Rivian and VW have not too long ago opened a partnership, regardless of the manufacturers have very comparable upcoming electrical journey autos with the Rivian R2 and VW Scout. However at a roundtable dialogue with Rivian’s CEO RJ Scaringe, he mentioned there’s greater than sufficient room for the manufacturers to coexist with one another.
Current information about Rivian and VW’s software program partnership, with VW investing over $5 billion into Rivian and forming a three way partnership to undertake Rivian’s zonal structure for the underpinnings of VW’s automobile communications, has led to some attention-grabbing questions on how the main points of the partnership would work out.
On the prime of many individuals’s minds has been: isn’t it a bit bizarre that the Rivian-like Scout model will now basically be competing with itself for the journey EV market?
The query has been answered earlier than – or maybe extra particularly non-answered – in press conferences across the official opening of the three way partnership final week.
Usually, feedback ran alongside the road of Rivian working to carry its software program experience to bear throughout VW’s manufacturers, although the 2 corporations have been a bit shy to verify whether or not Scout particularly would use Rivian’s software program. In spite of everything, Scout is a little bit of a by-product from VW, and appears excited by exhibiting some independence on that entrance, so it could possibly be potential that they work on their very own.
However in feedback at a roundtable which Electrek attended right now forward of the LA Auto Present, it actually appeared that Rivian will likely be engaged on Scout autos. Scaringe mentioned that “we’re going to be supporting their full portfolio of manufacturers – Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen, Scout.”
Nonetheless, extra importantly, Scaringe mentioned that he’s “amused” by the main focus that many have had on Scout, or those that contemplate it a possible risk to Rivian.
Scaringe estimates that there are “lower than 5” compelling EVs obtainable for beneath $50k available in the market right now – and that’s maybe being charitable. In the meantime, when you go over to the gasoline world, there are gobs of selections on the market for customers, and but all of them handle to coexist with out concern.
So Rivian has labored laborious to tell apart itself from Tesla, for instance, and thinks that even when Scout is impressed by Rivian, there’s nonetheless room for comparable autos to coexist.
In spite of everything, there are numerous competing autos in lots of classes – a few of which do certainly share underpinnings from separate corporations. Simply within the EV house, the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 share a platform, and the Subaru Solterra and Toyota bZ4X are principally an identical autos. So there was loads of historical past of corporations working collectively to return out with comparable or near-identical (rebadged) vehicles.
That’s not the case right here, as Scout and Rivian will likely be very completely different when it comes to platform and manufacturing. However sharing software program shouldn’t be a lot of a problem – and even if we assume that Scout may cannibalize a phase of the market that Rivian in any other case had maintain on, Rivian can nonetheless profit from the partnership regardlessl.
Rivian’s foremost focus lately has been getting prices down. The story is that Rivian started scaling manufacturing in a particularly troublesome time – making an attempt to arrange provide contracts on the historic peak of the auto trade (~2018), making an attempt to begin a producing program throughout a world pandemic (2020/2021), and having little clout obtainable to get on the higher facet of these contracts.
Now, Scaringe mentioned, the state of affairs is best: not solely can Rivian present that it has a dominant place in its class – promoting extra premium SUVs than different EV and even gasoline manufacturers – however it may additionally tout that it has assist from one of the crucial established auto producers on the planet, Volkswagen. If VW – the second-largest automaker on the planet – has sufficient religion in Rivian to take a position $5.8 billion, then certainly a provider can belief that Rivian will stick round lengthy sufficient to purchase multiple set of components.
Not solely that, however the corporations may probably leverage their mixed measurement for bigger provide contracts. Say a sure microcontroller is required for automobile structure throughout Rivian and in addition VW’s manufacturers, then maybe the three way partnership may acknowledge a lot bigger economies of scale.
The query additionally got here up over whether or not Rivian would possibly attempt to see if VW’s international gross sales community may assist them to promote Rivians, however Scaringe shut that down, saying there’s “no curiosity” in doing so. Rivian would reasonably stick with its plans of establishing its personal shops and doing direct gross sales.
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