Rivian CEO issues urgent memo to confront existential threat of climate change
It’s time to open a new chapter in the history books. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said now is the time to act on climate change to protect the planet for our kids and their kids’ kids’ kids’.
Rivian is more than just another automaker. It’s not even your average EV maker. The company’s entire purpose is to “create products and services that help our planet transition to carbon neutral energy and transportation.”
It also happens to build some of the most unique EVs on the road today. Rivian’s “Electric Adventure Vehicles,” the R1T pickup and R1S SUV, are built for more than just getting from point A to point B.
They can also plow through over 3 feet of water, rock climb a 100% grade, and take off quicker than your average sports car.
However, Rivian is doing much more in the background, other than just selling EVs, to “build the kind of future our kids and our kids’ kids’ deserve.”
Every aspect of the company is designed for a sustainable future. Rivian’s battery packs can easily be removed for recycling or other uses. Its interiors include 100% animal-free materials, and Rivian’s charging network (Rivian Adventure Network) is powered entirely by renewable energy.
Rivian is also quickly adding to its portfolio of clean energy projects, expanding wind, solar, and hydroelectric options across the US.
The company’s utility-scale solar project in Tennesee and Starfire Solar project on a former coal mining site in Kentucky are already bringing renewable energy to local businesses and communities.
Rivian CEO says now is the time to act on climate change
Rivian knows building EVs is not enough. On Tuesday, Scaringe issued an urgent call to action, saying now must be the time to make history.
Scaringe says we are alive during one of “the most significant moments in recorded human history.”
Society has advanced greatly over the past few hundred years due to new technology and industrial capabilities, producing capabilities that were previously unimaginable. However, the same technology is destroying the only home we have, slowly but surely.
Growing up a car enthusiast, Scaringe loved every aspect of them, from the idea of driving to the freedom they could provide.
As he got older, he realized that cars, as important as they were for the progress of society, were “simultaneously the root of the impact they’re having on our climate.”
The same vehicles he loved played a big role in the re-carbonization of our atmosphere. In just a few generations, we have taken what accumulated over hundreds of millions of years and re-distributed the CO2 back into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels in just over 150 years.
According to Scaringe, we are “at the very beginning of seeing the impacts” of that. You may have noticed it on those extremely hot days or heard about the increasingly aggressive storms and weather on the news.
Although it’s still in its early stages, these changes will, little by little, “make the planet less inhabitable.”
Not only for humans, but we are already seeing a rate of extinction on Earth that’s never been seen before.
Scaringe said this is the moment we have a choice. In a perfect world, when we look back in another few thousand years, there will be a little blip called the fossil fuel era. It will cover how humans rapidly industrialized with advanced new technology but also developed a deep dependency on fossil fuels.
The next chapter will hopefully explain how we developed new technologies to wean off fossil fuels before we put all the carbon back into the atmosphere.
Rivian’s leader explained these changes must begin now. We need to continue expanding renewable energy on our grid while replacing the 1.5 billion gas-powered cars on the road with EVs.
The road may not be perfect, but we need to start somewhere. The best part of EVs is that they get cleaner and more efficient over time. It’s time to protect our only home for our kids and their kids’ kids’ kids.’
Source: Rivian
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Over the weekend, Tesla began offering many Cybertruck trade-in estimated values above the original purchase price, apparently due to a glitch in its system.
Tesla offers online trade-in estimates for individuals considering purchasing a vehicle from them.
Over the last few days, Cybertruck owners who submitted their vehicles through the system were surprised to see Tesla offering extremely high valuations on the vehicle, often above what they originally paid for the electric truck.
Here are a few examples:
- $79,200 for a 2025 Cybertruck AWD with 18,000 miles. Since this is a 2025 model year, it was eligible for the tax credit and Tesla is offering the same price as new without incentive.
- Here Tesla offered $118,800 for a 2024 Cybertruck ‘Cyberbeast’ tri-motor with 21,000 miles.
- In this example, Tesla offers $11,000 more than the owner originally paid for a 2024 Cybertruck.
The trade-in estimates made no sense. Tesla has been known to offer more attractive estimates online and then come lower with the official final offer, but this is on a whole different level.
Some speculated that Tesla’s trade-in estimate system was malfunctioning, while others thought Tesla was indirectly recalling early Cybertrucks.
It appears to be the former.
Some Tesla Cybertruck owners who tried to go through a new order with their Cybertruck as a trade-in were told by Tesla advisors that the system was “glitching” and they would not be honoring those prices.
Tesla told buyers that it would be refunding its usually “non-refundable” order fee.
Electrek’s Take
That’s a weird glitch. I assume that it was trying to change how the trade-in value would be estimated and the new math didn’t work for the Cybertruck for whatever reason.
It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.
The Cybertruck’s value is already quite weird due to the fact that Tesla still has new vehicles made in 2024, which are not eligible for the tax credit incentive, while the new ones made in 2025 are eligible.
There’s also the Foundation Series, which bundles many features for a $20,000 higher price.
All these things affect the value and can make it hard to compare with new Cybertrucks offered with 0% interest.
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![At $28,000 off, is the Jeep Wagoneer S the best EV deal going? [update]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/06/jeep_wagoneer_deals.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Like a 90s “gifted” kid that was supposed to be a lot of things, the electric Jeep Wagoneer S never really found its place — but when dealers started discounting the Jeep brands forward-looking flagship by nearly $25,000 back in June, I wrote that it might be time to give the go-fast Wagoneer S a second look.
This month, the discounts are even better.
UPDATE 23AUG25: I found you some even better EV deals!
Whether we’re talking about Mercedes-Benz, Cerberus, Fiat, or even Enzo Ferrari, outsiders have labeled Jeep as a potentially premium brand that could, “if managed properly,” command luxury-level prices all over the globe. That hasn’t happened, and Stellantis is just the latest in a long line of companies to sink massive capital into the brand only to realize that people will not, in fact, spend Mercedes money on a Jeep.
That said, the Jeep Wagoneer S is not a bad car (and neither is its totally different, hideously massive, ICE-powered Wagoneer sibling, frankly). Built on the same Stellantis STLA Large vehicle platform that underpins the sporty Charger Daytona EVs, the confusingly-named Wagoneer S packs dual electric motors putting out almost 600 hp. That’s good enough to scoot the ‘ute 0 to 60 mph in a stomach-turning 3.5 seconds and enough, on paper, to convince Stellantis executives that they had developed a real, market-ready alternative to the Tesla Model Y.
With the wrong name and a sky-high starting price of $66,995 (not including the $1,795 destination fee), however, that demand didn’t materialize, leaving the Wagoneer S languishing on dealer lots across the country.
That could be about to change, however, thanks to big discounts on Wagoneer S being reported at CDJR dealers in several states:
- Jeff Belzer’s in Minnesota has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $39,758 ($28,032 off)
- Troncalli CDJR in Georgia has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,590 MSRP for $42,697 ($24,893 off)
- Whitewater CDJR in Minnesota has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $43,846 ($23,944 off)
- Antioch CDJR in Illinois has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $44,540 ($23,250 off)
“Stellantis bet big on electric versions of iconic American brands like Jeep and Dodge, but consumers aren’t buying the premise,” writes CDG’s Marcus Amick. “(Stellantis’ dealer body) is now stuck with expensive EVs that need huge discounts to move, eating into already thin margins while competitors focus on [more] profitable gas-powered vehicles.”
All of which is to say: if you’ve found yourself drawn to the Jeep Wagoneer S, but couldn’t quite stomach the $70,000+ window stickers, you might want to check in with your local Jeep dealer and see how you feel about it at a JCPenneys-like 30% off!
Jeep Wagoneer S gallery
Original content from Electrek; images via Stellantis.
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Multinational equipment brand SANY just launched a clever new 50-ton reach stacker that pairs gravity and an F1-style KERS system to generate electricity, improve operating efficiency, and reduce costs. The best part: they’re putting that smart tech to work by helping clean up (and shore up) the grid.
Short for Kinetic Energy Recovery System, KERS was a staple of Formula 1 in the late aught and 2010s. Essentially an advanced form of regenerative braking, KERS captured the kinetic energy of a car at speed that would normally be lost as heat when the brake pads pressed against the brake discs. Instead of heat, KERS converted that energy into electricity (storing it in a battery or flywheel), to be deployed later.
Sebastian Vettel explains KERS
In practice, KERS gave drivers an extra boost of horsepower at the push of a button, enabling them to attack or defend their position on track and adding a fresh strategic element to the sport. In SANY’s case, that stored power is fed back into the reach stacker’s electric hydraulic system, reducing pressure loss across the high-pressure setup by 50%, and lowering the machine’s overall energy consumption by more than 60%.
Energy recovery is a key feature. The potential energy of the boom, lifting gear and energy storage cabinets during the boom’s descent can be recovered efficiently with an overall recovery efficiency of over 65%. That means every 1 kWh of consumption in lifting can be recovered by 0.4 kWh during descent.
The 50t reach stacker is available with a 512 kWh swappable battery pack that’s compatible with other SANY heavy equipment assets, and supports both DC fast charging when swapping isn’t practical or (for whatever reason) desirable.
On a single charge and backed by the onboard KERS, that’s good enough for the machine can lift and move containers for more than 7 continuous hours, which SANY claims significantly reducing downtime for charging compared to other, similar equipment assets.
The new SANY reach stacker can stack six 50-ton containers, greatly enhancing a site’s container and battery storage density within a limited space. The first units will reach unnamed customers building out a utility-scale energy storage project by the end of this month.
Electrek’s Take
All the great stuff I was saying about the new 65-tonne XCMG still holds true for the SANY (especially when they take the wraps off their own 65t BESS-specific unit later this year), but the SANY adds smart battery swap tech and what seems to be more efficient operations, too.
Regardless of which one you choose, it seems like the available options for reach stacker operators are just getting better and better!
SOURCE | IMAGES: SANY.
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