RJ Scaringe, the CEO of Rivian, said that R2 and R3 electric vehicles could be added to the lineup in the future. He thought that although future Rivians would be smaller and less expensive, they would still have an “adventure” element. New information was revealed during an interview on Marques Brownlee’s WVFRM YouTube podcast. Even though it is still rare to see a Rivian on the road in most places, the company is already planning for new models, even though its R1T and R1S electric vehicles (EVs) have yet to become widely used. Marques Brownlee, a YouTube star, recently had Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe on his WVFRM show to talk about the company’s current products and possible products for the future. Brownlee started the conversation by asking Scaringe about the EV startup’s history. Scaringe said that when Rivian was first made (13 years ago), the main goal was to create a sports car. Do those who back Tesla get this? Pick an exciting course With the R1T truck and R1S SUV, the company changed its focus and started looking for a different kind of sports EV buyer. Scaringe says the main goal was to build a brand that encourages and inspires people to go on adventures. Scaringe said, “Since R1S and R1T were made to be real flagship products, we chose the flagship products to do so.” After that, we have a set of smaller objects that we playfully call R2, and R3, even though they come in different sizes and shapes. Since the R1S and R1T are the most expensive cars made by the brand, the R2 series should be less expensive. Scaringe confirmed this by saying there is a difference between making a car with a fixed price and a showpiece car. Scaringe said, “Since we don’t have as much money to spend on R2 products, we argue a lot about things we didn’t have to argue about as much on a flagship product.” Scaringe said there is a heated debate within the company about which R2 elements are essential to the brand’s identity and which are not. How well can it go off-road while still being easy to drive on the road? How about an Easter egg with a Bluetooth speaker and a door-mounted flashlight? These are the problems that companies that have been around for a century or more have already solved, while smaller companies like Rivian are still trying to build their brands. Scaringe says the goal is to keep the core of what we’ve done here while using different packaging and smaller size. Smaller things Scaringe also talked about some newer details that Rivian fans are interested in, like software and the fact that the R1S and R1 don’t have Apple CarPlay yet. In this context, Scaringer said that internal software management is like fine dining: The company’s CEO says, “We have to make sure we work with the best platforms for a lot of what we do, whether it’s music or mapping.” “Because we own the systems, we can be the judge or head chef of your experience.” It doesn’t look like Apple CarPlay, or Android Auto will be coming to the Rivian lineup soon. On the other hand, Scaringe said there are now two new options. One of them is that the Bluetooth speaker under the front seats can be replaced with a small storage container. The speaker’s latch will keep it from flying around inside a moving car. He went on to say that a new camp kitchen was being built for the gear tunnel. Scaringe says that the old camp kitchen will be easier to handle. After all, it will be smaller than the one eventually taken out of use because it took up almost the whole gear tunnel.
