Rivian’s CEO on Tesla’s Cybertruck, Ferrari’s Luce, and What Happens If the R2 Fails Leave a comment

RJ Scaringe obtained his PhD from MIT finding out inner combustion engines. Then he based an organization to make them out of date. In 2009, recent out of grad college, he launched what would turn out to be Rivian. The corporate spent almost a decade in stealth mode earlier than arriving on the 2018 LA Auto Present with two electrical rides no one had seen coming.

The highway, nevertheless, hasn’t been straightforward. Rivian misplaced $3.6 billion in 2025, and has burned by way of almost $25 billion previously eight years. It has spent extra money over the identical interval than virtually each different pure EV maker. Rivian’s IPO was the biggest worldwide in 2021, and one of many largest in US historical past, inside days valuing the corporate at over $100 billion. Its inventory has dropped from a excessive of $130 to round $16. Because the R1 went on sale in 2021, Rivian has offered 175,000 automobiles. In the identical time, Tesla has offered 8 million.

However in 2024, Volkswagen Group dedicated as much as $5.8 billion to co-develop software program and electrical structure expertise with Rivian in an enormous three way partnership. This yr, Uber introduced it would make investments as much as $1.25 billion in Rivian to construct and deploy as much as 50,000 absolutely autonomous robotaxis.

Regardless, the corporate wants its new R2 SUV to work. Not simply promote, however promote in giant numbers.

I sat down with Scaringe for a candid, wide-ranging dialogue on what occurs if the R2 fails, why the R1 launched with dead-end tech, methods to compete with China, the Cybertruck’s failure, and the advantage of buttons inside automobiles. However we began on simpler floor: his ideas on essentially the most polarizing EV of 2026. (This interview has been edited for size and readability.)

JEREMY WHITE: What do you consider Ferrari’s Luce?

RJ SCARINGE: The way in which Jony [Ive] and Marc [Newson] strategy design is extremely intentional, so there’s not a call on that automobile that’s unintentional. By means of that lens, it’s a must to like take a look at it in a distinct mild. It is undoubtedly completely different than what individuals have been anticipating.

Do you just like the Luce, although?

Would I purchase it? I do not personal a Ferrari. There are issues about it I actually like. Elements of the inside are simply phenomenal, like how superbly effectively executed the haptics, the switches, the buttons are. You possibly can see Jony’s fingerprints throughout it.