Rivian and VW have just 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.
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 car communications, has led to some fascinating questions on how the small print of the partnership would work out.
On the high of many individuals’s minds has been: isn’t it somewhat 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 somewhat 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 fascinated with displaying 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 immediately 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.”
Nonetheless, extra importantly, Scaringe stated that he’s “amused” by the main focus that many have had on Scout, or those that think about it a possible risk to Rivian.
Scaringe estimates that there are “lower than 5” compelling EVs obtainable for below $50k out there immediately – and that’s maybe being charitable. In the meantime, when 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 concern.
So Rivian has labored onerous to differentiate 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 numerous competing autos in lots of classes – a few of which do certainly share underpinnings from separate corporations. Simply within the EV area, the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 share a platform, and the Subaru Solterra and Toyota bZ4X are principally equivalent autos. So there was loads of historical past of corporations 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 totally different when it comes to platform and manufacturing. However sharing software program shouldn’t be a lot of a difficulty – 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 important focus in recent times has been getting prices down. The story is that Rivian started scaling manufacturing in an especially tough time – attempting to arrange provide contracts on the historic peak of the auto trade (~2018), attempting to begin a producing program throughout a worldwide pandemic (2020/2021), and having little clout obtainable to get on the higher aspect of these contracts.
Now, Scaringe stated, 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 will probably additionally tout that it has assist from one of the crucial established auto producers on this planet, Volkswagen. If VW – the second-largest automaker on this planet – has sufficient religion in Rivian to take a position $5.8 billion, then absolutely a provider can belief that Rivian will stick round lengthy sufficient to purchase a couple of set of components.
Not solely that, however the corporations may probably leverage their mixed dimension for bigger provide contracts. Say a sure microcontroller is required for car 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 world 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 stick with its plans of organising its personal shops and doing direct gross sales.
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