Scaringe: Rivian bought its Normal plant for $16M in early 2017
RJ Scaringe · Rivian: RJ Scaringe · Sep 12, 2022 · at 50:56
Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe discusses acquiring the former Mitsubishi auto plant in Normal, Illinois before securing funds to retool it.
0:00 / 0:19exact quote · 19.2s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“And so we ultimately, as you said, we bought it for sixteen million dollars, which was just an incredible deal. Closed in beginning of 2017. Now we didn't have at that point the money to actually turn it into a plant for ourselves. So we sort of bought it and then said, okay, now we got to secure all the capital to convert this into a Rivian plant.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from RJ Scaringe
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…”
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.”
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…”
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…”
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…”