How Rivian Became the Anti-Tesla

Like a lot of people, Chris Hilbert has complicated feelings about his Tesla Model S. Hilbert, who is 44 and lives outside Indianapolis, loves his car’s instant torque and neck-snapping acceleration, but there are other aspects of Tesla ownership he finds less appealing. For instance, he doesn’t credit the company’s claims that his car is a few software updates away from being able to operate autonomously, and he wouldn’t particularly care about such a capability, even if it existed. “I like to drive my vehicles,” he says. He’s also put off by the rabid fandom culture that’s come to surround everything related to Tesla Inc. and its chief executive officer, Elon Musk.

Recently, when Hilbert complained on social media that his car’s “Full Self-Driving” system seemed to consistently fail to stop for school buses, he was greeted with a mixture of denial (“Fake news as usual”) and ridicule (“You suck”). “The big problem is, there’s Tesla and there’s TSLA,” Hilbert says, referring to the two species of Tesla fan. The first group cares about the cars and is basically like Hilbert. The second is mostly interested in pumping up the stock ticker and attacking anyone who isn’t doing the same. “The stockholders are the toxic bit of it,” he says.