Rivian and VW have just lately opened a partnership, regardless of the manufacturers have very related upcoming electrical journey automobiles 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.
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 car communications, has led to some fascinating questions on how the main points of the partnership would work out.
On the high of many individuals’s minds has been: isn’t it a little 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 little 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 curious about 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 at the moment forward of the LA Auto Present, it actually appeared that Rivian will probably be engaged on Scout automobiles. Scaringe mentioned that “we’re going to be supporting their full portfolio of manufacturers – Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen, Scout.”
Nevertheless, extra importantly, Scaringe mentioned that he’s “amused” by the main target that many have had on Scout, or those that think about it a possible menace to Rivian.
Scaringe estimates that there are “lower than 5” compelling EVs out there for beneath $50k available in the market at the moment – and that’s maybe being charitable. In the meantime, should you go over to the gasoline world, there are gobs of selections on the market for shoppers, and but all of them handle to coexist with out situation.
So Rivian has labored exhausting to differentiate itself from Tesla, for instance, and thinks that even when Scout is impressed by Rivian, there’s nonetheless room for related automobiles to coexist.
In spite of everything, there are various competing automobiles 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 mainly equivalent automobiles. So there was loads of historical past of corporations working collectively to come back out with related or near-identical (rebadged) vehicles.
That’s not the case right here, as Scout and Rivian will probably be very totally different by way of 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 section of the market that Rivian in any other case had a great maintain on, Rivian can nonetheless profit from the partnership regardlessl.
Rivian’s primary focus in recent times has been getting prices down. The story is that Rivian started scaling manufacturing in a particularly tough 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 out there to get on the higher aspect of these contracts.
Now, Scaringe mentioned, 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 could actually additionally tout that it has assist from some of the established auto producers on the earth, Volkswagen. If VW – the second-largest automaker on the earth – has sufficient religion in Rivian to speculate $5.8 billion, then absolutely a provider can belief that Rivian will stick round lengthy sufficient to purchase a couple of set of elements.
Not solely that, however the corporations may probably leverage their mixed measurement 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 may attempt to see if VW’s world gross sales community may assist them to promote Rivians, however Scaringe shut that down, saying there’s “no curiosity” in doing so. Rivian would relatively follow its plans of establishing its personal shops and doing direct gross sales.
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