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Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe spoke about Elon Musk and Tesla on the “Grit” podcast.
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Scaringe stated Tesla is “inspiring,” however Rivian didn’t comply with Musk’s playbook.
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He stated it is necessary that Rivian wasn’t “covering the same ground as Tesla.”
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe did not need his EV firm to grow to be Tesla 2.0.
Scaringe mentioned his and Elon Musk’s automotive corporations on Monday throughout Kleiner Perkins’ “Grit” podcast. Tesla continues to be a dominant participant and has a leg up on Rivian, which Scaringe based in 2009 at age 26.
Musk’s tenure as CEO of Tesla started in 2008, the identical 12 months prospects first acquired Tesla’s Roadster sports activities automotive.
“Tesla has been absolutely inspiring,” Scaringe stated through the podcast. “One of the things that was so important to me with Rivian was to make sure we weren’t covering the same ground as Tesla.”
When the host identified that Rivian initially adopted Tesla’s playbook and had plans to create an electrical sports activities automotive, Scaringe stated he made an “intentional” option to forge their very own path.
“If you think about starting a car company, you want to build a brand that draws in enthusiasts,” he stated.
Scaringe stated he is a fan of sports activities vehicles, so the “logical place to start is to build a sports car, use it to build the brand, and follow it with more mass-market vehicles.”
“That was, of course, how Tesla’s strategy played out, and it worked wonderfully well for them,” he stated.
Scaringe added that his resolution to pivot to a special kind of EV product, car topology, and expertise was “a very intentional effort to also create a new story.”
“Not only for us as a company or a brand but, importantly, to help shift more mindsets around what sustainable transportation could look like,” he stated.
Representatives for Rivian and Tesla didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Business Insider.
Rivian at the moment sells the R1S SUV and the R1T pickup truck. Scaringe introduced two extra autos on the best way — the R2 SUV and the R3 SUV — in March.
The EV business skilled a slowdown in gross sales and development this summer season. In July, Scaringe informed The Verge he thinks the difficulty is a “truly extreme lack of choice.”
“If you want to spend less than $50,000 for an EV, I’d say there’s a very, very small number of great products,” he stated.
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