R2 Launch Watch
- Thread starter R1TVT
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Honestly, I don't even know if this is really an issue.
Anybody can paint a door panel a different color grey and post it online, or use AI. That is why I'm wondering if Rivian has come forward at all about this. I honestly don't know.
Also, if this was real and it somehow missed Q/A and was an honest mistake, I'm pretty sure Rivian would alter the process for assembly and for Q/A. Lastly, when you sign a P&S, you get to do your own Q/A when you take delivery, and you can return a truck if there is a problem noted within a specified time frame. At least that was the case when I took delivery!
Rivian hasn't come out and said anything directly about this and I doubt they will to protect R2 and brand image.
All I can do is use Tesla as an example because of having worked there and seen all of these pitfalls before, it's nothing more than just growing pains really. I have seen them set up make shift paint booths in the holding lots to ensure the Model S Plaid initial deliveries were perfect and they still weren't after delivery. I've also seen them form an assembly line (again in a holding lot) and replace the windshields on 300 Model X when they did the refresh because of an issue with the front camera calibrations.
All this to say, it's not really a big deal. These are growing pains, and people should be more forgiving and understanding that if they are getting a brand new first year model of vehicle from a company that is still in its infancy, there are going to be issues. And if they are the type of person who cannot handle these types of issues then don't buy the first year model, simple as that.
Now with all this being said, Rivian can thwart these issues by having a team of post QA inspectors walk the lots and by doing this they will catch nearly all the issues, but inevitably there will still be some.
Metallics are so hard. That very well might be the identical paint sprayed as the rest of the vehicle, but if the flake flops, it'll look radically different in some lighting conditions. Maybe the spray robot just needs to be spraying from a different angle, or the door panel needs to be held more vertically to avoid such things.
I think Rivian painted all the panels on the R1's all at once after dipping the entire truck. Maybe the R2 process is entirely new. With the R1 process, this would have been next to impossible (unless a panel was damaged at the factory and replaced with the wrong panel somehow).
Yeah it happens with the legacy manufacturers on all sorts of things but this one just hits different for me because not only is it blindingly obvious, but also the fact it passed through a handful of QC checkpoints with nobody noticing.
The only explanation I have is courtesy of the Dodge Viper factory I visited twice in 1999 and 2000. At the end of the production line you'd see a couple cars that had totally mismatched panels on them, a red car with one yellow door for example. The explanation given to us by the tour guide was that should an issue pop up with a body panel during assembly, they'd stick on a random one regardless of color just to keep the line moving. Only after the car rolled off the assembly line and pulled into an area where final touches/adjustments/etc. was done would they fix the mismatch. Maybe that happened here and Rivian forgot to correct it afterwards. Still doesn't explain how it passed final QC check points at both the factory and at the delivery center but could explain how this screw up happened in the first place.
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