For weeks, rumors swirled that Rivian, an electric car startup company, would have a new big investor: General Motors. The automaker was reportedly in talks with Rivian to purchase a stake in the electric car company that plans to exclusively build zero-emission trucks and SUVs.
However, a new interview with Rivian founder R.J. Scaringe with Bloomberg shed light on why talks ultimately soured. The interview, published Wednesday, detailed the electric car company’s plans to not just build Rivian models, but electric cars for other companies. The report said Rivian will build “several” models for other companies without going into further details. One of the companies is, indeed, Amazon. The online retailer and technology company led the last round of private investment that totaled $700 million.
Six Rivian vehicles will be in production by 2025, Scaringe said, but a timeline for the other models for different companies wasn’t shared. With Amazon, the model may not necessarily be a “vehicle,” Scaringe added. He declined to provide more details on the Amazon project.
A tie-up with GM could have meant Rivian was unable to pursue other deals with various companies, whether they are rival automakers or not. GM likely would have locked Rivian into an exclusive deal. The benefits would have been double-sided. GM would have helped Rivian engineer and manufacture its models with over 100 years of experience. Rivian would have helped GM potentially get an electric pickup truck to market quicker.
It’s clear Rivian doesn’t need GM or the investment money as the start-up is doing quite well on its own. Effectively, we likely won’t see any sort of exclusive GM-Rivian deal come to life after Scaringe’s comments.
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Source: Bloomberg
Comments
This is probably the most GM thing GM could ever do.
I figured GM wanted exclusivity.
Too bad a middle ground couldn’t have been met that saw GM license the platform for use, and have Rivian making the GM vehicles on the same line/plant as Rivian specific models. It could’ve seen GM beat Ford to market with an EV fullsize truck and SUV.
Would’ve been kind of similar to the recent Ford-GM transmission projects
I would be surprised GM still doesn’t beat Ford to the market with a full-size EV truck and SUV. Ford has zero experience building EVs.
Yeah, no experience. Except for the electric Ranger. Oh, and the electric Focus.
I suspect GM is better off to be done with Rivian.
I got news for you. GM has nothing in the pipeline when it comes to electric trucks. Not even close. Heck the head of the Sierra/Silverado program even said you will not see an electric pickup from GM for at least 20 years. This was just a quick way for GM to get that truck since it is not being developed in house.
Apparently you’ve never played poker. There is no benefit to GM showing their hand at this point. Do you honestly think Ford and GM don’t have EV trucks running around? It’s their bread and butter – they would not let that market be taken lightly. That said they are in no hurry to release an EV truck because at this point there would be a lot of comprises outside of just saying you have an EV truck on the road. It would be high performance with great tow capacity but very limited range while towing. GM already said when the designed the Silverado platform it supports EV, hybrid, and PHEV in the frame. So what GM says versus what they do can be two different things.
Your last sentence is why I feel the way I do. All barra does is spew bs that Wall Street wants to hear, meanwhile the EV program she promised is missing deadline after deadline and is facing delay after delay.
GM each and every day should build nothing but quality! This is what there rivals have done to place them in the lower market appeal. There styling department is right on but the bitterness of non responsive dealers has lowered there sales! To gain sales run the older commercials of the early 1960 cars and show performance and the excitement will build once again!! The Corvette is a magnet in the show rooms of yesterday and should be today. More get togethers of this car should be promoted in the GM budjet.