Rivian Founder & CEO RJ Scaringe on the Rivian R2, R3, R3X & Beyond!

MotorTrend

Motortrend's Ed Loh & Jonny Lieberman sit down with Rivian Founder & CEO

Transcript

00:00:00Welcome to The Inevitable, a podcast by Motor Trend.

00:00:15Hi there, and welcome to another episode of The Inevitable.

00:00:19This is the Motor Trend podcast, the Motor Trend Vodcast,

00:00:22about the future of the automobile, the future of mobility.

00:00:25But before we get to the episode,

00:00:27Ed here has got a special message for you.

00:00:30The Inevitable Vodcast is brought to you

00:00:32by the all-electric Nissan Ariya,

00:00:34inspired by the future, designed for the now.

00:00:36But let's talk about our guest, because this is a special episode.

00:00:38We went extra long with this guy, because we have been trying for over a year.

00:00:42No, over three years.

00:00:44Over three years to get...

00:00:45Since we started this dang podcast.

00:00:47...the founder and CEO of Johnny's favorite EV company.

00:00:50No, no, no, no. I wouldn't say my favorite.

00:00:52No, they make my favorite electric product.

00:00:56Okay.

00:00:57I don't care about the company.

00:00:58Founder and CEO of Rivian, R.J. Scarringe,

00:01:01joins us on the podcast today.

00:01:03It's a great interview.

00:01:05I do want to just give you guys a heads up.

00:01:07Yeah, stop listening to us.

00:01:09Yeah, maybe take a pause or, you know,

00:01:11definitely go and listen to The Verge's podcast.

00:01:14It's called Decoder.

00:01:15It's by the editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel.

00:01:18It's actually the first time I heard it.

00:01:20He did a very recent and a very good sort of primer on R.J.

00:01:24from a tech perspective.

00:01:26Well, but also the Volkswagen joint venture.

00:01:28Almost every question there is is really answered by that,

00:01:32but we were going to go heavy on that for this one,

00:01:34and we decided not to because it was such a comprehensive job done.

00:01:37So Decoder, the R.J. Rivian episode,

00:01:41it really gets into the nuts, bolts, nitty-gritty

00:01:44of the Volkswagen joint venture.

00:01:45Yes, and then so we attempted to build on that

00:01:48and talk about all the other things,

00:01:49the deep car guy stuff that we're interested in.

00:01:51Product.

00:01:52It will fill some gaps for you if you listen to that one first

00:01:55or soon after you hear ours.

00:01:57Or you can keep listening if you want.

00:01:59Yes.

00:02:00That being said, again, R.J. Scaringe,

00:02:02founder and CEO of Rivian, great guy, tall guy, smart guy,

00:02:05PhD, MIT.

00:02:07Yeah, and if you're watching, decide,

00:02:09does he look more like Steve-O or Clark Kent?

00:02:11I think he looks like Clark Kent, and it fits the narrative

00:02:14between Tony Stark at Tesla and Superman at Rivian.

00:02:19But he's a...

00:02:20It's Steve-O.

00:02:21Super, super, super smart, as you will find out.

00:02:23Yeah.

00:02:24And we ask him a lot of questions about where he's going,

00:02:27with software-defined vehicles, electric vehicles,

00:02:29Porsches he loves.

00:02:31So without further ado, R.J. Scaringe.

00:02:34So R.J. Scaringe, founder, CEO of Rivian,

00:02:37welcome to The Inevitable.

00:02:40First question, are EVs really inevitable for all?

00:02:45I'm asking because, and I know you've addressed this before,

00:02:48we've seen the noise, the slowing sales growth,

00:02:51some big companies, GM and Ford, they're talking about this,

00:02:54they're going to build more hybrids or P-HEVs,

00:02:57Accio, Toyota, saying, I told you so,

00:03:00the world's not ready.

00:03:02So are you still a firm believer?

00:03:05To what extent do you believe that we will all be driving,

00:03:08all, most, will be driving electric cars in the future?

00:03:12And if it's not 100%, what does your crystal ball tell you

00:03:16about how much adoption is going to be

00:03:18in the 15- to 20-year time frame, which is that 2040,

00:03:21which a lot of companies have put their carbon neutrality

00:03:23and all EV statement around.

00:03:25So a lot there, but is it inevitable?

00:03:28This is Ed's joke.

00:03:30Yeah, it's great.

00:03:32I mean, I think it's absolutely going to be the case

00:03:36that 100% of the vehicles in the world will be electric.

00:03:38The question is if, it's just when.

00:03:40We're really convicted on that.

00:03:42I think there's a lot of drivers around this.

00:03:45I'd say that you could break it down

00:03:47really to three big things.

00:03:49First is we need to have products that customers want.

00:03:51So there needs to be enough choice

00:03:53that's going to really compel or drive the demand side.

00:03:58The second is we need to have policy that supports that.

00:04:03And in some cases, you can see it with carrots,

00:04:06with incentives.

00:04:08In other cases, you can see it with sticks,

00:04:10which are fines for manufacturers

00:04:13for not having enough EVs.

00:04:15And then you're seeing it really in a strong way

00:04:18where certain countries or jurisdictions

00:04:21are committing to 100% new vehicles being electric

00:04:23by certain dates.

00:04:25So most of Europe has done that.

00:04:27A number of states in the US have done that.

00:04:29For example, in California, following 2035,

00:04:31you will not be able to buy a non-EV

00:04:33in the state of California, along with 13 other states.

00:04:35So that's the second.

00:04:37And then the third is infrastructure,

00:04:39which influences both of those,

00:04:41or is influenced by both of those.

00:04:43So around charging, to make sure people are able to,

00:04:46if you're not living in a house

00:04:48with a place to charge every night,

00:04:50if you're in a high-rise apartment,

00:04:52there's real challenges that need to be thought about.

00:04:54But to me, there's no debate.

00:04:57It's absolutely going to end there.

00:04:59Okay.

00:05:01So are you surprised at all at the bumps along the way,

00:05:04or did you expect there to be this kind of

00:05:07first early adopter,

00:05:09rather than pushback as we tried to approach scale,

00:05:11or is this all pretty obvious?

00:05:14You know, it all depends on one's perspective.

00:05:19So to me, I've never seen more excitement

00:05:21around electrification than what we have today.

00:05:23So if I run the clock back to, like, 2015, 2016,

00:05:27or take it even earlier, to 2011,

00:05:29like early, early days of Rivian,

00:05:31I'd go to meet with suppliers,

00:05:33I'd meet with investors and talk about this idea

00:05:35of an electric SUV or an electric truck,

00:05:38and people would look at me as if I had three heads.

00:05:41It was such a crazy idea,

00:05:43and, you know, questions around, you know,

00:05:45can it go off-road, can it get wet?

00:05:48Like, really, like, deep disbelief

00:05:52around the potential for an electric vehicle

00:05:55to be effective in this vehicle segment

00:05:57or across segments outside of very, very small cars.

00:06:01What's shifted most dramatically is beyond just,

00:06:04I'd say, the recognition that EV architecture

00:06:06works really well across a variety of form factors,

00:06:09sizes, vehicle mass classes, what have you,

00:06:13is that consumers are now, I'd say,

00:06:15across the board recognizing that this is the future state.

00:06:18And in most cases, customers recognize

00:06:21they may not be buying an EV today,

00:06:23but their next or their next, next purchase

00:06:25will likely be an EV.

00:06:27And I do think when we talk about, like, the slowdown,

00:06:30we have to recognize it's still growing.

00:06:32It's a slowdown in growth rate.

00:06:34In the first half of this year, it's grown by 11%

00:06:36relative to last year,

00:06:38or over 8% in vehicle sales in the United States.

00:06:40It's a fun headline, you know, but...

00:06:42But it's still growing. It's growing faster

00:06:44than, you know, vehicle sales are growing in the United States.

00:06:47But back to your point, like, I said this

00:06:49when I bought the car, but I bought a, you know,

00:06:51a Toyota GR Corolla, knowing full well

00:06:53it's probably the last, for sure the last manual,

00:06:55but the last gasoline car I'll ever buy.

00:06:57I was like, one last hit, and then rehab, you know?

00:07:00So...

00:07:01I think the other thing to keep in mind

00:07:03is there's...

00:07:05I talk about this quite a bit.

00:07:07There's a pretty extreme lack of choice

00:07:09that exists in the electric vehicle space,

00:07:11so it's easy...

00:07:13Right. I don't want a midsize SUV.

00:07:15What else is there?

00:07:17There's no choices.

00:07:19And I think it's relatively convenient

00:07:21for a lot of existing manufacturers

00:07:23to say, oh, there's no demand for it.

00:07:25And that takes the pressure off needing to electrify

00:07:27or move away from the highly profitable

00:07:29large truck, large SUV business that exists.

00:07:31There's very few choices.

00:07:33If you think of highly compelling,

00:07:35well-executed vehicles, sub $50,000,

00:07:37you know, I would say without,

00:07:39you know, without flinching,

00:07:41there's like maybe two or three good choices

00:07:43at most.

00:07:45And so, with that said,

00:07:47you know, you take Model Y,

00:07:49which is, of course, among those,

00:07:51the market's saturated.

00:07:53There's just not very many choices.

00:07:55And you compare that with the ICE world.

00:07:57If I'm buying something under $50,000,

00:07:59there's many form factors,

00:08:01many brands, many configurations.

00:08:03I just have a lot more choice.

00:08:05And I heard that you say that before.

00:08:07So let's substitute choice for price, though.

00:08:09Like how, in my mind, right,

00:08:11this is going to really open up.

00:08:13You said under $50,000.

00:08:15When you get under $40,000, and then when you get under $30,000,

00:08:17don't we think that the adoption curve

00:08:19goes nearly vertical?

00:08:21Wouldn't you say?

00:08:23Yeah, I mean, of course,

00:08:25demand's linked to pricing.

00:08:27But it is worth,

00:08:29you know, we often talk about the $25,000 cars.

00:08:31It's worth just reminding ourselves

00:08:33that the average price of a new car in the United States

00:08:35is just under $50,000.

00:08:37Yeah, it's like $48,000.

00:08:39So most people are spending, on average,

00:08:41between $45,000 and $50,000 already.

00:08:43And so if you take that as a price point,

00:08:45and you say, okay, let me look

00:08:47at what I could buy for that,

00:08:49there's just nothing there.

00:08:51You basically have a Model Y

00:08:53as your sort of singular great choice.

00:08:55I mean, I saw this excitement

00:08:57of what you were talking about

00:08:59when you revealed the R2 and the R3.

00:09:01Was the R2...

00:09:03I couldn't make it to the event,

00:09:05but I was just following the comments.

00:09:07R2 was like, oh, okay, cool.

00:09:09R3, people were just going gaga.

00:09:11Just like, oh my, that I want,

00:09:13that I want, that I want.

00:09:15It was a real...

00:09:17I don't know.

00:09:19It was just palatable excitement.

00:09:21R2, knowing nothing about it,

00:09:23it's another midsize SUV.

00:09:25R3 was something different that doesn't exist.

00:09:27Totally, yeah.

00:09:29R3 for us was so much fun

00:09:31because we were able to take

00:09:33the essence of Rivian

00:09:35and what we represent as a company

00:09:37and say, how would we put that

00:09:39into a really small package

00:09:41of something that's in a hard-to-define segment?

00:09:43It's like a crossover-y, hatchback-y thing.

00:09:45It's a Fiat Panda, baby,

00:09:47and I love Fiat Pandas.

00:09:49It's a Delta Integrale.

00:09:51It's a Fiat Panda.

00:09:53It's a Golf.

00:09:55It's a small wagon.

00:09:57It has all these things that people connect with

00:09:59from an enthusiast's point of view,

00:10:01which we absolutely love.

00:10:03We, of course, developed the car

00:10:05knowing that as car enthusiasts ourselves,

00:10:07it struck a chord with us.

00:10:09It's got some Lada.

00:10:11Actually, it's got some Russian Lada Niva.

00:10:13Oh, Lada Niva crossed with a Delta Integrale.

00:10:15With a Fiat Panda, all right?

00:10:17Give the Panda some love.

00:10:19Flat windshield? Come on.

00:10:21Okay, this was later on,

00:10:23but let's just stay on that for a second.

00:10:25R3, R3X,

00:10:27how are you going to...

00:10:29Now, again, I heard this.

00:10:31We mentioned the intro.

00:10:33The Decoder podcast talked a bit about this.

00:10:35How are you going to deliver

00:10:37on...

00:10:39This is a more price-sensitive vehicle.

00:10:41You still want to deliver on what the Rivian brand is,

00:10:43which is sort of this on-road,

00:10:45off-road capability,

00:10:47but at this lower price point.

00:10:49Can I ask what you're benchmarking?

00:10:51From a price point of view

00:10:53or a cost point of view?

00:10:55Cost, price, and performance.

00:10:57Oh, yeah.

00:10:59So you've...

00:11:01You spent some time in the past

00:11:03with some of our engineers.

00:11:05I know you had Max on podcast before.

00:11:07Drove across country with a lot of them.

00:11:09Yeah, exactly. So we spend a lot of time

00:11:11thinking about what are the attributes we want to achieve.

00:11:13And developing a vehicle

00:11:15is an exercise in coordinating

00:11:17many, many decisions.

00:11:19I often say millions of decisions,

00:11:21but in terms of core attribute trade-offs,

00:11:23you're really talking about thousands

00:11:25of decisions that have to be traded off

00:11:27against one another.

00:11:29And in the case of R2 and R3,

00:11:31both of them

00:11:33will have a level of capability

00:11:35that really positions them

00:11:37uniquely relative to the

00:11:39competitive set at those price points

00:11:41and a level of everyday functionality.

00:11:43And the way we're

00:11:45achieving that, which is different

00:11:47than R1, is we're not going to be stuffing the vehicle

00:11:49with as much extreme technology.

00:11:51So in the case of R1, it's

00:11:53electro-hydraulic damping,

00:11:55it's air suspension

00:11:57with six inches of right head adjustment.

00:11:59I mean, it's pretty wild.

00:12:01We launched with a quad motor setup,

00:12:03whereas in R2 and R3, it's McPherson strut

00:12:05in the front, passive coils,

00:12:07semi-active dampers,

00:12:09passive anti-roll bars,

00:12:11so we made real decisions around

00:12:13the architecture to take a lot of complexity

00:12:15and cost out of the chassis system.

00:12:17And that same mindset

00:12:19flowed through the rest of the vehicle,

00:12:21so simplified everything from our door systems

00:12:23to the body structure to

00:12:25the interior.

00:12:27And the magic is

00:12:29achieving

00:12:31all the excitement that we have in our

00:12:33flagship products and the R1 products,

00:12:35but without as much cost

00:12:37and not having it feel like we took a lot

00:12:39of content out. So the interior on the R2

00:12:41is a much cheaper

00:12:43interior than what we have on R1.

00:12:45It's less than half the cost,

00:12:47but it still feels really premium.

00:12:49And people look at it and say, how are we going to deliver that?

00:12:51Well, it's all the little details,

00:12:53even down to the wood in the instrument

00:12:55panel on the top trim package

00:12:57for R2.

00:12:59It's real wood, it's open-pore,

00:13:01you can see it has

00:13:03that really natural feel.

00:13:05But it's a stacked laminate set

00:13:07that allows us to use

00:13:09recycled wood different than

00:13:11a single piece, which is what we do

00:13:13on R1, which is obviously much harder.

00:13:15But it's every single

00:13:17decision we have, we've looked at through the lens of cost.

00:13:19But isn't some of the secret sauce

00:13:21magic of R1 in the

00:13:23suspension? If you get rid

00:13:25of the

00:13:27hydraulic dampers and the

00:13:29air suspension, aren't you losing the

00:13:31back-road fun plus the

00:13:33off-road ability to some degree?

00:13:35What we actually lose is,

00:13:37and we have to

00:13:39accept that it's part of it, is we lose

00:13:41some of the breath.

00:13:43So with R1, you've driven it

00:13:45I'm a loner, yeah.

00:13:47You've driven it probably harder than most.

00:13:49The capability of the vehicle

00:13:51is so far beyond

00:13:53what most people recognize, particularly

00:13:55in the off-road environment.

00:13:57And we did that

00:13:59on purpose. We said we're launching an EV,

00:14:01we're going to say it's an off-road vehicle, we don't want anyone

00:14:03to say this really can't go off-road.

00:14:05And it is insane.

00:14:07I run around with Jeeps

00:14:09and Broncos, no problem.

00:14:11It's way off the charts, better than it needs to be

00:14:13for 99% of its use case.

00:14:15So on R2,

00:14:17it will be really great off-road,

00:14:19but it's not going to be as extreme

00:14:21as what we've done with R1.

00:14:23And what that allows us to do is to shift

00:14:25essentially the attribute trade-off

00:14:27to be capable on-road

00:14:29and capable off-road,

00:14:31but without having to have

00:14:33the suspension switch personalities,

00:14:35which is what we do in R1.

00:14:37The electro-hydraulic dampers, what that really gives us

00:14:39is an infinitely variable

00:14:41anti-roll characteristic.

00:14:43So when you put it in sport, it feels like it's a go-kart.

00:14:45When you put it off-road, it's like there's no anti-roll bar.

00:14:47And that was from

00:14:49that Monroe

00:14:51kinetic

00:14:53electro-hydraulic system, right?

00:14:55From McLaren.

00:14:57The other car that uses it and is

00:14:59well-known is the McLaren.

00:15:01I went on the launch of the MP4-12C

00:15:03that that product debuted.

00:15:05And this is great, because you just answered

00:15:07sort of the question from our testing director,

00:15:09Eric Tingwall. He made me.

00:15:11He said, please ask him,

00:15:13was it a mistake to put that system in

00:15:15because it's expensive?

00:15:17And I think I mentioned this

00:15:19when we were driving a Moab two years ago.

00:15:21Was it a mistake?

00:15:23Tingwall.

00:15:25I tell you this the whole time.

00:15:27Is it over-engineered?

00:15:29I hear your explanation. You wanted a debut product

00:15:31to exceed the expectations

00:15:33of your harshest critics.

00:15:35But if 99% of the drivers

00:15:37are not hitting

00:15:39this edge case...

00:15:41Where are you getting this 99% from?

00:15:43Well, you said it. You just said that you drive it harder than most people.

00:15:45Oh, well, I'm weird.

00:15:47Is it over-engineered?

00:15:49Was it too much? Was it a step too far? Would you do it again?

00:15:51Yeah, absolutely do it again.

00:15:53The thing to keep in mind is

00:15:55in building

00:15:57a product that's going to underpin

00:15:59and act as the foundation for the brand

00:16:01or the handshake of the world for the brand,

00:16:03authenticity is really important.

00:16:05Defining a product

00:16:07around the average use case

00:16:09versus the peak use case can lead

00:16:11to

00:16:13highly marginal products and things that aren't exciting.

00:16:15Case in point,

00:16:17if we were purely logical

00:16:19beings, everyone would have

00:16:21a Timex. There'd be no such thing as a

00:16:23$5,000 watch or $10,000.

00:16:25It keeps time equally well.

00:16:27Better.

00:16:29Oh, yeah. I've got to wind this every morning.

00:16:31There you go. Case in point.

00:16:33Although this is $248.

00:16:35But you can buy a watch for $10.

00:16:37Casio, whatever it's called.

00:16:39You see it across many

00:16:41different things. In the automotive world,

00:16:43we see it all over the place.

00:16:45Most people who are buying a 911,

00:16:47it's an amazing vehicle. They're not taking it to the track.

00:16:49And if you actually

00:16:51look at the data and the number of people that do track days

00:16:53with a 911, it's not very high.

00:16:55But it would be inauthentic to the brand

00:16:57if they said, you know what?

00:16:59Most people are using this to drive

00:17:01down the interstate.

00:17:03They're orthodontists. They go to work and back.

00:17:05And let's take all the performance out.

00:17:07Let's take all

00:17:09the amazing chassis work

00:17:11out, the dynamics out.

00:17:13And then it would lose a sense of what it is.

00:17:15And so in the same way for us

00:17:17with R1,

00:17:19it's intentionally delivering

00:17:21for that

00:17:23extreme 1% use case

00:17:25because that's what builds

00:17:27its brand. And people like to know that

00:17:29it has that ability. You may drive it a certain way

00:17:3199 times out of 100,

00:17:33but if you find yourself on a trail,

00:17:35you're not going to ask yourself, can I make it up?

00:17:37Right. It's also

00:17:39a very American sort of

00:17:41mindset. I'm not going to use it all the time,

00:17:43but I need to have it. I can't buy an EV.

00:17:45I might have to take a road trip.

00:17:47I have to go tow 11,000 pounds.

00:17:49Can we stick with R2 for a bit?

00:17:51Well, the one thing I asked, but he didn't mention.

00:17:53Can you talk about

00:17:55who's in your head in terms of

00:17:57the ultimate performance of R2

00:17:59or R3 from a benchmarking?

00:18:01Are you looking at...

00:18:03Do you get to drive much of the competitive set?

00:18:05Yeah, we drive them all the time.

00:18:07I mean, it's one of the fun

00:18:09parts of

00:18:11my job is getting to drive our products

00:18:13and driving relative to others. I mean, for R2,

00:18:15I should say

00:18:17in general.

00:18:21I think one of the

00:18:23things

00:18:25that can be challenging in the auto industry

00:18:27is often

00:18:29manufacturers use benchmarking as a way to

00:18:31arrive at attribute targets.

00:18:33As a result, you see this

00:18:35convergence of

00:18:37vehicle

00:18:39characteristics.

00:18:41You see that with dimensions. You see that with

00:18:43vehicle profiles.

00:18:45You see that with vehicle packaging.

00:18:47And, of course, you in the end see it with performance

00:18:49on a relative basis across

00:18:51different criteria.

00:18:53And I think case in point is what's happened

00:18:55with Model Y. It's a wonderful product.

00:18:57It's been wildly successful.

00:18:59And most of the EVs that are in the space

00:19:01that compete with the Model Y

00:19:03are dimensionally almost identical.

00:19:05They have maybe a different... They look a little different

00:19:07from the front, a little different from the back, but the occupant package

00:19:09is the same. The side view profile of the vehicle is the same.

00:19:11Yeah, they're within 5% in

00:19:13almost every category.

00:19:15With R1, very clearly, we took a different

00:19:17approach. You could say on paper

00:19:19it's going to be cross-shopped

00:19:21with the Model X. It's a 7-passenger

00:19:23SUV. It's got 4 doors.

00:19:25It has 4 tires.

00:19:27It has a steering wheel. It does 0 to 60

00:19:29in around 3 seconds.

00:19:31It's got 350 to 400

00:19:33miles of range. But

00:19:35other than those statements I just made,

00:19:37it couldn't be more different in its execution

00:19:39and how it

00:19:41presents itself in terms of brand. It's not to say

00:19:43it's right or wrong. It's just

00:19:45providing, I think, a really important

00:19:47choice

00:19:49that has texture and is different

00:19:51than what else is out there.

00:19:53R2, we've had the same approach, where

00:19:55there's a lot of folks that have

00:19:57followed the leader and ended up with something that's

00:19:59very similar and is

00:20:01generally a worse version

00:20:03of a Model Y or narrowly

00:20:05differentiated from Model Y.

00:20:07R2, it's very similar dimensions to

00:20:09Model Y. It's slightly shorter.

00:20:11It's slightly narrower,

00:20:13so it's a slightly smaller car.

00:20:15The occupant package is much bigger

00:20:17because of the profile of the vehicle.

00:20:19And in terms of its ability

00:20:21to perform as an SUV, it's worlds

00:20:23different than a Model Y. You can actually

00:20:25take it off-road. You can take it

00:20:27through a riverbed. You can do the kinds of things

00:20:29you'd expect from an SUV.

00:20:31And that's with R2.

00:20:33R3,

00:20:35it's hard-pressed to find something that you could

00:20:37compare it to.

00:20:39It's like the heart of a rally car.

00:20:41It's got a lot of ground clearance.

00:20:43It's 220 millimeters of ground clearance,

00:20:45which is a lot for that size

00:20:47of a car. And then

00:20:49with the tri-motor, it's

00:20:51insanity.

00:20:55It'll be cross-shopped with things you wouldn't expect.

00:20:57It's like, do I buy a hyper car

00:20:59or do I get this

00:21:01four-door hatchback

00:21:03crossover thing that's going to be way quicker?

00:21:05Let's talk product for a second here.

00:21:07You've always

00:21:09only said R2, but shown

00:21:11what I think will be called an R2S.

00:21:13Are you going to do an R2T?

00:21:15Clever guy.

00:21:17I'm very smart.

00:21:21Or an R3T, because you haven't said R3S yet.

00:21:23Yeah, so of course

00:21:25when we launched R2, people didn't

00:21:27expect R3.

00:21:29The

00:21:31presence of R3 and R3X

00:21:33indicates our

00:21:35goal of making this what we call

00:21:37mid-size platform.

00:21:39Something that has a number of applications.

00:21:41And R2 is an

00:21:43application, R3 is a

00:21:45vehicle, but

00:21:47we could together come up with some

00:21:49really interesting ideas for other things

00:21:51that would be on that platform

00:21:53and might be R2-based or R3-based.

00:21:55We've shown an example of a performance version of

00:21:57R3, which is R3X.

00:21:59Doesn't take too much imagination to say maybe there's an R2X.

00:22:01No, I was going to get

00:22:03to R2X, but I was also going to get to R1X.

00:22:05There's an R2T.

00:22:07All those kinds of things one could imagine,

00:22:09but we haven't announced any of those.

00:22:11Just seeing if you break any news.

00:22:13You also make that commercial van,

00:22:15which just has one of the motors,

00:22:17but you could easily put a second motor in,

00:22:19I assume, and you could make a

00:22:21consumer, all-wheel drive,

00:22:23overland-y, van-life

00:22:25kind of thing. RVs do really

00:22:27well in motor trends, so we are very interested

00:22:29in whether you're going to do... We see them all

00:22:31the time in LA. Yeah, everyone's got a sprinter.

00:22:33During the pandemic, a lot of my friends were buying

00:22:35sprinters. I was like, what are you doing?

00:22:37It's funny you say put another motor, Johnny, because

00:22:39I've had a number of customers

00:22:41reach out and say, can you put three more motors?

00:22:43Sure, sure.

00:22:45A quad van would be pretty nuts.

00:22:47I've got to say,

00:22:49driving the new tri-motor, that works pretty

00:22:51good. Yeah, it covers most of these

00:22:53cases. Yeah, it kind of does,

00:22:55annoyingly. But seriously,

00:22:57is there a consumer version of

00:22:59the delivery van? We're not planning one today.

00:23:01We've thought about it

00:23:03in a world of infinite

00:23:05time and resources, maybe we'd do that,

00:23:07but... Too small a market?

00:23:09Margin's not there?

00:23:11For us, the most important thing we have in front of us

00:23:13is R2.

00:23:15The need to have a product

00:23:17that sits right in the heart of the market,

00:23:19from a size point of view,

00:23:21a sub $50,000 price point,

00:23:23that's what will allow

00:23:25us to have a step change in volume.

00:23:27The way we've

00:23:29approached developing our vehicles,

00:23:31we're very heavily vertically integrated, so we

00:23:33build our motors, we build our

00:23:35electronics, our software stack,

00:23:37so we built a really

00:23:39call it

00:23:41a high

00:23:43metabolism engineering

00:23:45organization with a lot of content, and it needs

00:23:47to, in order for the business to make

00:23:49sense from a financial point of view,

00:23:51we need to have volume against

00:23:53all that technology.

00:23:55For the level of volume we have today,

00:23:57we're insanely

00:23:59vertically integrated.

00:24:01It starts to really make

00:24:03sense, and all that vertical integration pays off

00:24:05in a really healthy way

00:24:07once we have the volume, but the inverse

00:24:09is true as well. Low volume,

00:24:11high vertical integration is a challenging

00:24:13business because your fixed costs are just so high.

00:24:15We've seen

00:24:17that happen with Tesla. Tesla went

00:24:19from Model S and X, and they added Model 3

00:24:21and Model Y. The volume exploded. Their level of

00:24:23vertical integration gave them structural cost advantages

00:24:25which are persistent and real,

00:24:27and we see

00:24:29we agree with that logic.

00:24:31Speaking of volume, there's about 1.5

00:24:33billion consumers in China.

00:24:35I got a bunch of questions there,

00:24:37but let me just...

00:24:39That's such a good transition. Why are you stepping on it?

00:24:41Here's a better one, which is

00:24:43because he brought up Tesla,

00:24:45and recently,

00:24:47whatever Model 2,

00:24:49Elon said that's going to be a RoboTaxi,

00:24:51and then earlier this week, GM said

00:24:53they're going to cancel plans

00:24:55for their original

00:24:57RoboTaxi, and the next Bolt will be the

00:24:59RoboTaxi.

00:25:01Is a RoboTaxi in the cards?

00:25:03Would it be based on R3

00:25:05or R2?

00:25:07Where's Rivian's?

00:25:09Really, where are you on autonomy, I guess?

00:25:11In terms of products,

00:25:13we don't have a RoboTaxi planned,

00:25:15but in terms of vehicle

00:25:17sets, you could imagine

00:25:19the

00:25:21platforms can support

00:25:23lots of different things.

00:25:25If we ever decided to do that, we have a

00:25:27set of platforms we could choose from.

00:25:29To Johnny's

00:25:31question, the approach we've taken

00:25:33to autonomy took a big

00:25:35step forward with our generation

00:25:37to R1.

00:25:39Gen 1 had a

00:25:41collection of cameras.

00:25:43Importantly, the front-facing forward camera is a

00:25:45Mobileye-based system.

00:25:47As a result of that,

00:25:49architecturally, it meant that we

00:25:51have a late fusion of information, because

00:25:53we take a camera that's forward-facing from Mobileye

00:25:55that does a lot of processing, and it

00:25:57doesn't give us raw. The output of that

00:25:59is it detects objects,

00:26:01it classifies the objects, and it assigns

00:26:03vectors to those objects.

00:26:05Architecturally,

00:26:07that approach makes it very hard to use an

00:26:09AI-centric model,

00:26:11where you're collectively using the full perception

00:26:13stack, having an early fusion,

00:26:15using

00:26:17more advanced

00:26:19AI training techniques to

00:26:21collectively assess from a perception point

00:26:23of view what's around you,

00:26:25and then using that to drive

00:26:27both the planning side, the path planning

00:26:29side, and then, of course, the controls.

00:26:31What went into Gen 2

00:26:33is

00:26:35a whole new camera set. We have 55

00:26:37megapixels of cameras.

00:26:39We developed the cameras in-house.

00:26:41Five radars, including an imaging radar

00:26:43and the front-facing radar.

00:26:45Significantly more compute,

00:26:47about 10x the compute.

00:26:49Switching to NVIDIA. Yeah, it's an NVIDIA Orin platform.

00:26:51We

00:26:53brought all that in-house.

00:26:55No more Mobileye?

00:26:57Yes, so moving away

00:26:59from Mobileye.

00:27:01The key here is

00:27:03what you experience in terms

00:27:05of feature set in the vehicle today represents

00:27:07the beginning

00:27:09of something that has a lot

00:27:11more headroom than what the

00:27:13Gen 1 platform had. The Gen 1 platform is going to

00:27:15continue to get better, so don't worry, your car will still

00:27:17get better. But it's asymptotic.

00:27:19It's going to be relatively modest improvements,

00:27:21whereas the Gen 2 platform has

00:27:23so much headroom, and we

00:27:25built offline training methods

00:27:27so that it gets better

00:27:29very quickly over time.

00:27:31Yeah, I mean, what? NVIDIA

00:27:33Orin is like 235

00:27:35240 tops.

00:27:37So you got a lot, and that's an

00:27:39order of magnitude more than...

00:27:41I was curious, because I couldn't find it,

00:27:43what did you have before NVIDIA?

00:27:45Was it Renesas?

00:27:47We never announced

00:27:49who, but it was a much

00:27:51lower...

00:27:53Yeah, it was a much lower

00:27:55compute platform, not NVIDIA.

00:27:57Let's stay on that. This is great, because I did want to get

00:27:59into

00:28:01the difference between Gen 1 and Gen 2

00:28:03at a more granular level. So you went from 17 ECUs

00:28:05to 7.

00:28:07Pulled out

00:28:0910 ECUs, 44 pounds of weight, 1.6

00:28:11miles of wiring.

00:28:13Congrats. How much do you save

00:28:15on that? If you had to calculate,

00:28:17is there a...

00:28:19We've never given a specific number.

00:28:21I've said thousands of dollars

00:28:23just to... On a per unit

00:28:25basis. So it's very

00:28:27significant, though.

00:28:29I actually think, for some reason,

00:28:31the electrical architectures

00:28:33of vehicles don't get enough attention for cost opportunities.

00:28:35I think we get

00:28:37maybe because, as humans,

00:28:39it's easier to associate with mechanical systems, so we

00:28:41get caught up in things like

00:28:43high-pressure die castings is

00:28:45this big windfall of savings, but

00:28:47by far and away,

00:28:49a bigger structural cost

00:28:51advantage is to remove

00:28:53Tier 1 dependency, and therefore

00:28:55very complex ECU architectures

00:28:57and the proliferation of many, many ECUs.

00:28:59If you were to look at our Gen 1 system

00:29:01with 17, that's still a lot less

00:29:03than, let's say, a

00:29:05traditional OEM vehicle with 50 to 100 ECUs.

00:29:07I was going to say, it was a real paradigm shift

00:29:09with Tesla, but where, I remember

00:29:11BMW would almost brag, like,

00:29:13the 7 Series has 130 ECUs.

00:29:15The seats got four.

00:29:17One for AC, one for heat, one for

00:29:19massage. It's not a good thing.

00:29:21It was kind of a flex.

00:29:23How many ECUs you got.

00:29:25What makes it, what I think

00:29:27is that beyond cost savings,

00:29:29what's missed on

00:29:31architectures like that that's really challenging

00:29:33is if you want to do an over-the-air update,

00:29:35the coordination across so many

00:29:37different suppliers, because none of those ECUs

00:29:39are in-house at the traditional OEM, so you've got

00:29:41to coordinate with...

00:29:43Johnson Controls, talking to Bosch, talking to whoever.

00:29:45The simple example is, I want to change the

00:29:47experience when I walk up to the car with my phone

00:29:49in the pocket. You have

00:29:5110, 15 different ECU

00:29:53suppliers that you have to work across, whereas

00:29:55with us, it's one or two ECUs, and it's

00:29:57all in-house.

00:29:59I went to the software conference two years ago, and I talked to

00:30:01those guys, and apparently the paradigm

00:30:03was it used to be, because these are all hardware manufacturers,

00:30:05and the software was free.

00:30:07I talked to the head of engineering at Lucid, and he said, yeah,

00:30:09and the software was garbage, because they're hardware guys.

00:30:11They didn't know how to do this stuff.

00:30:13Is the goal ultimately then, because

00:30:15again, on the Decoder podcast you talked about,

00:30:17and this is great, because this is the thing I think

00:30:19the car, the casual car fan needs to

00:30:21get in their head. It goes from

00:30:23domain control,

00:30:25one ECU dedicated to

00:30:27one system, like the window switches

00:30:29or the headlights or something like that, to this

00:30:31idea of zonal, and then is it

00:30:33you're going to central?

00:30:35Is eventually the goal to have

00:30:37one big computer, one big chip?

00:30:39Or is there, no, you're like, no, you'll never

00:30:41really get there. Tesla has

00:30:43what, hardware 4 has one

00:30:45devoted to FSD, and the other one devoted to

00:30:47everything else.

00:30:49What's the goal as you

00:30:51really build a software platform?

00:30:53Seven ECUs is the right number.

00:30:55It somewhat depends on the vehicle

00:30:57packaging and size.

00:30:59The way that we've set up

00:31:01with Gen 2 is we have a

00:31:03computer that's dedicated to self-driving,

00:31:05and we have a computer that's dedicated to

00:31:07all the in-vehicle infotainment

00:31:09platform. Those are housed in

00:31:11the same enclosure, and it's a liquid-cooled

00:31:13enclosure, because

00:31:15there's both high-compute platforms.

00:31:17And then there's three

00:31:19zonals that exist. And the reason

00:31:21it's three and not two, or

00:31:23not one, or not zero,

00:31:25where you're leveraging, let's say, the infotainment

00:31:27compute module, is the

00:31:29desire to minimize wiring.

00:31:31And so,

00:31:33it's really just a trade-off

00:31:35between how many runs

00:31:37of wire do I need to go back to if I have one

00:31:39single computer versus having

00:31:41a computer in the rear of the vehicle,

00:31:43a computer in the front of the vehicle, and then you minimize the harness

00:31:45that has to run between all the

00:31:47things that it's powering.

00:31:49So the dual NVIDIA DRIVE ORANGE, is

00:31:51that one for the infotainment

00:31:53and the other one? It's just both self-driving.

00:31:55Oh.

00:31:57And there's a separate

00:31:59compute platform that exists for...

00:32:01And to expand on that, so

00:32:03if you have a dedicated self-driving

00:32:05ECU, you're going to be

00:32:07rolling out ADAS that's much more

00:32:09capable than what the truck's vehicles currently do.

00:32:11What you experience today is

00:32:13like what's just launched into

00:32:15Gen 2 is

00:32:17similar capabilities to what we

00:32:19had in Gen 1, except

00:32:21it's using

00:32:231% of its capability, whereas Gen

00:32:251's using 75%

00:32:27of its capability. So Gen 1 will improve

00:32:29maybe another 20-30%, but Gen

00:32:312's going to improve 100x.

00:32:33So that could be the robo-taxi, 100x

00:32:35improvement. Well, it's not...

00:32:37Yeah, it could be

00:32:39full autonomy. I think the most important

00:32:41thing is that recognizing R2's coming,

00:32:43R3's coming. The Gen 2

00:32:45architecture on R1 is also building

00:32:47our training models

00:32:49and really building our

00:32:53data set for the

00:32:55same set of cameras that go into R2. So R2

00:32:57is using identical cameras to what's in Gen 2.

00:32:59Right. It's using

00:33:01the same... It's like the platform.

00:33:03But the beauty is

00:33:05it's going to have the benefit of close to two years

00:33:07of learning and improvement. So when R2 launches,

00:33:09it's going to come out of the gate with a very

00:33:11high level of autonomy. Okay.

00:33:13So can I ask you

00:33:15possibly a dumb question?

00:33:17Why NVIDIA?

00:33:19I know they're the hottest game around and

00:33:21$3 trillion valuation and their GPUs

00:33:23are world-class,

00:33:25but I noted that... And again,

00:33:27pardon me for mentioning it.

00:33:29Tesla had NVIDIA, now AMD,

00:33:31Ryzen, and they're

00:33:33doing their own chips.

00:33:35That's on the path to ever-increasing

00:33:37verticality.

00:33:39Are you going to do your own chips?

00:33:41The NVIDIA

00:33:43platform is

00:33:45great for

00:33:47the inference chip in the vehicle.

00:33:49There are a few

00:33:51other choices. We looked at all of them.

00:33:53We felt

00:33:55good about the performance

00:33:57price trade-off.

00:33:59The beauty of the NVIDIA platform is

00:34:01it's a well-developed ecosystem

00:34:03as well for working with the chip.

00:34:05We take the chip and then we have to build a whole

00:34:07rest of the computer around us. We build the board,

00:34:09we design the board, we design how it's going to function.

00:34:13The knowledge of that and the

00:34:15support infrastructure that exists within the

00:34:17NVIDIA ecosystem is really strong.

00:34:19Is the NVIDIA chip part of the joint venture?

00:34:21With Volkswagen?

00:34:23Volkswagen does not

00:34:25include any of our work in

00:34:27AI or autonomy.

00:34:29Okay.

00:34:31But the ECUs?

00:34:33The other ECUs.

00:34:35The other ECUs are part of the joint venture.

00:34:37Okay.

00:34:39I want to come back to that. That's awesome.

00:34:41What about doing your own

00:34:43chips? Is that out of the question?

00:34:45Is that a weird thing to ask?

00:34:47It's not a weird thing to ask.

00:34:49You can say it's weird.

00:34:51No, it's a great question.

00:34:53Say it's weird.

00:34:55It's not something we're focused on.

00:34:57It's a great question.

00:35:01Because of the strength of the supply base

00:35:03that exists around that.

00:35:05There's companies that are really investing heavily

00:35:07in that today.

00:35:09I'm already way over my skis this deep in software stuff.

00:35:11I'll just keep going because I've got a couple more questions.

00:35:15I noted this thing on 9to5Google.

00:35:17You guys confirmed within May that

00:35:19Rivian's using Android

00:35:21Automotive.

00:35:23You also mentioned on the

00:35:25Decoder podcast that

00:35:27this is your full stack.

00:35:29It includes real-time

00:35:31operating system, which I know previously was BlackBerry.

00:35:33Are you still working with

00:35:35BlackBerry on RTOS?

00:35:37No.

00:35:39The real-time

00:35:41operating system is an OS we developed

00:35:43in-house.

00:35:45The name of that OS internally

00:35:47is Elpis, the Greek goddess of hope.

00:35:49That was

00:35:51named when

00:35:53things were still

00:35:55challenging on that

00:35:57development.

00:35:59We've used

00:36:01an Android kernel for what you see in the

00:36:03infotainment platform.

00:36:05But we've

00:36:07forked it, we developed it,

00:36:09and one of the reasons we wanted to use that, which is

00:36:11really links to Linux,

00:36:13is it allowed us to

00:36:15access a really rich

00:36:17ecosystem of applications and

00:36:19makes it easier for the applications world to plug in.

00:36:21You're starting

00:36:23to see native applications enter into the ecosystem.

00:36:25The first was Spotify.

00:36:27We have a great relationship

00:36:29with Google, so you're now seeing YouTube come

00:36:31into the mix. You're seeing Google Casts

00:36:33come into the mix.

00:36:35We just launched, on the other side of the fence,

00:36:37Apple Music.

00:36:39The question you're probably going to ask

00:36:41next or next-next is

00:36:43why we don't have CarPlay.

00:36:45No, we don't.

00:36:47We're finding ways

00:36:49to deliver that a la carte,

00:36:51but we completely control the ecosystem.

00:36:53We have a la carte questions. The Apple one has

00:36:55long been answered, and it takes a lot of time.

00:36:57Last couple.

00:36:59Unreal Engine.

00:37:01I saw the graphics in the car, the cell shading

00:37:03looks cool, but

00:37:05is that it?

00:37:07Again, I hate to be the a-hole here

00:37:09because Johnny is telling me...

00:37:11He's been an owner. For him,

00:37:13the step change is really big. He's like,

00:37:15I haven't been in one

00:37:17in literally 18 months, so I was like,

00:37:19okay, this is pretty cool.

00:37:21What else does Unreal Engine

00:37:23give you, other than the ability to

00:37:25do these cool, slick graphics?

00:37:31It's a great question.

00:37:33There's two things

00:37:35to talk about here. The first is

00:37:37we felt

00:37:39the approach of making

00:37:41everything photorealistic

00:37:43was just becoming stale.

00:37:45It felt

00:37:47almost silly to sit inside the car

00:37:49and then see a photorealistic rendering

00:37:51of it while you're in the car.

00:37:53It's like, oh, there's my car.

00:37:55Not many manufacturers have the colors

00:37:57matching. We, of course, do that, and the wheels match,

00:37:59and whatever you have matches on the car.

00:38:01But the beauty of moving

00:38:03that artistically and graphically

00:38:05beyond photorealistic

00:38:07we think is just much more interesting

00:38:09and provides a more...

00:38:11a stronger

00:38:13point of view in terms of the texture of the experience.

00:38:15That's purely

00:38:17speaking to the aesthetics. That's subjective.

00:38:19What it also does, though...

00:38:21Real quick, that's part of why

00:38:23Rivian people like Rivians.

00:38:25It's not just a photograph

00:38:27of my truck. It's kind of like this

00:38:29softer, gentler, like

00:38:31the gear guard guy, whatever he's called.

00:38:33It's like, my kid loves it.

00:38:35When we got the truck, they gave him a...

00:38:37It allows us to embed

00:38:39personality, and you can see

00:38:41what it does when we render the vehicle.

00:38:43Those are real-time renderings using Unreal.

00:38:45Now, your question is spot on.

00:38:47If we have Unreal rendering capability

00:38:49and it matches... If you're in

00:38:51sport drive mode, the vehicle moves around

00:38:53and configures itself as sport.

00:38:55If you're in off-road, it moves

00:38:57and suspension adjusts. There's a lot

00:38:59to come with

00:39:01software updates that will leverage

00:39:03the fact that we've created

00:39:05a

00:39:07rendering style that can be rendered real-time

00:39:09that applies to

00:39:11the vehicles and applies importantly

00:39:13to the ecosystem around the vehicles.

00:39:15As Johnny said,

00:39:17our security gear guard

00:39:19character

00:39:21exists in many different ways

00:39:23across the vehicle.

00:39:25We believe with the ability to start

00:39:27overlaying more and more content,

00:39:29breaking from

00:39:31the shackles of photorealism

00:39:33and allowing it to be more

00:39:35dreamlike and more

00:39:37inspired, allows

00:39:39the inclusion of things

00:39:41like AR to start to

00:39:43take a bigger role. You can imagine with a

00:39:45really high-fidelity set of cameras,

00:39:47we can see the world around us.

00:39:49You can imagine we can recreate

00:39:51views. Let's say you're off-road, you want to see

00:39:53your vehicle driving

00:39:55in that environment.

00:39:57We can start to create

00:39:59really,

00:40:01really high

00:40:03fidelity, high quality

00:40:05memories,

00:40:07but create them in a way that's more

00:40:09powerful than trying to overlay

00:40:11a photorealistic rendering

00:40:13with a camera shot.

00:40:15Rather, create a whole environment that captures

00:40:17the memory, but without photorealism.

00:40:19Scale of 1 to 10, how

00:40:21bummed are Gen 1 owners going to be

00:40:23in a couple of years when the full

00:40:25capabilities are unlocked? The cameras

00:40:27is a big... No, I know.

00:40:29There's a massive step forward.

00:40:31I noticed just the turn signals,

00:40:33like my truck versus the Gen 2

00:40:35truck is like, oh boy.

00:40:37Obviously, you see it for self-driving, it's going to be

00:40:39an enhancement, but in terms

00:40:41of just the overall experience,

00:40:43what we can do with those cameras

00:40:45and what will come in future features

00:40:47is going to be really powerful.

00:40:49To Johnny's point, that's impossible for a Gen 1 owner

00:40:51to upgrade. You can't.

00:40:53That's the hard fork.

00:40:55It's also

00:40:57part of technology.

00:40:59Hey, that's it.

00:41:01Half glass, half full.

00:41:03I'm so annoyed.

00:41:05Eventually, you'll have the classic version.

00:41:07Right. Hey, mine's yellow.

00:41:09See, there you go.

00:41:11If that whole piece on Unreal Engine, what are you talking about?

00:41:13Just go YouTube some Unreal Engine clips

00:41:15and you'll see the level. Unreal Engine is this game

00:41:17it's using gaming, it creates

00:41:19the most amazing universes. I get

00:41:21where you're going.

00:41:23I'm glad you mentioned. If you go

00:41:25YouTube clips of Rivian's driving

00:41:27in Unreal, you see photorealistic

00:41:29renderings of that. We can

00:41:31do that, sure. But imagine we can

00:41:33create environments that are imaginative

00:41:35beyond reality.

00:41:37You can create environments

00:41:39that you can leave behind breadcrumbs

00:41:41and you can create environments that

00:41:43Maybe talk to other

00:41:45trucks. Talk to other vehicles.

00:41:47The opportunity for really rich

00:41:49environments and then the opportunity to

00:41:51take that into in-vehicle

00:41:53games. Are you a gamer?

00:41:55Do you play Sims?

00:41:57I played Sims growing up, yeah, for sure.

00:41:59I don't think he has time to do this podcast.

00:42:01But you have a game, you can have

00:42:03this Twitch generation

00:42:05by their throats, because this is amazing.

00:42:07This is what I get.

00:42:09We barely talk about augmented reality on this podcast.

00:42:11A little bit with... Because it's not real.

00:42:13Well, no, but I saw

00:42:15I drove the new Audi

00:42:17Q6, which

00:42:19for their head-up nav,

00:42:21wow, that's the first

00:42:23really, really good augmented reality

00:42:25I've experienced. So I can imagine with

00:42:27a much more powerful processor what you can do.

00:42:29And with great cameras and with an amazing

00:42:31rendering engine, you can do a lot.

00:42:33And with obviously a lot of compute to power it all.

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00:43:11So I have to ask, I don't want to ask, but

00:43:13it's a hot topic. Gen AI, where is

00:43:15Rivian? What do we see? You mentioned

00:43:17AI a little bit in a

00:43:19few minutes ago, but what will

00:43:21a driver and owner,

00:43:23what do they have to look forward to

00:43:25or be aghast at when it comes to

00:43:27AI? Is there an AI assistant coming?

00:43:29What do you got?

00:43:33I think the reality is

00:43:35it's going to permeate every aspect

00:43:37of every business.

00:43:41From an in-vehicle point of view,

00:43:43things like the way you interact

00:43:45with the vehicle today,

00:43:47we still rely heavily on buttons or

00:43:49multi-touch in our case.

00:43:51Voice has been

00:43:53of limited effectiveness, largely

00:43:55because it's so unnatural the way you have to

00:43:57use voice, the way we've had to use voice

00:43:59historically. So you could say like

00:44:01close the front trunk, but

00:44:03you have to speak in a very specific manner

00:44:05and it's not at all conversational.

00:44:07What we see happening, particularly

00:44:09as it integrates with navigation

00:44:11is the opportunity to completely change

00:44:13how we think about interacting with it.

00:44:15Instead of saying, I need to search for it and type out

00:44:17at least half the name of a

00:44:19specific restaurant for it to

00:44:21autofill the rest of the name of the restaurant,

00:44:23you could say, I'm hungry.

00:44:25The vehicle says, what are you thinking? I don't know, I had

00:44:27Mexican yesterday, today I'm sort of feeling like Indian.

00:44:29Well, what's

00:44:31on the way home? Much more

00:44:33conversational is if you're talking to

00:44:35a person that's like the

00:44:37hyper search engine to find all the right combinations.

00:44:39So trip planning,

00:44:41point of interest,

00:44:45identification, all of that

00:44:47we think is going to be worlds

00:44:49different than what we do today.

00:44:51And you can, it's not

00:44:53hard, like in terms of like

00:44:55the things that are hard for

00:44:57Gen AI to do, that's not one of them.

00:44:59Then you move into

00:45:01diagnostics

00:45:03and diagnostics both for

00:45:05the owner to say, hey, my vehicle

00:45:07is doing this, like what does

00:45:09that mean? The vehicle's ability to

00:45:11work through issues, answer questions real time

00:45:13in vehicle

00:45:15is going to be a massive expansion to what we

00:45:17know today. But we're, customers

00:45:19are not going to see it, but we'll feel it both

00:45:21in terms of the cost to run our business and then

00:45:23ultimately you'll see it as a customer through

00:45:25we hope much faster services

00:45:27like things like

00:45:29what we have for service

00:45:31intake. If you call with issues,

00:45:33the ability for us to

00:45:35very effectively and very

00:45:37rapidly identify and understand

00:45:39the problem and benefit

00:45:41from not just the knowledge in somebody's

00:45:43brain, but in the knowledge collectively across our fleet

00:45:45is really powerful.

00:45:47Predictive diagnostics.

00:45:49We do predictive diagnostics.

00:45:51It's more that... No, it's like, what's a

00:45:53hot issue? Like if suddenly all the call centers

00:45:55are getting this, like the AI is like, hey...

00:45:57This is already happening. So behind the scenes, if you call

00:45:59Rivian Service, we have a

00:46:01digital assistant that's not customer facing

00:46:03but it's our team member facing

00:46:05that we use. If you say, hey, my car

00:46:07is making a clicking noise. You're like, we know.

00:46:09Why didn't you call sooner?

00:46:11We actually have AI-based assistants that are

00:46:13helping our teams. At the NVIDIA conference we went

00:46:15to, Ford gave a whole

00:46:17presentation that I sat through about

00:46:19exactly that. How AI helps the service department.

00:46:21We went to GTC and we were like, what are we doing here?

00:46:23We sure did. A bunch of car guys.

00:46:25This is crazy. It was fun.

00:46:27Good burrito at lunch.

00:46:29I'm going to circle back to that assistant

00:46:31that I know. I'm going to circle back to that assistant piece.

00:46:33Just the very last question while we're

00:46:35in the car talking about software-defined

00:46:37vehicles. I noted, thank

00:46:39God, you guys still have controls on

00:46:41stocks and you mentioned you still got buttons.

00:46:43If anybody is

00:46:45going to put a

00:46:47Prindle shifter

00:46:49on a multi-information

00:46:51display, you're actually very well set up for it.

00:46:53In that R1T, you have a horizontal

00:46:55landscape screen

00:46:57and it's right by my hand. If you could just

00:46:59do that, I could go

00:47:01to reverse to drive.

00:47:03What's your position on

00:47:05reducing parts

00:47:07complexity and going to full digital

00:47:09controls?

00:47:11You can imagine

00:47:13we've had all those debates.

00:47:15We've landed, I mean, you see it in R2.

00:47:17We still have a

00:47:19Prindle on the stock.

00:47:21We believe that's

00:47:23the right, call it

00:47:25end point balance.

00:47:29We took it as far as removing HVAC

00:47:31physical controls. I think

00:47:33you guys gave us

00:47:35feedback on that. With the update

00:47:37though, I got to tell you

00:47:39RJ walked in and said,

00:47:41get the fan off me. We have a fan over there.

00:47:43I need a fan in my face at all times when driving

00:47:45with my wife. Opposites. Now with the

00:47:47presets, it's the greatest thing.

00:47:49What you should do is key it to the

00:47:51phone. Oh, that's going to come.

00:47:53That was always

00:47:55the vision. Eventually, if

00:47:57you have multiple people in the vehicle,

00:47:59your configurations in terms of seat

00:48:01cooled, seat heated, and then

00:48:03of course, the rest of HVAC can immediately

00:48:05music, everything.

00:48:07But I mean,

00:48:09having to move

00:48:11vents on the screen never made any sense

00:48:13to me ever, ever until that moment.

00:48:15I was like, this is it.

00:48:17This is what I've been waiting for. I love that.

00:48:19On the Prindle

00:48:21side, yes,

00:48:23you could save some costs, but we don't see

00:48:25it as a customer benefit.

00:48:27Whereas

00:48:29I think on the HVAC, yes, it's more

00:48:31cost effective. Yes, it cleans up the interior, but we

00:48:33also saw what John just said.

00:48:35There are real

00:48:37advantages that come over time.

00:48:39Okay.

00:48:41Let's get out of the car and talk about

00:48:43software-defined vehicles from a partnership's perspective.

00:48:45You, obviously,

00:48:47the announcement with VW

00:48:49group, again, covered in other podcasts

00:48:51very well.

00:48:53I want to just talk a little bit about

00:48:55this other thing VW did, which is

00:48:57they have a partnership

00:48:59that was announced in February with the Chinese company

00:49:01Xpeng, and it covers

00:49:03two vehicles, midsize.

00:49:05They're going to lead with an SUV.

00:49:07It covers software. It covers

00:49:09some purchasing,

00:49:11part sharing,

00:49:13that kind of stuff.

00:49:15Their

00:49:17cars are coming out in like 2026

00:49:19apparently out of this JV. You guys got something

00:49:21coming out in 2026? Is there any

00:49:23overlap? It seems like the agreements

00:49:25that VW made with this Chinese company

00:49:27and with Rivian, there's some overlap

00:49:29and possibly some efficiencies, to use

00:49:31CEO speak. Is there any

00:49:33way?

00:49:35Why would Volkswagen do both, I guess, is our question.

00:49:37Also.

00:49:39Yeah.

00:49:41I don't want to

00:49:43speak for Volkswagen here, but I would say in

00:49:45general, what

00:49:47we believe is going to happen, and I think you'll

00:49:49start to see more and more examples of this as evidence

00:49:51by your question, is that there'll

00:49:53be digital ecosystems that exist for

00:49:55China, and there'll be digital ecosystems

00:49:57that exist for the rest of the world.

00:49:59For lots of reasons, that'll

00:50:01be the case. I think the

00:50:03digital environments are different

00:50:05between the rest of the world and China.

00:50:07I think the

00:50:09policy and trade

00:50:11relations are likely going to drive

00:50:13it towards that.

00:50:15Importantly,

00:50:17I think the trade characteristics

00:50:19are going to be such that

00:50:21vehicles for China need to be

00:50:23designed and built in China. Vehicles for the rest

00:50:25of the world need to be designed and built

00:50:27outside of China. Literally, in their press statement,

00:50:29this is a for China, made in China

00:50:31statement.

00:50:33You didn't mention customer.

00:50:35Is there a customer difference, do you think,

00:50:37from China and the US,

00:50:39in terms of features

00:50:41and vehicle, just the way

00:50:43it looks, feels, drives?

00:50:47I think there's a greater emphasis

00:50:49on digital assistance.

00:50:51As I'm sure you guys have, we

00:50:53spent a good deal of time in China. We have a number of

00:50:55folks we've spent time with in their vehicles.

00:50:57At some

00:50:59levels, a battery electric vehicle

00:51:01has similar chemistry,

00:51:03similar power electronics, so a lot of

00:51:05the core of what it takes to drive the vehicle,

00:51:07same topology

00:51:09of technologies. In terms of

00:51:11the user experience, though,

00:51:13there's more of an emphasis

00:51:15on your

00:51:17digitally native life

00:51:19and integration with everything

00:51:21from your payments platforms to

00:51:23WeChat, Weibo.

00:51:25All of your digital ecosystem

00:51:27that isn't as pervasive in the rest of

00:51:29the world.

00:51:31That doesn't mean

00:51:33Western companies can't do that in China,

00:51:35but it does mean that

00:51:37to try to

00:51:39graft a digital

00:51:41ecosystem from the rest of the world

00:51:43into China and not

00:51:45fully contemplate just how different

00:51:47that market is in terms of

00:51:49what customers are

00:51:51expecting would be a mistake.

00:51:53And vice versa, I think trying to take a

00:51:55Chinese digital ecosystem to

00:51:57the U.S.,

00:51:59WeChat is not going to be

00:52:01valuable here in the United States.

00:52:03Perhaps there's going to be

00:52:05U.S. alternatives

00:52:07to that or examples of that that start to emerge.

00:52:09Of course, that's

00:52:11why we believe that

00:52:13some of that will happen. It's why it's so important

00:52:15to us that we own the digital ecosystem.

00:52:17I'm sure you can't

00:52:19talk to this, but there's security concerns, too.

00:52:21Uncle Xi, always watching.

00:52:23Yeah, exactly.

00:52:25The cloud's a little different in China.

00:52:27I've talked to other manufacturers where

00:52:29they have to run a certain portion

00:52:31of the GPS through it. It has to be a Chinese

00:52:33native company, the whole thing. I get that piece.

00:52:35I wanted to stay a little bit on the

00:52:37consumer, though, because I did note

00:52:39that I just went to China and drove

00:52:4150 different Chinese EVs, and they all

00:52:43have a digital assistant.

00:52:45You can ask it all, like, I'm hungry,

00:52:47and they'll show you a restaurant.

00:52:49Karaoke in the car, light shows,

00:52:51all big things over there. Ed said, what is in the

00:52:53riving of karaoke? I literally was going

00:52:55into the trunks of these cars, and in the

00:52:57accessory kit along with the charger

00:52:59is a boxed microphone.

00:53:01Karaoke and then

00:53:03autonomous.

00:53:05It was like assistant,

00:53:07strong autonomy, and to be

00:53:09honest, this is a terrible way to

00:53:11paint. I'm ethnically Chinese.

00:53:13Not a lot of focus on

00:53:15driving dynamics at the level I think

00:53:17that we come to expect here, certainly

00:53:19that you've delivered in R1T and R1S

00:53:21so far.

00:53:23Is this going to be,

00:53:25I assume, and you can correct me if I'm wrong,

00:53:27that R2 and R3 and

00:53:29R3X are the vehicles, they're perfectly

00:53:31sized to send to China.

00:53:33This would be the kind of vehicles,

00:53:35but do you think you can be competitive

00:53:37without having strong

00:53:39karaoke machines?

00:53:41Could you replace the flashlight

00:53:43on the door with a microphone?

00:53:45Neo's got this talking Nomi

00:53:47camp speaker karaoke

00:53:49box. For us, we've been

00:53:51really clear that

00:53:53today

00:53:55we're focused on, in terms of major

00:53:57markets, US and Europe with R2

00:53:59and R3. We're

00:54:01watching how it plays out in China

00:54:03to determine whether or not we actually participate

00:54:05in China. I think the environment's very different

00:54:07than, let's say, when Tesla launched into China.

00:54:09The relationships between

00:54:11the US and

00:54:13China are very different. As a result,

00:54:15the

00:54:17openness for us

00:54:19to participate there, it's a different

00:54:21place than it was.

00:54:23I think on top of that,

00:54:25to participate

00:54:27in that space today, it's extremely

00:54:29price competitive.

00:54:31There's a lot of...

00:54:33I forgot that part.

00:54:35It's extremely price competitive and to the point of

00:54:37competing well

00:54:39under cost.

00:54:41There's

00:54:43a pretty

00:54:45rich labyrinth of

00:54:47subsidies that exist for Chinese

00:54:49based companies that also

00:54:51make it quite difficult for a non-Chinese entity.

00:54:53Plus 97 car brands.

00:54:55There's a saturation.

00:54:57What you're saying is very interesting.

00:54:59I'm pulling out that you're still evaluating

00:55:01if you go in at all.

00:55:03I did some research.

00:55:05I saw a Reuters quote

00:55:07from 2021. You said,

00:55:09we wouldn't be serious about building a car company if we weren't thinking about

00:55:11China and Europe as important markets

00:55:13long term. This sounds different from that.

00:55:15Things have changed in the last...

00:55:17I would make

00:55:19that statement again.

00:55:21We're committed to Europe. We're thinking about

00:55:23China.

00:55:25There are

00:55:27three giant markets and then lots of

00:55:29supporting small markets, but the US, Europe

00:55:31and China are the three big pools of demand.

00:55:33The millions and millions of cars.

00:55:35We're talking many millions of vehicles.

00:55:37That doesn't

00:55:39exclude Africa, doesn't exclude Middle East, doesn't exclude

00:55:41South America, but in terms of big, big markets

00:55:43you need

00:55:45to be, I think,

00:55:47if you want to be a global manufacturer, you need to be strong

00:55:49in at least two of them.

00:55:51The question is whether or not the environment has changed

00:55:53enough in the last three years from when

00:55:55I made that statement

00:55:57that still makes China an interesting market.

00:55:59I was just going to say

00:56:01our Australian fans want R1.

00:56:03Oh, I know.

00:56:05We get lots of those.

00:56:07It'd be so cool.

00:56:09It fits that market really well.

00:56:11Not a huge market, though.

00:56:13We'll keep going.

00:56:15Should we get into the questions?

00:56:17I've got a couple more.

00:56:19Let me stay on a couple.

00:56:21One is

00:56:23I just want to confirm. The VW Group,

00:56:25the partnership, the $1 billion

00:56:27plus $4 billion,

00:56:29it is on electrical architecture,

00:56:31not inclusive of

00:56:33the autonomous

00:56:35stack.

00:56:37There's some efficiencies

00:56:39I think on supply side.

00:56:41It's not

00:56:43platform.

00:56:45R3 looks kind of

00:56:47golf-sized.

00:56:49Maybe R2 is kind of Macan-sized.

00:56:51Is there any hardware,

00:56:53any bodies in white going to be going back and forth?

00:56:55That's not to say

00:56:59something like that couldn't happen, but

00:57:01what we've talked about in terms of

00:57:03the relationship and the partnership is purely around

00:57:05leveraging our software stack

00:57:07and leveraging our

00:57:09topology of VCUs and associated network

00:57:11architecture.

00:57:13As we said, that excludes

00:57:15autonomy today.

00:57:17Importantly,

00:57:19it does open up lots of opportunities.

00:57:21One of the things we learned

00:57:23very much through looking at partnerships at a

00:57:25platform level in the past is by far

00:57:27and away, by orders of magnitude,

00:57:29the most complex part of any platform

00:57:31sharing exercise.

00:57:33It's not mechanical. It's not does it fit

00:57:35down the line. It's how do we get

00:57:37our digital ecosystem,

00:57:39software system, to talk to your system?

00:57:41Because we're going to have the same

00:57:43network architecture, same software stack,

00:57:45it does open up a lot of other opportunities.

00:57:47Those are not part of this deal.

00:57:49What about Scout?

00:57:51This is the one where

00:57:53they showed two things that

00:57:55looked a lot like R1 products.

00:57:57They're Volkswagen.

00:57:59They're 100% Volkswagen.

00:58:01They're getting your

00:58:03seven ECUs and

00:58:05associated software.

00:58:07They're building a factory in South Carolina.

00:58:09Pretty close to Georgia.

00:58:11Their tagline is all-purpose, all-electric,

00:58:13all-American, for the makers and the doers.

00:58:15It literally could be Rivian.

00:58:17Is it redundant?

00:58:19I know you can't speak to anything Scout,

00:58:21but it just seems like...

00:58:23Especially in the face

00:58:25of the joint venture.

00:58:27What's the Scout thing?

00:58:31In terms of our joint venture,

00:58:33it's to support all Volkswagen Group products.

00:58:35That's Porsche,

00:58:37that's Audi,

00:58:39that's Bentley,

00:58:41that's Lamborghini,

00:58:43inclusive of Scout.

00:58:45I think that

00:58:47it's important,

00:58:49coming back to something we talked about

00:58:51at the beginning, just to recognize

00:58:53the need for variety and need for choice.

00:58:57I think it's great

00:58:59that there's going to be something else

00:59:01that's in a space of electrification

00:59:03and active outdoor vehicle.

00:59:05I think the space is really large.

00:59:07I think you could equally say,

00:59:09well, what about Jeep?

00:59:11There's a need to have

00:59:13multiple perspectives here.

00:59:15We don't have a challenge

00:59:17of enough customers.

00:59:19We have a challenge of enough products

00:59:21that meet customers' need to get them

00:59:23to make a choice to go there.

00:59:25We're really happy

00:59:27with what we're building.

00:59:29The way the customers are acting to it,

00:59:31in fact, J.D. Patterson,

00:59:33just issued this morning,

00:59:35they do an annual

00:59:37brand satisfaction, brand appeal.

00:59:39We came out number one last year.

00:59:41This year, we came out number one again,

00:59:43which is awesome.

00:59:47By the way,

00:59:49does everybody know Johnny owns one

00:59:51and talks about it constantly?

00:59:53Sorry.

00:59:55He's a very satisfied customer.

00:59:57I asked my wife,

00:59:59I said, hey, I'm talking to the founder.

01:00:01She said, nice.

01:00:03Tell him I love him.

01:00:05You got to understand what's weird is

01:00:07my wife for years was like,

01:00:09you're not allowed to buy an SUV.

01:00:11No SUV.

01:00:13I only want small little cars.

01:00:15Certainly not a truck.

01:00:17A Jewish lawyer from Philadelphia.

01:00:19What does she want a pickup truck for?

01:00:21A yellow pickup truck.

01:00:23Then Green Bay Packers colors,

01:00:25which she was really pissed

01:00:27when she figured that out

01:00:29Don't become a blithering right wing idiot

01:00:31like another EV CEO.

01:00:37We were going skiing a lot

01:00:39and I wanted something

01:00:41that was just ours.

01:00:43I didn't have to rely on the Chevy

01:00:45you were going to get got damaged.

01:00:47I had an ordering on a Lexus GX.

01:00:49I was like, alright, I'll get a GX,

01:00:51I'll modify it, make it an ultimate off-roader.

01:00:53Went on the tat thing.

01:00:55By the way, a week before I went on the tat thing,

01:00:57my wife called me off because I was like,

01:00:59Rivian's f***ing vaporware, man.

01:01:01This is another fight.

01:01:03The Transamerica Trail.

01:01:05Seabog, who's organizing it on our end,

01:01:07was like, don't go.

01:01:09I was like, I'll go.

01:01:11Thinking it would be a disaster.

01:01:13I literally got home and put a deposit down.

01:01:15I love that.

01:01:17We were skiing and we saw blue.

01:01:19It must have been one of your engineers

01:01:21really early.

01:01:23It was in December of 21.

01:01:25I was like, what is that?

01:01:27That's that thing I drove.

01:01:29I hadn't told her I put a deposit down.

01:01:31She's like, we can get that?

01:01:33I'm like, yeah, we can get that.

01:01:35She won't get out of the thing.

01:01:37We're learning more about your marriage.

01:01:39I'm going back to the customer satisfaction thing.

01:01:41This is, again, a person who...

01:01:43One time, truck of the year,

01:01:45we had a F450 Dually.

01:01:47For whatever reason, she had to drive it somewhere.

01:01:49She got back in the car and she's like,

01:01:51never, I'm never driving anything like that again.

01:01:53I hate it.

01:01:55It's weird.

01:01:57That's a 100 percentile vehicle.

01:01:59My point is,

01:02:01there's something about

01:02:03the R1

01:02:05that people really like

01:02:07that you wouldn't think would like them.

01:02:09She doesn't off-road.

01:02:11She never goes fast in it.

01:02:13She just loves the thing.

01:02:15There's something about

01:02:17the way we developed the product.

01:02:19By the way, I'm paying him.

01:02:21The way we developed the product is

01:02:23we try really hard to have

01:02:25the vehicle feel really connected

01:02:27to you as a customer.

01:02:29Part of that is when you think about generating

01:02:31the features and requirements,

01:02:33not letting that become

01:02:35algorithmic.

01:02:37The moment it becomes algorithmic,

01:02:39it loses that human element.

01:02:41It's hard to explain what makes a Rivian

01:02:43feel so special, but the reality is

01:02:45it's because we have lots of humans

01:02:47that are spending a lot of time coordinating

01:02:49to make sure we're taking similar common perspectives,

01:02:51but making decisions

01:02:53that maybe aren't obvious

01:02:55to creating a spreadsheet

01:02:57of features that have to compete with something else.

01:02:59Little things,

01:03:01like a flashlight in the door.

01:03:03Not necessary. You could look at it and say,

01:03:05that's $30 of excess cost.

01:03:07But it's part of

01:03:09a very intentional

01:03:11set of decisions to make the vehicle feel

01:03:13like a bunch of enthusiasts

01:03:15and car people and technologists

01:03:17working together.

01:03:19What's fascinating is I talk to a lot of people

01:03:21about when I was with the

01:03:23Mercedes team with the electric G-Wagon.

01:03:25We were up in Sweden driving it around.

01:03:27I was like, what are you guys benchmarking?

01:03:29They were like, everything out there

01:03:31is all crap, except that Rivian

01:03:33was really good. We actually thought

01:03:35about air suspension for a second.

01:03:37They're going to deny that, but we thought about it.

01:03:39It was so effective.

01:03:41Increasing ground clearance. They really liked it.

01:03:43A lot of people were like, I can't believe this was a first effort.

01:03:45The craziest one was

01:03:47I went on the Range Rover

01:03:49sport launch, and I got a blank guy's name,

01:03:51chief engineer of Land Rover. He's been there 27 years.

01:03:53He goes, you got a Rivian?

01:03:55He goes, we just got a Rivian.

01:03:57I go, what do you think? He goes, we can't believe how good,

01:03:59and in my mind he's going to say, how good it is

01:04:01off-road. This is Range Rover guy going,

01:04:03we can't believe how good the interior is.

01:04:05The quality of the interior

01:04:07for a first product doesn't make any sense.

01:04:09What do those guys know about interiors?

01:04:11I'm just kidding.

01:04:13It's a wild product.

01:04:15Let's go to the lightning round of listener questions.

01:04:17We're going to go with

01:04:19PH Barnhart.

01:04:21Can we expect a native texting app anytime soon?

01:04:23Yes.

01:04:27Is Rivian going to send an R3X

01:04:29to Pike's Peak?

01:04:31That's Mike Drew's show.

01:04:33You should do what Hyundai did,

01:04:35where they had two wild ones, and then

01:04:37put me in one.

01:04:39I was able to go to that.

01:04:41I raced it.

01:04:43I met Gardner two years ago.

01:04:45He wasn't racing, he was supporting

01:04:47the car that won.

01:04:49It's super cool.

01:04:51R3X.

01:04:53It's a perfect car for that.

01:04:55Dean Moner

01:04:57asks, will Rivian have something comparable

01:04:59to Tesla's full self-driving app?

01:05:01When?

01:05:03Will it be available on Gen 1 R1

01:05:05products?

01:05:07We are working towards

01:05:09really being a leader in the

01:05:11self-driving space. Absolutely, but it

01:05:13won't be available on the Gen 1 architecture

01:05:15because of the harbors.

01:05:17I'm not set up for it.

01:05:19I can't pronounce your name.

01:05:21Can we please have

01:05:23app access to control the climate

01:05:25in the third row? As of now, it doesn't

01:05:27automatically turn on when someone is back there.

01:05:29Yeah, another zone.

01:05:31We are adding additional zones.

01:05:33The hardware in the vehicle allows

01:05:35say we have a zone in the front, a zone in the back.

01:05:37We are going to add

01:05:39the ability to split into two more zones.

01:05:41That will be coming, but the third row

01:05:43will link to the second row.

01:05:45Mopardad, who

01:05:47said a bunch of silly stuff, did ask,

01:05:49does Rivian have any plans

01:05:51to build the equivalent of a heavy-duty truck?

01:05:53We do not have plans.

01:05:55Great. I love definitive answers.

01:05:57This is a good one. Several people have asked this one,

01:05:59but this one came from PMacDonald.

01:06:01Any plans to make an R1S

01:06:03XL, a longer SUV

01:06:05like a Suburban vis-a-vis Tahoe?

01:06:07You could use the R1T wheelbase.

01:06:09Yeah, we've thought about it. The size

01:06:11of the market is not very large

01:06:13though. So we've

01:06:15technically very doable, but in terms

01:06:17of where we're focusing, that's something we're focusing on today.

01:06:19Isn't that a money printing machine

01:06:21though? You just put another row

01:06:23in and some carpeting? No, a row.

01:06:25You just make more storage behind the third row.

01:06:27We've looked at shorter ones and longer

01:06:29ones. We looked at a two-row version of R1

01:06:31and a longer three-row, but

01:06:33back to some of the points I made before,

01:06:35the most important thing we can do right now

01:06:37is launch R2.

01:06:39The real AJ Gupta,

01:06:41will we see a native NAX

01:06:43Charger? And as Johnny

01:06:45wants to add. Yeah, I mean since

01:06:47the Supercharger team would bend away,

01:06:49are you guys still

01:06:51on board with NACS?

01:06:53Yeah, we're still

01:06:55on track. It

01:06:57took longer than planned because of some supplier constraints,

01:06:59but the adapter between CCS and

01:07:01NACS is now shipping to customers,

01:07:03which is great. Yeah, you used it three

01:07:05times this weekend. Yes.

01:07:07I love that. Flawless. Amazing.

01:07:09But we are going native and that's going

01:07:11to be coming in the future.

01:07:13So everyone on the Supercharger team getting

01:07:15laid off doesn't affect that?

01:07:17No, because I think it

01:07:19affects the rate

01:07:21at which the Tesla network continues to grow.

01:07:23Yeah.

01:07:25But the network that's installed

01:07:27today, it's a great network.

01:07:29The way I always characterize this,

01:07:31there's a

01:07:33surprising lack of great charging

01:07:35networks in the United States. Yes.

01:07:37And the

01:07:39most important metric, I think, beyond number

01:07:41of locations is uptime.

01:07:43Tesla's at like 98-99%.

01:07:45Our Rivian Adventure Network's

01:07:47over 98%, but everything else

01:07:49is, we have the data, it's startlingly

01:07:51low. Yeah, no, I mean I was...

01:07:53It's so frustrating when you get to a charging location

01:07:55and it doesn't work. Oh, it's crazy.

01:07:57It's horrific. I just can't

01:07:59believe how bad some of the networks are.

01:08:01We were at San Luis Obispo,

01:08:03which has a population of nobody,

01:08:05and there was 16

01:08:07chargers at the hotel, and then

01:08:09they weren't compatible with Rivian, but 0.9

01:08:11miles away, there were 16 Tesla chargers

01:08:13that were compatible. Wow.

01:08:15It was fantastic. I had two Teslas

01:08:17with me. Sorry, two Rivians with me.

01:08:19It was great. So A.J. Gupta, the

01:08:21native NAX charger from Rivian

01:08:23is coming. Joe

01:08:25Hillick, future open

01:08:27air Rango Bronco

01:08:29challenger. Basically, you got

01:08:31an open roof thing coming?

01:08:33We've talked about it. I don't think we've ever...

01:08:35I could

01:08:37relay a little story. Oh, did somebody

01:08:39tell you something? I was sitting in the Vergic Atlantic

01:08:41Lounge in Heathrow, and

01:08:43the guy next to me, I saw on his laptop,

01:08:45he had a picture of some

01:08:47future Rivian, so I was just like listening

01:08:49in, and it was

01:08:51removable roof panels. Yeah.

01:08:53That's a dude fired. Yeah, that's okay. He had no idea.

01:08:55I sat there, and I was

01:08:57just like... Send me the date.

01:08:59It was a couple years ago, but I was just taking

01:09:01notes, and I kept looking at his laptop. I was like,

01:09:03that's cool.

01:09:05Not an

01:09:07answer plan, but something that

01:09:09we think about. We think it'd be cool.

01:09:11My dad really wants one.

01:09:13My dad has told me that if we don't make one, he's

01:09:15going to cut the roof off of his and make it himself.

01:09:17I want to see the plans, because then I'll

01:09:19put steel over it.

01:09:21From, I think, your buddy,

01:09:23or I hope he's your buddy, Kyle Connor has a couple

01:09:25good ones.

01:09:27That's a tough one. How does Rivian decide where to focus

01:09:29engineering spend? For example,

01:09:31a 1025

01:09:33horsepower quad versus more

01:09:35cost savings?

01:09:37Yeah. It's sort of linked to some of the questions

01:09:39we had before on different variants of R1,

01:09:41removable roof option.

01:09:43There's

01:09:45no shortage of

01:09:47really interesting, exciting, great ideas.

01:09:49That's good.

01:09:51As we've just demonstrated.

01:09:53It's like a buffet table of things we'd love to do.

01:09:55I'm glad though, real quick,

01:09:57because I put on

01:09:59our Slack channel,

01:10:01I was like, God, I hope

01:10:03the R3X has 850, after

01:10:05driving this try.

01:10:07Our cynical staff,

01:10:09why not 8500? I was like, yeah,

01:10:11why not 8500? I love that you guys

01:10:13embrace extreme stuff.

01:10:15I want lower cost.

01:10:17Very specifically the things we do.

01:10:19In the case of R1,

01:10:21it's our flagship product.

01:10:23You're driving a tri,

01:10:25it's quicker than the original quad.

01:10:27The next generation quad is

01:10:29just so

01:10:31incredibly over the top

01:10:33and wonderful. It's great for building

01:10:35brand. Do you need a vehicle that can go 0-60

01:10:37in under 2.5 seconds? It runs a quarter

01:10:39mile in 10.5 seconds.

01:10:41It's faster than a McLaren F1,

01:10:43a Ferrari Enzo.

01:10:45You need a 911 to sell McLarens.

01:10:47It's great for the brand.

01:10:49In terms of getting to the lower

01:10:51cost, that's why I keep coming back to it,

01:10:53R2 is the core focus of the business.

01:10:55A cheaper R1

01:10:57is not going to lower the price

01:10:59down into the

01:11:01sub 45,000 R range, but R2

01:11:03does.

01:11:05Here's a good one. Sam Weissman,

01:11:07when can I put in a reservation for an

01:11:09R3X? Good question.

01:11:11Not yet.

01:11:15Real quick.

01:11:17R2 timing.

01:11:19You guys must be getting closer.

01:11:21Are we 12 months out?

01:11:23Are we 15 months out?

01:11:25It hasn't changed

01:11:27the first half of 2026.

01:11:33I wish it was today.

01:11:35I'm sure you do.

01:11:37I'm convinced you do.

01:11:39You brought it up.

01:11:41Why can't

01:11:43interested parties put down

01:11:45a reservation on R3X?

01:11:49By the way, we debate this internally as well.

01:11:53One of the learnings with launching

01:11:55R1, one of the things we did that made it

01:11:57very hard for us, and of course there was compounding

01:11:59factors that weren't planned, but we launched

01:12:01R1T, R1S, and a commercial van

01:12:03all within the same

01:12:05six month window. It was our

01:12:07first product, and our

01:12:09second product, and our third product all at once. We had three

01:12:11supply chains we were ramping. Then we had a supply

01:12:13chain crisis in 2022.

01:12:15Just the complexity of

01:12:17it's as if you stuffed a whole hamburger

01:12:19in your mouth and you had to try to swallow it.

01:12:23It would have been easier to break it into

01:12:25multiple bites.

01:12:27With this platform, we've said we're going to

01:12:29launch R2 first. We're going to let that be a clean

01:12:31launch. We're going to allow ourselves to

01:12:33make sure it very rapidly

01:12:35gets to ramp and

01:12:37profitability. Then R3

01:12:39comes in. Because of that, it

01:12:41means R3 is not going to launch at the same time as

01:12:43R2. One of the learnings

01:12:45on R1, which we

01:12:47and I've talked about this before,

01:12:49we got it wrong. It's

01:12:51nearly impossible to get it right when you have a really large

01:12:53backlog of demand.

01:12:55If you put an order in,

01:12:57that's your mental clock for saying, I have an order

01:12:59in. You get

01:13:01a little anxious saying, why don't I have it yet?

01:13:03Then we start building cars. You create angry

01:13:05people. Then you start building cars and everyone

01:13:07is like, I have an order, why don't I get it today?

01:13:09You can't press a button and have 200,000

01:13:11cars immediately produced.

01:13:13We said, let's

01:13:15shorten the amount of time from placement of order

01:13:17to deliver a vehicle

01:13:19by just as we're staggering the

01:13:21launch of vehicles, let's stagger the beginning

01:13:23of essentially the line

01:13:25formation, the queue formation

01:13:27for R3. Let's reduce the

01:13:29potential of making people upset.

01:13:31I get notes from people, I waited

01:13:331,133

01:13:35days for my R1.

01:13:37I'm talking to the guy right now.

01:13:39That doesn't feel great.

01:13:41Why the electric door handles from

01:13:43Have You Met, Seen? I'm worried about

01:13:45safety.

01:13:47R2, R3

01:13:49moved to an electronic

01:13:51handle.

01:13:53There's a number of

01:13:55reasons. One is it simplifies the architecture,

01:13:57but it also allows it to be software defined.

01:13:59One of the things we like that we don't

01:14:01have in the Gen 1 is the child

01:14:03locks on the doors are now

01:14:05much easier to execute.

01:14:07It's purely software.

01:14:09Like the window locks.

01:14:11Very similar to window locks.

01:14:13Is the R2 going to

01:14:15have a glass roof, says Keith Tussey.

01:14:17It does.

01:14:19Oh, this is a great one.

01:14:21GMT

01:14:23Minute 5, what is your opinion of

01:14:25subscribing to hardware that's installed in the

01:14:27vehicle? Subscription features

01:14:29in the car, not third party

01:14:31like Spotify, which you pay for.

01:14:33Seat massage.

01:14:35Heated seats.

01:14:37The BMW heated seat fiasco.

01:14:41The way we think about it

01:14:43philosophically is if we're going to charge

01:14:45incrementally for a feature that's software based,

01:14:47it should have

01:14:49incremental cost to us.

01:14:51If it's just us, like a

01:14:53heated seat, like a binary turning it on or turning it off,

01:14:55that feels

01:14:57disingenuous to a customer.

01:15:01The most extreme example of that is

01:15:03as you move into higher levels

01:15:05of autonomy, there's a very

01:15:07high set of costs associated with developing

01:15:09those higher levels of autonomy.

01:15:11That's where we see the

01:15:13most pricing potential. We think customers are actually

01:15:15pretty smart at this.

01:15:17Whether they fully understand

01:15:19exactly what the costs are

01:15:21or not, they can tell if you're

01:15:23charging for something you shouldn't be charging for,

01:15:25like a heated seat turning on or off,

01:15:27or charging something that is appropriately

01:15:29and has ongoing engineering cost

01:15:31or

01:15:33data cost or something associated

01:15:35with it that warrants some incremental

01:15:37charge. That's the framework

01:15:39we look at it through.

01:15:43I think the other

01:15:45question that underlines that

01:15:47is how is the

01:15:49customer model

01:15:51going to evolve? Are we going to move to a world where

01:15:53more and more features are

01:15:55purchased through recurring subscriptions

01:15:57or do people prefer to pay up front?

01:15:59What we've seen is generally

01:16:01people still like to

01:16:03pay for it all up front, put it into the financing

01:16:05charge, and don't nickel and dime me on

01:16:07a bunch of different things.

01:16:09I think the challenge on a

01:16:11few areas is going to be

01:16:13where there's high variable costs

01:16:15associated with it. Charging of

01:16:17vehicles, that's something

01:16:19we're very comfortable with. When you charge the vehicle, you pay

01:16:21for it. Autonomy

01:16:23is one that there's levels of comfort

01:16:25growing. We're not currently charging for autonomy,

01:16:27but eventually, as we move to higher levels,

01:16:29we anticipate doing so.

01:16:31Outside of that, we're

01:16:33in date, of course, because there's real variable

01:16:35costs associated with it. Outside of those,

01:16:37I think there's massive

01:16:41inflation of

01:16:43what the auto industry has

01:16:45projected as revenue associated

01:16:47with it. I think it's easy to

01:16:49do a spreadsheet and be like, I'm going to charge everybody

01:16:51$1,000 a year for software services,

01:16:53but customers are just going to reject it.

01:16:55I can tell you, because Motor Trend

01:16:57has been part of a streaming network,

01:16:59a subscriber video on demand.

01:17:01We can tell you a lot about that and

01:17:03where it goes wrong.

01:17:05The other thing to keep in mind is that

01:17:09competitive forces

01:17:11naturally drive things

01:17:13as methodically

01:17:15to some fraction

01:17:17of their... some element

01:17:19that relates to their cost.

01:17:21If something doesn't have a true cost associated

01:17:23with it, and if I'm competing with you to sell,

01:17:25my marginal cost

01:17:27to give the feature away

01:17:29is zero.

01:17:31Our belief is

01:17:33that competitive forces will drive

01:17:35the non-cost

01:17:37items in the vehicle to zero because

01:17:39you'll want to generate incremental features.

01:17:41Whereas the things that

01:17:43have cost, the asymptotic

01:17:45end is going to be cost

01:17:47plus some margin.

01:17:49You offer these features

01:17:51today that become expected.

01:17:53Software is

01:17:55known for this.

01:17:57Ignore vehicles. A lot of the things

01:17:59we paid for early days

01:18:01became free over time.

01:18:03We used to pay for

01:18:05what's your search engine?

01:18:07Or a spreadsheet.

01:18:09These things just become free, and they make money in other ways.

01:18:11I was going to say, also, part of what I think has really

01:18:13made Tesla owners love their Teslas and Rivian

01:18:15owners love their Rivians is you wake up

01:18:17and your car is better. It's just such a

01:18:19good feeling rather than

01:18:21like, I'm paying on this car, and every day

01:18:23I just know it's getting worse. It's like, my car

01:18:25is getting better. I remember famously

01:18:27the one I always talk about with

01:18:29Tesla was when

01:18:31geofencing suddenly appeared

01:18:33on the Model S.

01:18:35You had to raise the suspension

01:18:37every time you got to the driveway. Suddenly, it did it

01:18:39automatically. It's like, whoa!

01:18:41And then with...

01:18:43Well, a little bit less.

01:18:45With my truck,

01:18:47it had 270 miles of range.

01:18:49I went to bed, and in the morning, it had 285.

01:18:51That was pretty cool.

01:18:53Then camp mode, and the Halloween modes,

01:18:55and all these things.

01:18:57I still remember my kid

01:18:59freaking out about the zombies walking around.

01:19:01Halloween mode this year is going to be...

01:19:03It better be.

01:19:05Take note.

01:19:07I just did a review of all the costumes for this week.

01:19:09It's breaking news.

01:19:11We only got five left.

01:19:13This is probably Johnny masquerading as R1T638.

01:19:15Will Rivian

01:19:17bring back Compass Yellow?

01:19:19PTS, come on.

01:19:21Not planning on it.

01:19:23We'll pay for it.

01:19:25I'd say we have new colors coming.

01:19:27Colors like Compass Yellow,

01:19:29they're

01:19:31understandably lower take rate colors.

01:19:33We actually see those

01:19:35as opportunities to have a really fun color,

01:19:37make it for some time.

01:19:39The take rate is going to be a few percent.

01:19:41But then use that color slot, if you will,

01:19:43for something else.

01:19:45Keep it spicy.

01:19:47We have some really cool colors that are coming that will replace Compass Yellow.

01:19:49When you have to upgrade to your Gen 2,

01:19:51you'll have a cool choice.

01:19:53It might be R3X.

01:19:55I'm just letting you know. We're really happy with that truck.

01:19:57Jalopy Jockey.

01:19:59When will Rivians get bi-directional charging?

01:20:01Oh, yeah.

01:20:03That's a nuanced question.

01:20:05It is.

01:20:07There's a lot of misinformation.

01:20:09I'm going to take a minute to help

01:20:11clear this up.

01:20:13There is bi-directional charging

01:20:15where the conversion of AC

01:20:17to DC happens in the vehicle.

01:20:19When you plug your car

01:20:21into your house, AC is coming from

01:20:23your house, it gets converted to DC,

01:20:25the DC goes into the vehicle.

01:20:27But it's not as if

01:20:29when you say bi-directional charging is on, you just plug

01:20:31the car into the house and it works.

01:20:33You need a box that goes to the house

01:20:35that allows...

01:20:37That's a transfer switch.

01:20:39It's not as the graphic of

01:20:41my car just plugs in and everything works.

01:20:43The Gen 1

01:20:45vehicles and the Gen 2 R1 vehicles

01:20:47already allow for bi-directional DC

01:20:49charging, meaning DC can go from the vehicle

01:20:51to the house, the house has a box

01:20:53that converts the DC to AC, and we're

01:20:55developing a product.

01:20:57We've talked about it a few times. We haven't really made

01:20:59a big deal of it, but soon we'll talk more about it.

01:21:01That's a bi-directional DC

01:21:03charger. It's a DC charger that sits in your house

01:21:05because it's DC at a higher rate,

01:21:07so it charges at

01:21:09more than 20 kilowatts

01:21:11into the vehicle. It can also send 20 kilowatts

01:21:13into the house.

01:21:15But that's a DC,

01:21:17that's an off-board charger.

01:21:19R2 will have an on-board

01:21:21bi-directional AC charger, but for

01:21:23packaging reasons, you don't want to put a 24 kilowatt

01:21:25on-board charger in the vehicle

01:21:27so it's more like 10, 11 kilowatts,

01:21:29which is why you see most vehicles have

01:21:31for their on-board charger something on

01:21:33the order of 10 kilowatts, and it's just cost.

01:21:35It's just how big of an AC to DC

01:21:37converter do you want in the vehicle.

01:21:39When we launch the

01:21:41bi-directional DC charger as a product,

01:21:43which will work for Rivians and non-Rivians alike,

01:21:45every Rivian we've ever built

01:21:47will be capable of doing bi-directional charging.

01:21:49But it requires

01:21:51the bi-di. Great answer.

01:21:53Great question. Thank you for dropping that in.

01:21:55We just had some GM Energy

01:21:57show

01:21:59their bi-di.

01:22:01Bi-directional DC.

01:22:03Actually,

01:22:05our power electronics team

01:22:07is based in Torrance, and we're developing

01:22:09a bi-directional charger there.

01:22:11Great. Awesome.

01:22:13S404 wants to know

01:22:15when Rivians will be

01:22:17in Saudi or the UAE?

01:22:19And then just other markets.

01:22:21It's funny you ask about Saudi and UAE.

01:22:23There's a ton of Rivians that are already over there.

01:22:25The gray market, what do you call it?

01:22:27Yeah.

01:22:29I think they have some money there.

01:22:31I don't know. They can ship them.

01:22:33It's such a great signal to us that we need

01:22:35to turn on that market officially because there's

01:22:37hundreds of vehicles that somebody's purchased

01:22:39here, like put on a plane

01:22:41or maybe on a boat, but often

01:22:43a plane, which is not a cheap plane to get.

01:22:45And their own plane. And flown them over

01:22:47with no service infrastructure or service

01:22:49support. The nav doesn't work out there, right?

01:22:51There's no way. It's not set up for it.

01:22:53But the fact

01:22:55that customers want the vehicle that badly,

01:22:57that kind of hunterism is really encouraging to us.

01:22:59I mean, there's a huge, as you know,

01:23:01there's a huge off-road culture there.

01:23:03So anything that's a great off-roader, they want.

01:23:05Yeah, especially the combination of off-road

01:23:07and premium. And big power.

01:23:09Yeah. Driving experience and nice interior.

01:23:11So coming soon?

01:23:13Something we're working on, yeah.

01:23:15Nice. Oh, good question.

01:23:17All right, we're in the final three.

01:23:19We'll ask him anyways.

01:23:21What's the hardest part about not having

01:23:23dealerships?

01:23:25Do you have experience centers?

01:23:27To be fair, that was a longer question, saying

01:23:29what was your decision-making process about going

01:23:31direct-to-consumer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:23:33But then I thought, you know.

01:23:37Boy, that's a lot there.

01:23:39So the challenge with a dealer

01:23:41model is, of course, you don't control

01:23:43the dealer. So the messaging can be

01:23:45inconsistent. Pricing can be inconsistent.

01:23:47You're generally paying between

01:23:4910% and 15% of the

01:23:51price to the dealer to sell

01:23:53for you. So it's your outsource sales.

01:23:55That's a pretty heavy

01:23:57margin stack.

01:23:59We think of it as a significant

01:24:01structural cost disadvantage to sell

01:24:03indirect, to pay someone

01:24:05essentially to sell for you.

01:24:07But aside from all that,

01:24:09it misses the opportunity

01:24:11to build different go-to-market

01:24:13strategies. And

01:24:15if you'd asked me this question

01:24:17in 2021 in the heart of COVID,

01:24:19we were of the view that

01:24:21we could get away with very, very little

01:24:23physical infrastructure. And we've now

01:24:25come to the conclusion we need some,

01:24:27but certainly

01:24:29not near the level of physical

01:24:31infrastructure that exists for traditional

01:24:33large volume brands. So you take

01:24:35some of the large U.S.

01:24:37manufacturers. They have 4,000 or 5,000

01:24:39sales locations.

01:24:41And that's an unnecessarily

01:24:43large network of brick-and-mortar

01:24:45op-ecs

01:24:47that doesn't show up necessarily

01:24:49directly on the P&L of the manufacturer,

01:24:51but shows up indirectly in the form of this

01:24:53thick cost associated with that sales

01:24:55process. So we think our

01:24:57delivery model, our sales model, costs

01:24:59about one-tenth that of

01:25:01the dealer model.

01:25:03All that said, most importantly is we get to control

01:25:05the message. And when you go through the dealer

01:25:07infrastructure, you do

01:25:09have the challenges of working

01:25:11for others.

01:25:13Real quick, that's also part of why there's no

01:25:15CarPlay, is you control the look and

01:25:17feel of the ribbon at all times.

01:25:19It's not like Apple decides, ah, new color scheme.

01:25:21Now, the advantage if you were to sign

01:25:23up a big dealer group is you have a lot of

01:25:25sales locations very quickly.

01:25:27And so it's a lower capex way

01:25:29to launch, but long-term

01:25:31it's a

01:25:33meaningful

01:25:35structural cost disadvantage.

01:25:37Okay.

01:25:39Skip the Florida

01:25:41one. Yeah? Okay. All right, so we'll go

01:25:43to the last question.

01:25:45Did Tesla make things

01:25:47easier or harder for

01:25:49Rivian? I think

01:25:51definitely easier. I mean, Tesla's

01:25:55whether you, regardless

01:25:57of whether you like Tesla products or not,

01:25:59one has to

01:26:01give them full credit for helping to make

01:26:03electric vehicles cool. A hundred percent.

01:26:05You know, it's hard to remember

01:26:07maybe now, but in

01:26:092007, 2008

01:26:11people thought of electric

01:26:13vehicles, they conjured up the idea of like a golf

01:26:15cart. Yep. And Tesla

01:26:17did an amazing job at disproving

01:26:19that and showing they can be really fun.

01:26:21I've got it, it was probably 2013

01:26:23or 14, but it was after we had named the Model

01:26:25S car of the year. Yeah, yeah. I was at a

01:26:27round table with Wolfgang Dürrheimer

01:26:29who at the time was the CEO of Audi

01:26:31and he said like, yeah, I think the Model

01:26:33S is pretty cool. And I

01:26:35put it in the write-up I did

01:26:37and that like got him in trouble. That was

01:26:39like, you know, pre-diesel

01:26:41gate, but that was like not cool

01:26:43at Volkswagen at the time to say that.

01:26:45You know, and

01:26:47yeah, so it's definitely Tesla.

01:26:49A hundred percent. Okay.

01:26:51Made it easier. Well, I mean

01:26:53I can't believe it, we actually made it through most.

01:26:55We covered almost everything I wanted

01:26:57to talk about. Well, actually there was one question in here

01:26:59because you are

01:27:01an admitted Porsche fan.

01:27:03Yeah. So...

01:27:05Everyone on this podcast eventually is a Porsche

01:27:07fan. Every car enthusiast

01:27:09has

01:27:11an affinity for Porsche. I tried not to be

01:27:13but yeah. And it's funny, every

01:27:15car company leader

01:27:17Oh yeah. They all

01:27:19have a soft spot in their heart for 911.

01:27:21They have a 911. They own one.

01:27:23I can give you a list of like

01:27:25board members, CEOs,

01:27:27heads of design that have

01:27:29showed me on their phone. Farley's got one.

01:27:31Ralf's got one. Ralf's is a secret.

01:27:33I didn't say Ralf, who?

01:27:35The other Ralf.

01:27:37SR20Hatchback asks

01:27:39what model Porsches do you like?

01:27:41Was there a specific Porsche that inspired

01:27:43the original Rivian

01:27:45sports car idea?

01:27:47I grew up

01:27:49in love

01:27:51with old classic Porsches

01:27:53and 356s

01:27:57worked on them

01:27:59and when you work on that type

01:28:01of vehicle, you end up working across a range

01:28:03of vehicles. I had a Porsche 914

01:28:05with 911 turbo

01:28:07suspension, brakes.

01:28:09The beautiful thing about those cars is the mounting points

01:28:11for a lot of this is all very similar.

01:28:13I have a 914. You do?

01:28:15I do. What do you have for an engine in it?

01:28:17It's being held hostage at the moment.

01:28:19It's a 1970.

01:28:21It's a 1.7.

01:28:23It's a long, slow restoration. A great project

01:28:25would be to put a

01:28:27two motor per axle system into

01:28:29a 914. Like a 500

01:28:31horsepower 914 would be pretty cool.

01:28:33With 1,800 pounds maybe?

01:28:35Actually, with the batteries.

01:28:37Yeah, but still at 2,500 pounds

01:28:39it would be... My friend

01:28:41just put a V8 Hayabusa motor

01:28:43into a 914.

01:28:45It's insane. It's like 300 horsepower

01:28:471,700 pounds.

01:28:49Undriveable might be the word.

01:28:51Yeah.

01:28:53This is a real question.

01:28:55Do you have a secret

01:28:57Porsche that you don't tell anybody about?

01:28:59No, I don't have a secret Porsche.

01:29:01It's true that in 2009

01:29:03when you were starting, we had a different name

01:29:05back then. Yeah, we had a few different

01:29:07iterations. The original thought was

01:29:09a sports car company.

01:29:11Not a...

01:29:13I guess not a surprising

01:29:15way to think about starting a business.

01:29:17To build the brand, launch something that's really

01:29:19exciting. This is what Tesla

01:29:21did very successfully with how

01:29:23they launched Roadster.

01:29:25We were working on a strategy that

01:29:27very much looked like that. Launch a sports car,

01:29:29build a brand, launch more mass market vehicles.

01:29:31We stopped that and

01:29:33completely pivoted off of that.

01:29:35Because of a bit of an aha

01:29:37realization for us, in some

01:29:39ways, just almost like accepting of

01:29:41what we sensed for a while.

01:29:43That strategy had already been done.

01:29:45That's what Tesla did.

01:29:47When we

01:29:49shelved that program and then began

01:29:51thinking about what we were going to build and what we were going to launch,

01:29:53that period

01:29:55of a year was one

01:29:57of the most important creative moments in Rivian's

01:29:59trajectory because we defined the brand

01:30:01that you now see, the product portfolio

01:30:03you're seeing.

01:30:05That was in 2010-11?

01:30:07That was like

01:30:092011-12.

01:30:11Okay.

01:30:13Yeah, it was

01:30:15definitely asking

01:30:17ourselves the question, what does the world

01:30:19need? How do we create a company that's

01:30:21of actual value

01:30:23in terms of product and in terms of pushing

01:30:25technology forward?

01:30:27Going with that, probably a pure

01:30:29sports car play is out of the question,

01:30:31but like, you know, Storado,

01:30:33911 Dakar, those are

01:30:35pretty fast and pretty off-roady.

01:30:37Like an R3X.

01:30:39Or like a 914

01:30:41with two motors in it.

01:30:43No roof.

01:30:47Do you have a sports car in you?

01:30:49Imagination candy.

01:30:51I think the R3X

01:30:53is the car that I would

01:30:55say is what I think will become

01:30:57our sports car. Of course, it's

01:30:59a four-door vehicle with five seats, but it's

01:31:01that with a tri-motor is

01:31:03hard to imagine a better

01:31:05combination because it's going to be great on-road.

01:31:07I just

01:31:09took that tri-motor

01:31:11pre-production that Ed and I drove this week,

01:31:13I just took it up Angelus Crest

01:31:15and like, I did a

01:31:17600-mile road trip in it and I was like,

01:31:19yeah, my truck's just, I don't have

01:31:21to worry about it. Up Angelus Crest, I was like,

01:31:23damn it. It's really fun.

01:31:25Imagine that propulsion

01:31:27package in something that's much smaller.

01:31:29Yeah, great. Let's go.

01:31:33Well, we're very generous.

01:31:35We got extra time with you.

01:31:37We'd love to have you back.

01:31:39Maybe closer to R2,

01:31:41R3, R3X launch.

01:31:43Anytime, you're welcome. Thank you

01:31:45so much. Thanks for having me. This was great.

01:31:47Enjoyed it. Thank you.

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