Rivian CEO says plenty room for Scout and Rivian to coexist after partnership
Rivian and VW have recently opened a partnership, despite the brands have very similar upcoming electric adventure vehicles with the Rivian R2 and VW Scout. But at a roundtable discussion with Rivian’s CEO RJ Scaringe, he said there’s more than enough room for the brands to coexist with each other.
Recent news about Rivian and VW’s software partnership, with VW investing over $5 billion into Rivian and forming a joint venture to adopt Rivian’s zonal architecture for the underpinnings of VW’s vehicle communications, has led to some interesting questions about how the details of the partnership would work out.
At the top of many people’s minds has been: isn’t it a little weird that the Rivian-like Scout brand will now essentially be competing with itself for the adventure EV market?
The question has been answered before – or perhaps more specifically non-answered – in press conferences around the official opening of the joint venture last week.
Generally, comments ran along the line of Rivian working to bring its software expertise to bear across VW’s brands, though the two companies have been a little shy to confirm whether Scout specifically would use Rivian’s software. After all, Scout is a bit of a spinoff from VW, and seems interested in showing some independence on that front, so it could be possible that they work on their own.
But in comments at a roundtable which Electrek attended today ahead of the LA Auto Show, it certainly seemed that Rivian will be working on Scout vehicles. Scaringe said that “we’re going to be supporting their full portfolio of brands – Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen, Scout.”
However, more importantly, Scaringe said that he’s “amused” by the focus that many have had on Scout, or those who consider it a potential threat to Rivian.
Scaringe estimates that there are “less than five” compelling EVs available for under $50k in the market today – and that’s perhaps being charitable. Meanwhile, if you go over to the gas world, there are gobs of choices out there for consumers, and yet they all manage to coexist without issue.
So Rivian has worked hard to distinguish itself from Tesla, for example, and thinks that even if Scout is inspired by Rivian, there’s still room for similar vehicles to coexist.
After all, there are many competing vehicles in many categories – some of which do indeed share underpinnings from separate companies. Just in the EV space, the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 share a platform, and the Subaru Solterra and Toyota bZ4X are basically identical vehicles. So there has been plenty of history of companies working together to come out with similar or near-identical (rebadged) cars.
That’s not the case here, as Scout and Rivian will be very different in terms of platform and manufacturing. But sharing software shouldn’t be much of an issue – and even if we assume that Scout could cannibalize a segment of the market that Rivian otherwise had a good hold on, Rivian can still benefit from the partnership regardlessl.
Rivian’s main focus in recent years has been getting costs down. The story is that Rivian began scaling production in an extremely difficult time – trying to organize supply contracts at the historical peak of the auto industry (~2018), trying to start a manufacturing program during a global pandemic (2020/2021), and having little clout available to get on the better side of those contracts.
Now, Scaringe said, the situation is better: not only can Rivian show that it has a dominant position in its class – selling more premium SUVs than other EV and even gas brands – but it can also tout that it has support from one of the most established auto manufacturers in the world, Volkswagen. If VW – the second-largest automaker in the world – has enough faith in Rivian to invest $5.8 billion, then surely a supplier can trust that Rivian will stick around long enough to buy more than one set of parts.
Not only that, but the companies could potentially leverage their combined size for larger supply contracts. Say a certain microcontroller is needed for vehicle architecture across Rivian and also VW’s brands, then perhaps the joint venture could recognize much larger economies of scale.
The question also came up over whether Rivian might try to see if VW’s global sales network could help them to sell Rivians, but Scaringe shut that down, saying there is “no interest” in doing so. Rivian would rather stick to its plans of setting up its own stores and doing direct sales.
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Just like it says on the tin – retailers are advertising killer deals on the fun-to-drive Kia Niro EV, with one midwest auto dealer reporting more than $10,000 off the sticker price of the Niro EV Wind. That’s nearly 25% off the top line price!
SKIP THE STORY: get straight to the deals.
The Kia Niro EV gets overshadowed by its objectively excellent EV6 and EV9 stablemates – both of which are currently available with substantial lease cash and 0% APR financing, in fact – but that doesn’t mean it’s not an excellent little electric runabout in its own right.
The last time I had a Niro EV tester, my kids loved it, I liked that it was quicker and more tossable than I expected it to be, and my wife liked the fact that “it doesn’t look electric. It looks normal.” And, with well over 200 miles of real world range (EPA-rated range is 253 miles), it was more than up to the task of commuting around Chicago and making the trip up to the Great Wolf Lodge in Gurnee and back without even needing to look for a charger.
It’s not the primary family hauler I’d choose – but as a second car? As a primary car for a slightly smaller family (1-2 kids, instead of 3-4)? The Kia Niro EV Wind, with a $42,470 MSRP, seems like a solid, “can’t go wrong” sort of choice. You know?
You won’t even have to pay that much, though. Raymond Kia in Antioch, Illinois is advertising a $42,470 Niro EV for $32,431 (that’s $10,039, or about 24% off the MSRP), and several others are advertising prices in the $33,000 range.
And, while we’re at it:
Kia Niro EV gallery
SOURCE | IMAGES: CarsDirect, Edmunds, Raymond Kia.
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Many school districts who used EPA funding to help purchase Lion Electric school buses are now stuck with broken down or unsafe vehicles – but Lion’s new Canadian investors seemingly have no plans to make things right.
“All four Lion buses that we own are currently parked and not being used,” Coleen Souza, interim transportation director of Winthrop Public Schools, told Jay Traugott over at Clean Trucking. “Two of them are in need of repairs which would cost us money which we are not willing to invest in because the buses do not run for more than a month before needing more repairs.”
The story is much the same at other US school districts who deployed Lion Electric buses over the last few years – and the trouble they describe isn’t isolated to a single component or system. One district we spoke to had onboard chargers that failed almost immediately after being plugged into a L2 AC charger. Another that spoke to Traugott reported emergency door gaps, power steering failure, loss of power, and braking issues.
As bad as the revelations of safety and drivability issues and $250 million in unresolved debt have been, it’s the objectively stupid design choices that have been the most shocking.
“Lion built an auxiliary diesel heater to heat the bus, essentially writing the manual as they went,” explained a school superintendent in the midwest, who asked not to be named. “It was fascinating to watch but there were design flaws with the heater. For example, the intakes pointed downward and we’re driving across rural roads and the intake sucks in that dirt.”
“Using a diesel-powered heater to warm an electric bus also somewhat defeats the purpose of going 100% zero-emissions,” added Traugott.
Despite a new electric school bus rebate and a fresh cash injection from Vincent Chiara, president of Quebec real estate powerhouse Groupe MACH, and Lion director Pierre Wilkie, however, it seems like no help is coming.
It just gets worse and worse
Despite early speculation – some of it my own, in fact – that the new investors would take the Canadian government up on its offer to help subsidize more electric school bus production and honor the company’s outstanding warranty claims, it appears the only vehicle line the new investors are interested in reviving are the the Class 8 electric semi manufacturing operations in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec.
The US school districts who spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in the hopes that Lion buses would help decarbonize their fleets and reduce students’ exposure to harmful diesel emissions? Many of them are back to using diesel, while others are trying to get their deposits back so they can buy something else.
Here’s hoping any school districts on the fence for electrification recognize that their are very real, very well-engineered, and very financially sound electric school bus manufacturers out there who can deliver on their promises.
SOURCES: Chicago Tribune, Clean Trucking, Electrical Business.
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Mitsubishi is partnering with Ample and Yamoto Transports to deploy an innovative new battery swap network for electric cars in its Japanese home market — but it’s not just for electric cars. Mitsubishi Fuso commercial trucks are getting in on the action, too!
Despite a number of early EV adopters with an overdeveloped concept of ownership, battery swap technology has proven to be both extremely effective and extremely positive to the overall EV ownership experience. And when you see how simple it is to add hundreds of miles of driving in just 100 seconds — quicker, in many cases, than pumping a tank of liquid fuel into an ICE-powered car — you might come around, yourself.
That seems to be what Mitsubishi thinks, anyway, and they’re hoping they’ll be your go-to choice when it’s time to electrify your regional and last-mile commercial delivery fleet(s) by launching a multi-year pilot program to deploy more than 150 battery-swappable commercial electric vehicles and 14 modular battery swapping stations across Tokyo, where the company plans to showcase its “five minute charging” tech in full view of hundreds of commercial fleets and, crucially, the executives of the companies that own and manage them.
A truck like the Mitsubishi eCanter typically requires a full night of AC charging to top off its batteries, and at least an hour or two on DC charging in Japan, according to Fuso. This joint pilot by Mitsubishi, Mitsubishi Fuso Trucks, and Ample aims to circumvent this issue of forced downtime with its swappable batteries, supporting vehicle uptime by delivering a full charge within minutes. The move is meant to encourage the transport industry’s EV shift while creating a depository of stored energy that can be deployed to the grid in the event of a natural disaster — something Mitsubishi in Japan has been working on for years.
Trucks like the eCanter already serve a number of roles throughout the global truck market, including municipal waste collection, regional delivery support, and more.
The pilot is backed by Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s “Technology Development Support Project for Promoting New Energy,” with local delivery operator Yamato Transport testing swappable EVs for delivery operations on both its eCanter light-duty trucks and Mitsubishi Minicab kei-class electric vans.
Electrek’s Take
Electrifying the commercial truck fleet is a key part of decarbonizing city truck fleets – not just here in the US, but around the world. I called the eCanter, “a great product for moving stuff around densely packed city streets,” and eliminating the corporate fear of EV charging in the wild just makes it an even better product for that purpose.
Here’s hoping we see more “right size” electric solutions like this one (and more battery swapping tech) in small towns and tight urban environments stateside somewhat sooner than later.
SOURCES | IMAGES: Mitsubishi, Fuso.
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