Rivian and VW have lately opened a partnership, regardless of the manufacturers have very related upcoming electrical journey autos with the Rivian R2 and VW Scout. However at a roundtable dialogue with Rivian’s CEO RJ Scaringe, he stated there’s greater than sufficient room for the manufacturers to coexist with one another.
Latest 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 just a little bizarre that the Rivian-like Scout model will now primarily 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 firms have been just a little shy to verify whether or not Scout particularly would use Rivian’s software program. In any case, Scout is a little bit of a derivative from VW, and appears taken with exhibiting some independence on that entrance, so it may very well be potential that they work on their very own.
However in feedback at a roundtable which Electrek attended right this moment forward of the LA Auto Present, it actually appeared that Rivian will likely be engaged on Scout autos. Scaringe stated that “we’re going to be supporting their full portfolio of manufacturers – Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen, Scout.”
Nevertheless, extra importantly, Scaringe stated that he’s “amused” by the main target that many have had on Scout, or those that take into account it a possible risk to Rivian.
Scaringe estimates that there are “lower than 5” compelling EVs out there for below $50k out there right this moment – and that’s maybe being charitable. In the meantime, in case you go over to the gasoline world, there are gobs of decisions on the market for customers, and but all of them handle to coexist with out difficulty.
So Rivian has labored arduous to tell apart itself from Tesla, for instance, and thinks that even when Scout is impressed by Rivian, there’s nonetheless room for related autos to coexist.
In any case, there are a lot of competing autos in lots of classes – a few of which do certainly share underpinnings from separate firms. Simply within the EV area, 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 firms working collectively to come back out with related or near-identical (rebadged) automobiles.
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 an excellent maintain on, Rivian can nonetheless profit from the partnership regardlessl.
Rivian’s predominant focus lately has been getting prices down. The story is that Rivian started scaling manufacturing in a particularly tough time – making an attempt to prepare provide contracts on the historic peak of the auto business (~2018), making an attempt to begin a producing program throughout a worldwide pandemic (2020/2021), and having little clout out there to get on the higher facet of these contracts.
Now, Scaringe stated, the scenario 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 will probably additionally tout that it has help from one of the crucial established auto producers on the earth, Volkswagen. If VW – the second-largest automaker on the earth – 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 firms may doubtlessly 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 may be “no curiosity” in doing so. Rivian would quite follow its plans of organising its personal shops and doing direct gross sales.
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