Opinion
Scaringe: The market has a very limited supply of great EV products
“There's actually very limited supply of great EV products, and that, that may seem surprising when I say that, because there's a number of manufacturers have launched products, but when I say great EV products, products that are truly represent
A meaningful st…”
Opinion
Scaringe: Rivian is at the lowest risk moment in its history
“If you're looking at our company today and look at all the challenges that we have, I would look at it and say, this is the lowest risk moment in Rivian's history. We have clear line of sight to profitability.”
Insight
Scaringe: Starting a car company from scratch yields more impact than legacy OEMs
“And what I realized is that the likelihood of me being successful starting a car company with no capital, no team, No technology, no brand no facilities, no supply chain. I actually felt the likelihood of me having impact doing that was still higher than the l…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2047
Scaringe: Gas cars will be rare antiques within 25 years
“So call it the next 15 to 20 years, we'll see the fleet of vehicles in the world
Essentially shift almost entirely towards electric, but you know, within, I'd say, 25 years, it would be fairly rare to see a gasoline powered car on the road.
It would be like se…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Scaringe: Global EV adoption will require hundreds of distinct vehicle models
“I don't think we're going to end up in a world where there's one or two electric vehicles that we produce. 70, eighty million of a year that the whole world buys exactly those two or three products. I think the world needs, you know, lots of products, hundreds…”
Insight
Scaringe: Working on Plan B drops Plan A's success probability to zero
“The moment you start working on plan B or plan C, The likelihood of Plan A working goes to zero percent.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Scaringe: Rivian lines run only 25–30 hours weekly due to parts shortages
“So the plant, the lines are running at essentially 25 to 30 hours a week. Because we don't have enough parts.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Scaringe: Rivian employs roughly 500 to 600 former Tesla workers
“We say we've got about 13,000 employees. A lot of our employees formerly worked at Tesla, so probably like five, 600.”
Assertion Supported
Scaringe: Tesla holds roughly 50% EV market share via two models
“You know, they have fifty-ish percent market share, because they have two great products. The Model Three and Model Y are great products.”
Disclosure
Scaringe: Rivian signed a $5.8B software deal with Volkswagen Group
“Yeah, we did a, there's a 5.8 billion dollar software licensing deal, which is awesome, but it allows our software stack and our electronics that we've developed in-house to be deployed across a wide range of brands, wide range of products”
Insight
Scaringe: Founders Must Only Do What Others Cannot
“One of the things in growing and building a business, you have to really recognize what are the things that you can uniquely do for the business that others can't, especially as a founder, as a CEO. And then the things that others can do really well, you shoul…”
Opinion
Scaringe: Multi-year order backlogs create a glass ceiling for automotive brands
“Some backlog is helpful, but we need to, of course, make sure that that backlog doesn't create a glass ceiling to interest in the brand, because we, what we don't want to be known as, is Rivian is the brand for which you place an order and you wait years.”
Disclosure
Scaringe: Rivians will access Tesla Superchargers starting in early 2024
“Well, there won't be any prioritization. So starting early part of next year, will Rivians will be able to access the Tesla charging network. And in the beginning, it'll be through an adapter, and then over time, our vehicle's charging port will move to what's…”
Assertion Supported
Scaringe: Rivian R1 Is Not Gross Margin Positive as of Late 2023
“Well, in the case of R-one, you know, today the product is not gross margin positive. So today is in like middle of Q-four, 20, 23.”
Assertion Supported
Scaringe: Around 80% of Rivian Buyers Are First-Time EV Owners
“And so around 80% of our customers have never before owned an EV, which is awesome.”
Insight
Scaringe: Early Customer Monocultures Are Dangerous for Brand Identity
“It's a dangerous thing to have a sort of, if you think it almost like a monoculture of customers that then embody or become emblematic for what the brand stands for. It's much better to have a melting pot of consumers that are coming from all different angles …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Scaringe: Auto industry change over next 20 years will exceed horse-to-car shift
“The change is going to be larger over the next two decades than what we saw in the first two decades of the auto industry, you know, the sort of the shift from a horse to a car, as we now think about going from a combustion powered non-connected vehicle, which…”
Disclosure
Scaringe: Copying Tesla's Roadster a decade later was not worth doing
“Tesla launched its roadster in like the 2006, 2007 timeframe. And the thought of going out and building what Tesla had already done, you know, 10 years later, just, it felt like that wasn't a problem that the world needed worked on.”
Insight
Scaringe: Stealth Mode Kept Rivian Flexible on Strategy and Timelines
“And it was actually really helpful because it avoided us getting overly married To any specific aspect of the strategy or any specific aspect of our timeline.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Scaringe: Roughly 90% of Rivian buyers never owned a pickup before
“So people who've previously owned a pickup truck represent just over 10% of our customers, meaning 90% have never owned a pickup before, which is awesome.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Scaringe: Over 80% of Rivian customers are first-time EV owners
“And again, we now have data on this where less than 20% of our customers have owned EVs before, meaning more than 80% have ever owned an EV.”
Opinion
Scaringe: Tesla's success helps Rivian rather than hurting it
“Earlier than us in building what I think of as a very strong brand, we saw that as a good thing, but the world needs more than just Tesla to convert those one and a half billion cars to electric and to completely remap the industry. So we, yeah, I think the wo…”
Disclosure
Scaringe: Rivian developed electronics in-house because suppliers refused to partner
“The decisions to build electronics and software in house were both strategic, but also practical. We couldn't get suppliers to work with us. So we built with the benefit of time, a lot of capability.”
Assertion Partly supported
Scaringe: Rivian holds $17 billion in cash reserves
“We have seventeen billion dollars in cash.”
RJ Scaringe