Sounds Like Obama and Solyndra.

Biden Crony Capitalism's Last Gasp Goes to Rivian
The editorial board at the Wall Street Journal writes today that it sure is good to have friends in high places, especially during a Democrat presidential administration. EV company Rivian - and major shareholders including Amazon - found that out just before Thanksgiving as the Biden Energy Department headed by Jennifer Granholm decided to gift it with a surreal capital infusion of $6 billion in the form of a “conditional” loan.

This insane waste of taxpayer dollars goes to a company on the verge of bankruptcy that has recorded losses this year of more than $107,000 per unit sold, a financial fiasco rivaling even the astounding losses recorded by Ford Motor Company’s Model e EV division.

https://blackmon.substack.com/...rue&utm_medium=email

I feel this was done on purpose to stir up shit. If the DOGE was to stop this or get involved in decreasing the funding, etc., it would be said that Elon is doing it to harm his competition, not because Rivian builds an car they lose money on.

The $6.6 billion, catch 22. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

quote:

it would be said that Elon is doing it to harm his competition

And of course, he, and the Trump administration, won't GAF.

The Amazon delivery trucks are Rivians.

I wonder how much we paid for them.

My neighbor has one and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him drive it. It just sits in his car port.

Let Vivek make the call.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
My neighbor has one and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him drive it. It just sits in his car port.

Let Vivek make the call.

lots of them in this area, overall a nice looking vehicle,

no idea of quality etc etc,



not seen any electric Amazon vehicles here, they at one time seemed to switch from Mercedes Sprinters to the more traditional UPS style truck (do know a guy that worked for them in the fleet end and said the Merc's were not holding up to the abuse the drivers were giving them, apparently they get bonuses based on the number of dents the drivers put on the vehicle)

I did see a few Amazon box trucks that were RAM/Dodge based,

It's funny in my neck of the woods. If you're north of the Missouri River where there's low crime, it's a Rivian. If you're South of the Missouri River where there's a lot more crime, it's some flavor of a Sprinter Van.

Even as a Georgia resident, although not local to this boondoggle, I think it's a giant money pit.
The state originally gave a number of concessions a few years ago before Rivian pulled the plug so this was a real surprise when announced.
Especially as Georgia has a mostly Republican controlled government.

Yes, the Senator situation is the exception, which was mostly self-inflicted by poor choices from above and hopefully will be corrected at the next opportunity. Maybe this was a bone tossed at them, who knows. One of the two Democrats was pushing this so he could claim he created some jobs.

In either case, I hope our state officials don't double down with our money in any way as this is likely to go away again.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 220-9er,

There are obviously some important issues to be resolved!

Our government spent at least $518,000 in federal grants to study how cocaine affects the sexual behavior of Japanese quail.

For more than 20 years, Northwestern University researchers received National Institutes of Health money to watch hamster fights. The project reportedly received more than $3 million over the course of the project and $306,000 in 2015 alone. Some of those experiments involved injecting hamsters with steroids, then putting another hamster in the cage to see if the drugged rodents were more aggressive when protecting their territory. Others investigated whether becoming a “trained fighter” through two weeks of face-offs made the critters more aggressive.