The Ledger
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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: 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…”
Raz: Rivian is the current gold standard for electric trucks
“Tesla has a car and Ford has one, but they really are kind of the gold standard for electric trucks at the moment.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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”
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.”
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.”
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 …”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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.”
Scaringe: Rivian would not exist if it produced its original vehicle design
“If I was making what we first thought we were going to make, the company wouldn't be here.”
Scaringe: Rivian supply chains reach six tiers back to raw materials
“In some of our systems, it goes back six tiers. So there's, you know, six companies behind the component that's coming in, you know, if you include the raw material sourcing.”
Rivian employs around 8,000 workers at Normal, Illinois manufacturing facility
“So we have a very large operation here, around 8000 people that work out of this site.”
Scaringe: Factory stoppages trigger severe inventory ballooning as other parts keep arriving
“It's not as if you're missing one part, the only challenge is just that you're not building vehicles. It's that all the other parts still continue to come. So you have this ballooning challenge of inventory where you, it's not just the cash. You also have to h…”
Scaringe: A Rivian vehicle contains around 25,000 discrete components
“So if you look at the number of discrete components in the car, like individual mechanical components, there's around 25,000 components, and any single one of those could disrupt the production.”
Scaringe: Rivian's original plan was a 100-MPG sports car
“The idea was a hundred mile per gallon sports car and build a brand around efficiency and sustainability. And then from there continue to develop more and more technology, different products.”
Scaringe: Proposing electric pickups in 2013 got Rivian laughed out of rooms
“When I said I want to make electric pickups and this is 2013, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say we'd get laughed out of the room.”
Scaringe: Rivian bought its Normal plant for $16M in early 2017
“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 …”
RJ Scaringe: Rivian was initially funded by refinancing family homes
“In the beginning, it was just family and friends mainly my dad and I. And I bought a house when I was in high school, and my dad refinanced his house, and we both put that money into the business.”