Today, I’m talking with Rivian CEO and founder RJ Scaringe. RJ was on the show last September when we , but the past 10 months have seen a whirlwind of change throughout the car industry — and at Rivian in particular. This year alone, the company has five new models in its lineup: the R2, R3, and R3X were all announced in March, and of its original R1T truck and R1S SUV just arrived with a complete update to the computing architecture inside the vehicles.
Listen to , a show hosted by ’s Nilay Patel about big ideas — and other problems. Subscribe ! In the biggest news of all, Rivian and Volkswagen announced a that will co-develop core parts of the hardware and software platform to be used in cars from both automakers. The deal will also obviously provide Rivian with a ton of cash — cash the company needs as it builds toward profitability and scale with the launch of the R2 in 2026.
A new partnership structure is absolute bait for , so RJ and I talked at length about how that partnership is structured and what Rivian is keeping in-house versus putting in the joint venture. Rivian has had , including a major relationship with Ford that came to an end. So I wanted to know what the VW deal would be different.
The answer might surprise you — RJ says this joint venture is set up to succeed because of the specific part of the technology platform in the cars it’s going to focus on. Of course, RJ and I also talked about the cars themselves — Rivian lent me an R1S to dri.