Things Just Got Worse for EV Company on the Brink of NASDAQ 100 Delisting

An embattled electric vehicle company has just received more bad news that could damage its image even further. At the beginning of June, Yahoo Finance reported that electric vehicle startup Rivian had seen its stock…

IJR SyndicatedJun 10, 20234 min read

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This is the absolute worst thing that could have happened to Rivian, as the company had been tanking in the stock market due to similar instances that had occurred in the past.

In May 2022, local NPR outlet WGLT reported that there had been at least three fires in the previous seven months at the Rivian plant in Normal, Illinois: one in a battery that had been in a repair area, one in a vehicle that caught fire inside the plant and one in the automated battery assembly area.

Rivian already had a reputation for this, and now, this latest incident with one of its flagship products could scare away other investors, thereby sealing its fate in the stock market.

However, this is about much more than Rivian. This is a reminder of the challenges facing electric vehicle Technology in general.

The left keeps pushing electric vehicles as a climate-friendly alternative to gas-powered vehicles. While EV Technology certainly has a lot of potential and is worth exploring further, it still has a long way to go before it can be as useful as a gas engine.

Rivian is not the only company to experience these challenges, as other electric vehicles have proven time and again to be fire hazards.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in 2022, Florida Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis complained to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about problems firefighters encountered with EVs.

“I … saw with my own eyes an EV continuously ignite, and continually reignite, as fireteams doused the vehicle with tens-of-thousands of gallons of water,” he wrote.

“Subsequently, I was informed by the fire department that the vehicle, once again reignited when it was loaded onto the tow truck. Based on my conversations with area firefighters, this is not an isolated incident.

“As you can appreciate, I am very concerned that we may have a ticking time bomb on our hands.”

Electric vehicles are also proving to be unreliable in their current state. They break down much more easily, they lose energy quickly and they take a long time to charge.

Their high price tag — an average of $58,385 as of February, compared to $44,697 for a standard non-luxury vehicle, according to Kelley Blue Book — puts them out of reach for most Americans, meaning that there really is no good reason why anyone would want to buy an electric vehicle right now.

If electric vehicles can be manufactured in a way that makes them safe, reliable and affordable, then their development should be cheered as a climate-friendly technological advancement.

But for now, the electric vehicle has a long way to go before that day comes.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.