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Rivian bet the company on R2. RJ Scaringe told us almost everything

The Drivecast

Rivian bet the company on R2. RJ Scaringe told us almost everything

133 annotations

Rivian’s rise is framed as a rapid reset of EV benchmarks, followed by the R2 reveal: a compact crossover aimed at mainstream buyers, priced around $45,000–$60,000 and sized like a RAV4/Model Y. RJ Scaringe explains why Rivian “bet the company” on R2, including a plan to vertically integrate, build direct-to-consumer infrastructure, and reach a profit trajectory by Q4. The conversation also covers reservations-to-delivery forecasting, service scaling, and charging-network uptime—plus how RAD turns “adventure” into a performance-and-design philosophy.

0:00 --:--

00:24

Brand

Rivian

Rivian is a newer electric-vehicle company. They make EVs that are meant to work for daily driving but also for outdoor adventures, and the episode talks about how hard it is to grow a car company.

01:07

Concept

adventure vehicle

An “adventure vehicle” is a car meant for trips outside the city—like road trips and getting to outdoor places—while still being usable day to day.

01:07

Concept

EV

EV means electric vehicle. Instead of using gasoline, the car runs on electricity from a battery.

01:18

Concept

cash burn

Cash burn means how fast a company is spending money. If a company isn’t making enough profit yet, it has to keep using cash to keep going.

01:21

Concept

recall

A recall is when a car company says, “We need to fix something on these cars.” It’s usually because of a safety issue or a problem that could affect how the car works.

01:23

Concept

slow ramp on service departments

This means how quickly the company can set up places and people to fix and maintain the cars. If that grows slowly, owners may have trouble getting service when they need it.

01:26

Concept

pricing spectrum

A pricing spectrum just means the prices go from lower to higher across the lineup. The point here is that Rivian’s cars cost a lot compared with many other EVs.

02:00

Term

compact crossover SUV market

This phrase means the popular category of smaller SUVs that most people shop for. The host is saying the Rivian R2 is aimed at that big, competitive group of buyers.

02:10

Toyota RAV4

Car

Toyota RAV4

The Toyota RAV4 is a very popular compact SUV. In this segment, it’s mentioned mainly to help you picture the Rivian R2’s size by comparing their lengths.

02:10

Tesla Model Y

Car

Tesla Model Y

The Tesla Model Y is a very popular electric SUV. The episode compares it to the Rivian R2 to show they’re targeting the same general size and buyer interest.

02:34

Concept

mass market arena

“Mass market” just means selling to a lot of regular customers, not only car enthusiasts. The host is saying Rivian is trying to compete in the biggest, most competitive part of the market.

03:36

Term

rally spec

“Rally spec” means a car is set up for rally-style stages—typically with changes aimed at durability and traction on loose surfaces. In practice, that often includes things like increased ride height, stronger suspension components, and tires suited to dirt or gravel.

03:36

Term

lifted

“Lifted” here means the car sits higher than stock. That helps it handle bumps and uneven ground without hitting the bottom.

03:49

Porsche 911 (993)

Car

Porsche 911 (993)

The Porsche 911 (993) is a specific generation of the 911. It’s especially loved because it was the last air-cooled 911, and people think it’s a great mix of classic feel and everyday usability.

03:55

Term

Turbo

“Turbo” means the engine uses a turbocharger to make more power. It pushes extra air into the engine so it can burn more fuel and accelerate harder.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Drive Cast.

I'm Joel Fyder, Director of Content and Product at The Drive, and The Drive Cast is our weekly

podcast giving you an inside behind-the-scenes look at the biggest stories, controversies,

and people shaping the automotive industry.

Today we have another special episode for you.

Once again, we are taking you with us and sharing our inside access with you.

Today's topic is Rivian, and I'll be joined by a special guest that to anyone in the automotive

autonomy, robotics, mobility, or business world needs no introduction.

RJ Skeringe, who is the founder and CEO of Rivian, among other things, and I sat down

while in Park City, Utah together to discuss the startup automaker's big plans as the

automaker goes from a niche player to the mainstream market.

Rivian, by many accounts, has become the darling of the automotive industry.

It's a hot topic despite its current volume and scale.

There's good reason for this.

Rivian came out of thin air and debuted its vehicles less than 10 years ago,

and is actually only producing vehicles for about four years now, and immediately it reset

benchmarks on multiple fronts.

It helped open an entirely new segment of what an EV is and or can be,

a true adventure vehicle that doubles as a daily driver.

But startup life is hard, and even as a darling Rivian hasn't had it easy.

The cash burn could induce heartburn to even the strongest of stomachs.

A recall here, slow ramp on service departments there, and the fact that, to date,

the automaker's vehicles sit at the upper end of the pricing spectrum,

with base prices starting at over $70,000 while spanning all the way up to $125,000 plus.

That's before addressing launching a vehicle during a pandemic and having a tornado literally

rip apart part of the automaker's factory days before production began on the new R2.

Take a stroll across the internet, and it's not hard to find a community,

whether it be on Reddit, forums, or various social media platforms,

that is both vocal and passionate about the brand.

To date, it's not a mainstream brand with a mass market offering,

but that changed yesterday with the launch of the R2,

which cost between $45,000 and $60,000, while hitting at the absolute heart

of the compact crossover SUV market at 186 inches long.

That's the size of a Toyota RAV4 and a Tesla Model Y.

The former is one of the best-selling vehicles,

period, while the latter is one of the best-selling EVs by the widest of margins.

It's not even funny.

Now, it's Rivian's turn to step into the arena and aim for the masses.

This is the moment RJ and his team have been building towards for years.

Everything is riding on this.

Here to dissect it all with me and give us some deeper insights from Utah is RJ himself.

So today is behind the scenes on Rivian, going into the mass market arena,

what that looks like, how it plays out, and dressing how the automaker aims to tackle it all.

By the way, if you like what we're doing here,

do us a favor and hit us with a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

It really does help get the drive cast in front of more people.

Okay, let's go.

So RJ, I've known you a long time.

You're the founder-CEO of Rivian.

I still remember with you when I met you at the LA Auto Show.

I think it was 2018, and we were supposed to have a 30-minute interview.

After an hour and a half, you and I got ripped out of the room.

They're like, you're done.

We're having enough.

But we were asking all these questions.

And at the time, I mean, Rivian was super young, right?

He was at the coming out party.

And you were so honest with so many of the answers.

It was like, you know, I don't really know yet because it was day one.

And you're like, we could do this, that.

It was kind of refreshing.

But for people that don't know who you are, you're actually a true car enthusiast.

If I remember correctly, one of your favorite cars is a Porsche 911 from the 80s

rally spec, lifted and all that stuff for dirt roads.

Do you remember this correctly?

I don't know if I have a favorite, but that's an interesting car for sure.

But I did pick a 911.

I'd probably pick a 993.

993?

Okay.

Which spec?

I would go Carrot 4S or Turbo.

Okay.

Or Carrot 2S is pretty cool as well.

I mean, they're all great.

So you're a true enthusiast on this stuff.

All right.

So I just drove R2.

R2 is literally launching, I mean, yesterday when this comes out,

obviously we're both tired yesterday.

It was a long day, but R2 is now getting in the hands of people.

Let's start with R2.

R2 is arguably making break.

We talked about this yesterday as a collective group at lunch.

This, you've bet the company on this and AI essentially, right?

Like this has to fly.

Right now, last year, you guys made gross profit margin on the actual R1s you were making.

But obviously you're not negative because you're spending all the money on autonomy

and chips and all the other stuff.

Talking about R2's profitability in the sense of when do we get to profitability

on the actual car?

And the reason I asked for context is Volvo CEO just told me a couple of months ago,

the EX60 that's coming out right now, which arguably starts at 60 grand,

a little more money, it's profitable on day one car one.

Less than their gas cars, but they're making a profit on their EV on day one.

So where do you guys stand on that?

R2 gets to profitability very quickly.

So we've said publicly, and I've been really emphatic on this work,

the R2 profit trajectory will start to shine through by Q4.

Of this year.

Of this year on a vehicle basis.

I think something you said though, which I do want to touch on, which is really important,

is really doesn't has not generated net profit as a business yet.

And we haven't been casual positive as a business, but that's not an accident.

It's actually a very intentional and methodical build out of a bunch of capabilities

in order to build a much larger business.

And on the product side, we've taken the decision to vertically integrate

in almost all technically important areas.

So software, electronics, all the high voltage systems.

So that's power electronics, the motors, everything associated with the drive line.

So gearbox, inverters.

And we've done that because we want to make both really capable products,

but we also wanted to have a structural cost advantage as we got to scale.

And so in addition to the product, we also vertically integrated on the rest of the business.

So we're a direct to consumer.

We build our own distribution network.

So our own sales channel, our own service channel.

And this is many, many billions of dollars to build this out.

Huge infrastructure to support distribution of the cars.

So lots of like parking lots and warehouses across the country.

And all that investment was happening over the last few years

as we built up to get ready for R2.

And what I think missed is that that investment was like,

think of it as like a preloading, anticipating the volume that comes with R2.

And so the volume of R2 is what ultimately allows everything that we've done to make

rational sense.

It'll be like, oh, that's why there's so much investment.

This pull forward investment in service infrastructure and distribution network.

And as you said, autonomy, electronics, software.

And so R2's scale is, people say this is a make or break product.

It's the product the whole business has been designed around.

And so we absolutely intend for this to be a high volume program.

We launch it first out of our normal facility where we have around 160,000 units of R2 capacity.

We then bring on another plant we're building in Georgia.

And we're building that across two phases.

The first phase is a 300,000 unit phase.

And the second phase is roughly the same.

But Georgia will build, importantly, R2.

It'll also build R3.

And it'll build a bunch of cool variants.

Whoa, you're getting way ahead of us.

Yeah, so much we haven't talked about yet.

We've got so much to cover here.

We can come back to that.

But there are a couple of things before we get to any of that stuff.

And I don't want you guys as PR people to come across the table and choke me.

But there's so much you said in there that we have to address quickly.

So just off the bat, we've heard various numbers,

some confirmations, but how many R2 reservations do we have today?

Reservations to be clear.

We've only given a number once, like 20 hours after the launch event in 2024.

So this is like March 7th or 8th in 2024.

We decided to give a number once just to make it clear that there's excitement.

And so the number was just under 70,000 reservations.

Long time ago.

Yeah, that was a long time ago.

So since then, we've accumulated more reservations.

We haven't said how many.

But no time like the present.

No, but I think the point is we have a lot of excitement.

And that's a wonderful thing.

It's exactly what we want to be launching into.

It also does present a challenge because there's a lot of people

that would like to get their car next week.

So when we say we start deliveries next week,

there's many, many thousands of people that would like to be among the first.

And there is no practical or realistic way to do that because we're ramping production.

And so we've learned some things because on R1, we had not as big of a challenge,

but a similar challenge where there was a lot of backlog or excitement

around the brand and around the product.

And so here we've put together a very intentional and thoughtful way to decide how we

roll out the volume, deliver vehicles.

We've simplified what we're launching with where we have a single launch edition.

But nonetheless, when there's any kind of line, whether it's at a restaurant

or whether it's at a launch of a piece of electronics

or whether it's a launch of a car, it is challenging to manage.

And so we're trying to be as transparent as we can on that.

And we also have to recognize that one of the things that makes it so difficult

is when you have a very large pool of reservations,

we have to make predictions as to what the conversion rate is.

And if we're off by just a small percent, it makes it very hard for being accurate

and predicting when the delivery windows can be for other folks

because the whole thing compresses or expands.

If 100% convert versus 80% convert,

it has a big swing on delivery windows that we provide folks.

So we need some data to help inform how we can predict those delivery windows.

And I know for context, for people listening who don't know how the launch stuff works,

to your point about simplifying the bill configurations,

you guys also have to do a prediction of, okay, we have this many reservations,

but you also have to do the context of the conversion rate,

how many of those are for the launch decision,

how many for a standard, how many are for a premium, et cetera.

And so when you're not building those cars,

those guys are automatically lower in the line because they're coming later.

And they know that because we've even talked about the later.

That's actually a helpful mechanism to help spread the line out,

if you will, to spread across time.

So the takeaway people should have is patience is a virtue,

even though it's not something I have as one of my virtues.

I understand.

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