Benzinga - by Ramakrishnan M, Benzinga Editor.
In a social media post, Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare Inc., voiced his concerns over the steep service and insurance costs of Rivian Automotive Inc. (NASDAQ:RIVN), in the wake of his own negative experience with Rivian’s customer service.
What Happened: Prince, who owns a Rivian R1T truck, said he initially faced a cracked rear windshield issue. When he reached out to Safelite — a provider of vehicle glass repair, replacement, and calibration services and insurance claims management — for a repair quote, he was quoted $49 and a reasonable three-day wait time.
However, the situation took a turn for the worse when Safelite could not obtain the required rear windshield glass from Rivian directly, according to Prince.
“So I scheduled an appointment. Was a couple weeks before they could get me in. Inconvenient, but the holidays, so…” he said on X.
Prince said he was taken aback when Rivian quoted a repair cost of $4,232 for the windshield, which was significantly higher than Safelite’s uninsured quote of around $1,000. The Cloudflare CEO further noted that insuring his Rivian truck was more costly than insuring his high-end Porsche Taycan.
“Rivian trucks are great — as long as nothing goes wrong. When something goes wrong, they're a disaster,” he wrote.
“I really want to love Rivian. I root for them. It's a great product — as long as nothing goes wrong,” he said. “And I am fortunate that I can afford to put out $4,200 to fix a windshield and deal with the insurance myself.”
Rivian trucks are great — as long as nothing goes wrong. When something goes wrong, they're a disaster. I cracked the rear windshield on my R1T. Called Safelite and they quoted me $49 and 3 days to fix it. Cool. 1/7— Matthew Prince