Rivian hires former Porsche Cars North America CEO as COO to steer business growth
EV maker Rivian (RIVN) announced Friday it has hired Dr. Kjell Gruner as chief commercial officer (COO) and president of business growth. Gruner brings over 25 years of auto experience to Rivian, most recently serving as CEO of Porsche Cars North America.
Rivian hires ex-Porsche, Mercedes-Benz exec as COO
Gruner started at Rivian on Friday and will report directly to CEO RJ Scaringe. He will oversee the EV maker’s commercial operations, such as sales, marketing, delivery, service, fleet, and delivery.
The executive has over 25 years of experience, including at Porsche and Mercedes-Benz/Daimler.
Before joining Porsche Cars North America, Gruner was Porsche’s global vice president of marketing and chief marketing officer. At Porsche, Gruner oversaw global brand development, including marketing and product.
Prior to that, Gruner worked as the director of strategy at Mercedes-Benz Cars for over six years. He also serves on the board of LiveWire, the electric motorcycle division of Harley-Davidson.
Scaringe commented on the hiring, saying:
We are very happy to welcome Kjell to the Rivian team as Chief Commercial Officer and President, Business Growth. We will rely on Kjell’s talent and experience as we position ourselves for growth domestically and internationally, the launch of a new platform in R2 at a new facility, and the continued success of our commercial vehicle line. I look forward to working closely together as we tackle this next great wave of opportunity.
Gruner joins Rivian at a critical time as the EV maker ramps up production and works to increase profitability.
Rivian crushed expectations in the second quarter, delivering 12,640 models while producing 13,992 EVs at its Normal, Illinois facility. In addition, its electric delivery vans, used by Amazon, arrived in Europe in July, spearheading the EV maker’s international expansion.
The EV maker introduced its in-house Enduro drive units, with Rivian’s cheaper “Dual Motor” and “Performance Dual Motor” appearing in the R1 shop in July.
The new in-house components are helping to streamline production while reducing expenses. Rivian said the Enduro drive units and LFP battery packs have reduced input costs on its EDV by roughly 25%.
Rivian’s gross profit per vehicle improved by $35,000 during the second quarter as the EV maker worked to increase profitability.
Overall, the EV maker’s losses continue to shrink with a net loss of (-$1.12 billion) in Q2 compared to (-$1.7 billion) last year and (-$1.4 billion) last quarter. After the strong performance, Rivian raised its production guidance for the year to 52,000 units.
Electrek’s Take
Gruner is joining Rivian as the EV maker hits a “turning point” in production. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, known for his Tesla coverage, said Rivian was hitting “a major turning point” after Q2, raising his price target as a result.
More recently, Ives said he sees Rivian as “one of the core EV players over the next decade.” Gruner brings valuable marketing and brand development experience from Porsche and Mercedes-Benz that can help Rivian as it expands the brand during a crucial period.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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Environment
Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
Today’s episode is brought to you by Bosch Mobility Aftermarket—A global leader and trusted provider of automotive aftermarket parts. To celebrate Amazon Prime Day July 8th through 11th, Bosch Mobility is offering exclusive savings on must-have auto parts and tools. Learn more here.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.
Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
- Electrek FSGP 2025: New teams, new cars, same solar spirit
- Congress votes to send 2 million US jobs to China, increase deficit, energy costs
- Tesla (TSLA) confirms 384,000 deliveries in Q2 2025, right on expectations
- Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller
- Tesla launches Oasis Supercharger with solar farm and off-grid batteries
- Tesla unveils its LFP battery factory, claims it’s almost ready
- Here’s why Ford’s electric vehicle sales crashed by nearly a third in Q2
- The Chevy Equinox EV is GM’s breakout star, but that’s not the only surprise
- Xpeng launches G7, a new Tesla Model Y competitor for just $27,000
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
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