I'm not asking them to post proprietary technology, I just want answers to my 7 questions above. Is that so difficult for a company boasting such a revolutionary product?
Well, let's look at your list:
1) Battery life cycle
2) Replacement battery cost
3) Charging adapters for home use/minimum specs
4) Charging station locations (N.America) ~ planned
5) Warranty
6) Trade in allowance
7) Shop manual for after warranty repair
1) This info is held as a trade secret by all EV makers, so Rivian clearly won't divulge any data on this, beyond what the battery pack warranty implies.
2) This subject was discussed not long ago on in the Clarity section of this forum. It was pointed out that, generally speaking, EV makers don't make replacement packs available except as a warranty replacement, and therefore don't cite a price. The consensus was that it wouldn't even make sense for most EV makers to list a price for replacement battery packs for a new model of EV. By the time a significant number of people would need an out-of-warranty replacement, it would be several years later and the price would have fallen quite a bit, and there is no way for the EV maker to predict a price years in advance. Furthermore, with battery cells in short supply, it's no surprise most EV makers don't want to sell you a replacement pack. They would much rather sell you a new car instead! The exception here is the Leaf, which experiences a lot of premature battery fading. I think Nissan is the only EV maker which, after several years, has actually started listing a price for a replacement battery pack... and that's because, unfortunately, a lot of customers need one. We will hope that Rivian doesn't have the same problem!
4) The most likely case is that Rivian will equip the R1T and R1S for CCS charging. A startup like Rivian certainly isn't going to build its own proprietary system of fast-chargers as Tesla has done. Even Tesla sold the original Roadster, and started selling the Model S, without any Superchargers available for use. Since Rivian almost certainly won't build its own fast-charging stations -- or at the very least won't do so for some years -- and won't have any control over the availability of CCS fast-chargers, then it makes no sense for them to try to give detailed info about them.
6) A trade-in allowance on your old car would be negotiated with the individual car dealer, so again there's no way that Rivian would be able to give any meaningful info on that. The most they would be able to say is either "Yes, our dealers will take trade-ins" or "No, we will be doing only direct sales, so (like Tesla) we won't accept trade-ins".
Therefore, RLXXI, of your seven questions, for at least two you are almost guaranteed to get no answer at all, and for another two you'll almost certainly get, at best, a one-sentence answer with no details at all.
