've figured out a couple more things, you know, with the durability and with the software
01:02:54that I think Google and one plus those are really the only two other options in the US.
01:03:00They're still kind of figuring out. I say that with the asterisk of like,
01:03:04the Z Fold five form factor might not be Terry's favorite because when it's closed, it has that
01:03:09like long, narrow kind of remote control shape. It's not as bad as it once was. But if you're
01:03:15if you're not enjoying the experience of typing on like a normal slab smartphone,
01:03:21this is going to feel a little more cramped, like the keyboard on the front,
01:03:25the cover screen is just a little more narrow. So for that reason, I would steer him towards
01:03:30the pixel fold. And I would hold off on that one, maybe because we might get a new one pretty soon.
01:03:36So that was like three answers in one. Okay, that's fair. I will say the only part of that
01:03:42I disagree with is I do have a hard time telling someone right now to buy a pixel fold, because I
01:03:48think the odds of there being one that is dramatically better very soon. Yeah, I think
01:03:54it's pretty high. Yeah, I do think the good news is, Terry, if you can wait two months, three
01:04:00months, Google IO is in June. And historically speaking, we are virtually guaranteed to hear
01:04:05about whatever thing they're making around then sometime, even if it doesn't come out till the
01:04:11fall. So you'll at least have kind of a hint about what's coming. But I think I'm with you
01:04:14that if you want to buy a phone that is both a year old and likely to still be good for a while,
01:04:19it seems like Samsung is probably the safest choice. Yeah, even if it does feel like a TV remote.
01:04:24It does. It's gonna solve all of Terry's problems. I'm pretty sure.
01:04:29There we go. Terry, good luck on all of your endeavors with your foldable phone. I hope that
01:04:33helped. Allison, thank you, as always. Thank you. All right, that's it for the Vergecast today.
01:04:41Thank you to everyone who came on the show. And thank you as always for listening. There's lots
01:04:45more on everything we talked about on theverge.com, especially the Rivian stuff. We had a lot of really
01:04:49good coverage, including that conversation with RJ Iscariange, the CEO. We'll put some links in
01:04:53the show notes. But you know, theverge.com. It's a website. We love it. As always, if you have
01:04:57thoughts, questions, feelings, or other cars you want Rivian to make, you can always email us at
01:05:02vergecast at theverge.com. Call the hotline 866-VERGE-11. We love hearing from you. Also keep
01:05:08sending TikTok thoughts. This is all happening really fast. We really want to know what you
01:05:11think. And I suspect we're going to talk about it a whole bunch again on Friday. This show is
01:05:15produced by Andrew Marino, Liam James, and Will Poore. The Vergecast is a Verge production and
01:05:19part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Nilay, Alex, and I will be back on Friday to talk about
01:05:23presumably TikTok, some AI gadgets, and a whole bunch of other stuff. We'll see you then. Rock
01:05:28and roll.