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Now on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook,

1:12

and Messenger. Hello

1:17

and welcome to Decoder. I'm Eli Patel, Editor-in-Chief

1:19

of The Verge, and Decoder is my show

1:21

about big ideas and other problems. Today, I'm

1:24

talking with Rivian founder and CEO, RJ Scrantz.

1:26

RJ was on the show last September

1:29

when we chatted at the Code Conference,

1:31

but the past 10 months have seen

1:33

a whirlwind of change throughout the car

1:35

industry, and at Rivian in particular. This

1:38

year alone, the company has announced five

1:40

new models. The R2, R3, and R3X

1:42

were all announced earlier this year, and

1:44

new second-generation versions of the original R1T

1:46

truck and R1S SUV just arrived

1:49

with a complete update to the computing

1:51

architecture inside the vehicles. And in the

1:53

biggest news of all, Rivian and Volkswagen

1:55

just announced a $5 billion joint

1:57

venture that will co-develop core parts of the company. of

2:00

the hardware and software platform used in cars

2:02

from both automakers. The deal will also provide

2:04

Rivian with a ton of cash. Cash

2:07

the company needs, as it builds towards profitability

2:09

and scale with the launch of the R2s

2:11

in 2026. A

2:13

new partnership structure is absolute bait for

2:16

decoder, so Arj and I talked at

2:18

length about how that partnership is structured,

2:20

and what Rivian is keeping in-house versus

2:22

putting in the joint venture. Rivian's

2:25

had a lot of big partnerships since it was

2:27

founded, including a major relationship with Ford that came

2:29

to an end. So I wanted to know what

2:31

about the VW deal would be different. The

2:34

answer might surprise you. Arj says this joint

2:36

venture is set up to succeed because of

2:38

the specific part of the technology platform in

2:41

the cars it's going to focus on. Of

2:44

course, Arj and I also talked about the cars

2:46

themselves. Rivian let me in R1S to drive for

2:48

a weekend before we had this chat, and it

2:50

was a lot of fun. But

2:52

it's also a really expensive car, and Rivian's still

2:54

losing money in each one. So I

2:56

wanted to know how Rivian is planning to hit profitability

2:58

on each car it sells, and whether

3:00

there's more demand for EVs than some of

3:02

the sales numbers we're seeing might otherwise indicate.

3:05

Arj really got into the weeds on that

3:08

question. You can tell he spent a lot

3:10

of time honing his theory of the case

3:12

against Tesla, and particularly against the Tesla Model

3:14

Y. If you're a decoder listener,

3:16

you've heard me talk to a lot of car

3:18

CEOs on the show. But it's rare to talk

3:20

to a car company founder, and Arj

3:23

was game to talk about basically anything, extremely

3:25

minor feature requests that I pulled from

3:28

Rivian forums. This is a fun one.

3:30

Okay, Rivian CEO, Arj Scrunch. Here we

3:33

go. Arj

3:46

Scrunch, you are the CEO and the founder

3:48

of Rivian. Welcome back to Decoder. Thanks, the

3:50

only good beyond with you here. Yeah, I'm

3:52

excited to talk to you. We last spoke

3:54

at the code conference that was last September.

3:57

A lot has happened since that

3:59

conversation. You've announced entirely new products, the

4:01

R2 and the R3, the R3X, which

4:04

looks beautiful. You should send me

4:06

one. You updated the R1 to a new architecture,

4:08

which I want to talk about in detail. On

4:10

top of all that, Volkswagen just announced a major

4:12

joint venture with you to make software that could

4:14

be worth up to $5 billion. That's

4:16

a lot. Let's start with the joint venture. What is

4:18

it meant to do? We've taken the

4:20

approach of really approaching

4:22

the software and the electronics in the

4:24

vehicle from a clean sheet and developing

4:27

those systems entirely in-house. Even

4:29

in our Gen 1 vehicle, the computers

4:32

that were used across the vehicle are 17

4:34

different ECUs that were built in-house. With

4:36

the Gen 2 architecture, we consolidate that

4:38

down to seven computers or seven ECUs,

4:40

electronic control units. That platform

4:43

is more than just the computers and the network architecture.

4:45

Of course, it's also the software that sits on top

4:47

of them. It's something

4:49

that allows thousands of dollars in

4:51

cost savings. It makes it far easier

4:53

to do over-the-air updates and software improvements

4:55

because we're not having to coordinate amongst

4:58

many, many different suppliers. What

5:00

we've created is of a lot of value. We've

5:02

been in a discussion with the Volkswagen Group for a

5:04

long time around how we might be able to work

5:06

together. Ultimately, what was announced was

5:09

a joint venture whereby through a combination of

5:11

investment and then some licensing fees to us,

5:13

it's a $5 billion deal. $5

5:15

billion comes into Rivian. In exchange,

5:17

we create with them a joint venture that

5:20

leverages our technology. We'll

5:23

see it across all hosted from products. Porsche,

5:25

Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, the full

5:27

portfolio of Volkswagen-branded products. We

5:31

love that because it aligns so beautifully with

5:33

our mission, the ability to help accelerate putting

5:35

highly compelling electric vehicles into the market,

5:37

which will ultimately drive more demand. Let's

5:40

talk about just the platform you mentioned there

5:42

for a second. There's a lot

5:44

of ways to think about car platforms. The

5:47

definition is pretty muddy. You

5:49

have competitors like Hyundai and Kia that have a

5:52

platform. Every new car is on one platform. That's

5:54

everything from the wheels to the

5:56

design of the car to how long it is in

5:58

some cases. scenario

8:00

would be using one ECU to do everything I

8:02

just described. In this case, it's a much larger

8:04

computer, but one computer. So it's

8:07

a massive simplification for how we think

8:09

about software development and also drives

8:11

a lot of cost out of the vehicle because instead of 70, 80

8:15

little computer boxes with wiring and

8:17

connectors and everything else, we have an RK7. I

8:20

think people really underestimate the complexity of that

8:22

task and also in some ways how simple

8:25

it is compared to other computing

8:27

tasks. When I was at the R1S launch, I

8:29

spent a bunch of time with your platform people

8:31

just talking about how building the car on ethernet

8:33

was a step change in innovation for the car

8:35

industry, which hasn't been the case

8:37

for other car makers. At the

8:39

same time, I've been interviewing car CEOs on

8:42

the show for four years now and they

8:44

have all been talking about reducing

8:46

the number of ECUs and doing over the

8:48

updates in that way. You mentioned

8:50

Rivian and Tesla are already there. Your startup companies who

8:52

were able to architect the car from

8:54

the ground up in this way. Volkswagen

8:56

famously has not been there. Their attempts

8:58

to do this have mostly been met

9:00

with controversy and turnover and bad

9:03

customer experiences. Is that what they're buying

9:05

from you? Just a new architecture, clean sheet, bring it in, we're

9:08

going to take it and not do it ourselves? The

9:10

CEO of Volkswagen Group, Oliver Bloom, and I have

9:12

spent some time in this windmill and I asked

9:14

the deal, we spoke to it together. What gets

9:16

me so excited about this is the portfolio

9:19

of really strong brands that exist within

9:21

Volkswagen Group. You think

9:23

about Porsche or Audi and

9:26

the necessity for those brands to have a step

9:29

change in terms of the technology set to

9:31

really make sure they're at the leading edge. It's

9:34

just such a nice complimentary set

9:36

of capabilities for our technology with

9:38

their products. What we're providing is

9:40

that architecture. We'll provide the

9:43

topology of ECUs along

9:45

with the base operating system and that's

9:47

both for the infotainment platform but also

9:49

for the real-time operating system. There's a

9:51

few different operating systems we've built and

9:54

then everything around over the updates, connectivity,

9:56

but what we won't be providing is

9:58

our user interface. So in all

10:00

the different products this platform will go into, the

10:03

user interface is actually an abstraction at the top

10:05

of the stack. A

10:07

vehicle may have three screens, may have two screens,

10:10

and 10 screens. That's relatively

10:12

simple to change what the UI looks

10:14

like. But everything underneath

10:16

will be really heavily

10:19

commonized using our architecture.

10:22

One of the pieces of that puzzle is when you talk about

10:24

the UI, you have Unreal

10:26

Engine in the cars now, and actually

10:28

showing some UI. The big update was

10:30

now there's cell shading and the depiction

10:32

of the car and the mode screens.

10:35

Is that one layer away? Can Volkswagen choose to use

10:37

Unreal Engine or not? Is that something you're holding close

10:40

to Rivian? Is that just up for

10:42

grabs? That's ultimately a big

10:44

decision for each of the brands. What they want their

10:46

UI to feel like, the beauty

10:48

of the platform we have is in

10:50

terms of compute, graphics capability. We

10:53

talked about the speed of communications across

10:55

the different computers. It provides

10:57

a very high ceiling in terms of what one might

11:00

dream up. One of the other

11:02

benefits of this relationship, you think of it almost like

11:04

there's going to be a

11:06

library of different features and content and

11:09

frameworks we develop around the features and

11:11

content that can be applied across different

11:13

applications. So we've developed, I think,

11:16

a wonderful integration with Unreal, which allows us

11:18

to do these unique

11:21

renders in a very unique style that

11:23

we've designed that's intentionally not photorealistic, but

11:26

rather more artistic and interpretive. You

11:28

could use Unreal Engine to render any style.

11:30

It's such an enabler for making the product

11:32

feel really fresh in our view. So that's

11:35

ultimately going to be the decision of the brands, but it

11:37

certainly could be in there. Yeah, I'm just trying to

11:39

figure out what goes where. You have Rivian,

11:41

which you've developed all the software. You have

11:43

a new JV, which it sounds like

11:45

a bunch of work is going to move into the JV. And

11:48

then your JV has what feels like a

11:50

big client in VW. How

11:52

much of Rivian is moving into the

11:55

joint venture to work on these core

11:57

operating systems, as opposed to the

11:59

user interfaces that you're using? what

16:00

we call our experience management module, which is the

16:03

computer that runs the infotainment platform, will need to

16:05

be different. But the team

16:07

that runs that platform, it's

16:09

a very simple change for us because it's all

16:11

in house. So it's not like we have to

16:13

go back to some supplier and say, hey, we

16:15

need to have output connectors to support this many

16:17

screens. It's like, we can spin up new boards

16:19

really easily. I'm not concerned about that. That's straightforward

16:21

and very easy to understand. The bigger

16:24

question though, is making sure

16:26

that we're not bringing up a wide

16:28

range of different compute platforms. And

16:32

what silicon we select and

16:34

what silicon we really build around for certain

16:36

aspects of this, whether that's the

16:39

core compute platform, whether that's graphics,

16:41

we wanna keep that consistent across the family.

16:44

What that gets us beyond just simplification

16:47

of how we manage running

16:49

over the updates across so many different instances,

16:52

it also gets us a lot of supply chain leverage

16:54

in a way that we really haven't had in the

16:56

past. So you can imagine when we talk to silicon

16:59

providers, in the past, they're looking at

17:01

Rivian's volume and providing a certain price. We now look at

17:03

it across not just our

17:05

volume, but the breadth and strength of

17:07

Volkswagen Group's volume. And

17:09

we expect considerable cost efficiencies

17:11

to result because of that. In

17:13

fact, you can imagine the day of the announcement, I had

17:16

a handful of phone calls from CEOs of

17:18

big semiconductor suppliers and they're like, hey, we can work

17:20

harder on pricing. So

17:23

that was awesome. I mean, it goes from

17:25

Rivian being a small customer today to then,

17:27

oh wow, Rivian is gonna drive a huge

17:29

amount of volume through our

17:31

partnership with Volkswagen. Take me into that

17:33

supplier call. You get a call from the semiconductor supplier

17:35

and they're like, we can help you in pricing today

17:38

a little bit. Is that because they expect more volume

17:40

in 2028? Yeah,

17:42

and these supply chains tend to be

17:44

sticky. So once we select a

17:46

platform, it's not to say that that platform's gonna stay

17:49

the same for the next 10 years. Of course, that

17:51

platform is gonna continue to improve, but the

17:53

frameworks around how we develop on top of

17:55

that platform stay consistent. So we've done

17:57

this already, the Gen 1 to Gen 2. transition

18:00

even within Gen 1 and within Gen

18:02

2, there's improvement that

18:05

we have enhanced chips that are going into the

18:07

vehicle but it's within the same supplier. And so

18:10

the decisions we make over the next year and a half

18:13

are by no means forever one-way

18:15

door decisions but there

18:17

is switching costs associated with it. And

18:19

so that only becomes stronger as the

18:21

scale of the portfolio becomes larger. So

18:24

it's in the interest of both sides to think about the

18:26

long-term. In our case we want to say is this a

18:29

supplier that we want to

18:31

work with ideally for the next decade

18:33

or beyond ideally beyond and

18:35

for the supplier does this customer

18:37

represent significant annual

18:40

year-over-year growth and you know

18:42

in our case we now can say very very firmly

18:45

that hey look we have our two we have our

18:47

three coming that represents growth but

18:49

think of the entirety of Porsche,

18:51

Audi, Volkswagen, Lamborghini, Bentley, Seattle like

18:54

all the brands within Volkswagen group

18:56

that will be electrifying as those

18:58

vehicles electrify they will also be

19:00

using this platform. Do you have enough

19:02

volume now to get leverage over Nvidia? Because you have a

19:04

lot of Nvidia chips in those cars. We

19:07

have the most leverage we've ever had in the history

19:09

of the company. Have you promised Jensen Wang and Bentley?

19:11

That's really the question I'm asking. I don't think he

19:13

needs us to. That's

19:15

probably true. Rivings had a

19:18

lot of partnerships. Amazon obviously a big

19:20

investor then GM was in talks with

19:22

y'all and then Ford made an investment

19:24

to make a truck that got canceled

19:26

then he raised another bunch of money

19:28

from Ford and Amazon. Ford sold

19:30

its whole stake. There's actually rumors of

19:32

a team up with Apple which is interesting. What's

19:35

gonna make the Volkswagen deal different than this past

19:37

history? Well it's interesting you bring

19:39

up all the examples of other partnerships and we've

19:42

looked at the idea of sharing our vehicle

19:44

platform through a variety of alliances. We looked

19:46

at vehicle platform sharing with Ford, vehicle platform

19:48

sharing with Mercedes both very publicly. As

19:51

you alluded to we've looked at big

19:53

platform opportunities with other vehicle manufacturers as

19:55

well and what is

19:57

always in every case The

20:00

challenge is it's getting the network architectures

20:02

of Rivian's platform and those

20:05

other manufacturers that we've talked to to work

20:08

together. It's a challenge in every

20:10

possible way. It's a challenge to get the top

20:12

hat from a traditional company that's using lots and

20:14

lots of supplier source DCUs to work with our

20:17

platform, you know, battery drivetrain chassis that has

20:19

very few ECUs. It's a

20:21

challenge to get those two very different architectures to run

20:24

down the same manufacturing line. And

20:27

by far, putting aside the strategic

20:29

reasons those deals didn't happen, the

20:32

biggest technical boundary was always network architecture.

20:34

So as we've approached this with Volkswagen, interestingly,

20:37

what we're partnering on is precisely the thing

20:39

that has always been the challenge. So while

20:42

this deal is purely around

20:45

aligning our network architectures, it

20:47

certainly makes things like platform sharing

20:49

a lot easier or leveraging manufacturing

20:51

capacity a lot easier. But

20:53

that we didn't start there. We started instead

20:56

to say, let's align network architectures and

20:58

this doesn't have packaging constraints. We

21:01

have to fit, you know, a

21:03

handful of small computers or small boxes into

21:05

the car. They can go in many

21:07

places, but it doesn't have any link

21:09

to the way the vehicle drives, the way the vehicle

21:11

looks. It really just enables

21:14

this software platform to be much

21:16

more compelling as we discussed. And

21:19

so taking away all

21:21

those mechanical design studio packaging

21:23

constraints that we had before

21:25

and then solving the biggest

21:28

challenge, which was network architecture

21:30

by this being that as a project.

21:32

It's just a very different type of relationship. And if I

21:34

could go back in time, I think we would have probably

21:37

realized that bigger than sharing batteries

21:39

or bigger than sharing motors or bigger than sharing

21:41

the combination of those two was

21:43

the opportunity to leverage our electronic

21:45

stack. The deal is for a billion now.

21:47

It might be for up to five. What gets you the

21:49

other four? The way the deal is structured

21:52

is there is a five billion dollar deal. Three

21:54

billion of it is structured as an

21:57

investment and we intentionally structured that to

21:59

be staged over time. given the desire

22:01

to minimize dilution and the desire to

22:04

essentially have those future that

22:06

second billion and the third billion come in at a higher

22:08

share price and after we've achieved some success and so

22:12

even the first billion came in and only half

22:14

of that converts at the share price at the

22:16

time of the announcement the other half converts when

22:18

we Finalize the definitive agreement for

22:20

the joint venture, which of course is very advanced But

22:23

that allows for you know us to minimize

22:25

dilution even in that first billion That's

22:28

the first three billion is equity. The other

22:30

two billion is in conjunction

22:32

with the joint venture one of those is licensing

22:36

fee back to Rivian and the

22:38

other is debt provided from

22:40

Volkswagen to Rivian and it's structured

22:42

in a way that gets paid off through the joint venture over

22:44

time But the goal is

22:46

it inserts five billion dollars Onto

22:48

our balance sheet and so it really provides

22:51

the funding roadmap to get to positive free

22:53

cash flow Takes the balance sheet

22:55

risk off the table in that

22:57

five billion doesn't include any of the Revenue

23:00

associated with the joint venture or any of the

23:02

OpEx improvements associated with the joint venture those we'll

23:04

talk about those numbers So later date, but those

23:06

are not insignificant as you can imagine We

23:11

need to take a quick break when we're back our

23:13

Jenna talk about how the VW deal is going to

23:15

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world with Meta AI. We're

26:32

back with Rivian CEO RJ Screnge to get

26:35

into the decoder questions and what changes and

26:37

what stays the same with the new VW

26:39

deal. Let's

26:41

talk about Rivian for a second. I actually want

26:44

to talk about the cars. This is a restructuring,

26:46

right? You're moving some teams around. You have a

26:48

joint venture now. How is

26:50

Rivian structured now? Or how will it

26:52

be structured? In what way?

26:54

With regards to joint venture. After the joint venture launches,

26:56

how will Rivian be structured? What's changing? Well,

26:59

within our software function, a significant portion

27:01

of the software team, should say the advanced

27:03

majority of the software team will be part of this joint venture. The

27:05

joint venture will look, feel, behave

27:08

like Rivian. It'll be a Rivian

27:10

entity, but it'll have ownership that's

27:13

not just Rivian, but also Volkswagen. The objective is

27:15

to make it look and feel as much like

27:17

Rivian as possible. And that's from

27:19

a recruiting point of view. That's from equity competition point

27:21

of view, all of the above. Me

27:23

leveraging our existing facilities footprint will

27:25

be growing the team, not surprisingly

27:28

to support the much greater

27:30

scope of work that we're now gonna have

27:32

from a application's execution point of view. And

27:35

then from an electronics point of view, the

27:37

subset of our electrical engineering team that's

27:40

responsible for design of these computers will move

27:42

in. But with the exception,

27:45

our self-driving platform, both the perceptions

27:47

of the cameras we design in-house,

27:50

the radar systems, and the

27:53

entirety of the compute platform. So the design

27:55

of the computer system, the

27:57

chip selection, all of that will stay separate from this joint venture

28:00

that's taking place. completely within Rivian. What about

28:02

the rest of Rivian? How is that structured? It

28:04

stays the same. I lead all products. All the product functions

28:06

report to me. So there's a

28:08

propulsion lead that has drive units and

28:10

battery systems reporting to him. There

28:13

is a electrical lead, which has

28:15

all electrical hardware, inclusive of computers,

28:17

cameras, silicon selection

28:20

reporting, in this case, into her. We

28:22

have a chassis body interior

28:24

lead. You can think of it as like

28:26

the traditional vehicle leader that has

28:28

all the bits you see that reports into

28:31

me. We have a safety

28:33

and attributes leader. So that's

28:35

attributes is like all the characteristics

28:37

of the vehicle, which we test and design requirements

28:39

around that reports into me. We

28:42

have a program leader that's responsible for running

28:44

the programs, both on the consumer

28:46

side, R1, R2, R3. On

28:49

the commercial side, our EDV that reports into a

28:51

single program's leader. And let's see.

28:53

We have a head of design who reports to me. And

28:56

then what am I missing? I think I covered them all. When

28:59

you expand those programs to R2 and R3 and so on, will

29:02

those have different leaders, different teams, or are they

29:04

offshoots of R1? Yes, I think of

29:06

it almost like there's a vertical function around

29:08

a capability set. So body

29:10

interior chassis, that's a team. But

29:13

then there's programs within that. So within

29:15

the body chassis interior vehicle team, there's

29:17

a R1 team, there's an R2 team,

29:19

an R3 team. And

29:21

individuals move between those. So one

29:24

can imagine the vast majority of those teams are now

29:26

on R2. There's very few people that

29:28

are supporting R1 because R1, we've

29:30

launched the update. It's stable. The

29:33

significant portion of the company is in R2 or R3. The

29:36

same is true for Propulsion. So we

29:39

just launched all new drive units, new quad,

29:41

new tri, new battery packs in R1. Those

29:44

teams are all now really heavily

29:46

dedicated to R2. Even before

29:48

the launch of Peregrine, you can imagine a lot of the teams

29:50

are already on R2. So that structure,

29:53

to be capable of running and operating multiple

29:55

programs at the same time has evolved. And

29:57

we've worked on it quite a bit. But

29:59

it. It's like one of the best functioning

30:01

parts of the business today. Yeah. The

30:03

reason I asked that question, I asked

30:05

it basically to everyone is car makers

30:07

have the widest range of options. Like

30:09

over time, car companies have been structured

30:11

in every possible way. Tech companies are

30:13

usually pretty functional. Are you thinking that

30:15

eventually you'll have to switch from this

30:17

kind of big functional organization, especially as

30:19

you are maybe making more revenue from

30:21

your JV with Volkswagen and things like

30:23

that? I don't know. One

30:25

of the things that I've realized

30:28

and worked towards was to have as

30:31

few degrees of separation between me and

30:33

the teams that are doing engineering. And

30:36

so often within large car companies, in

30:39

part because of their scale, and I think just in

30:41

part because of the history, there's quite a few layers

30:44

between the actual technical leaders that

30:46

are making technical decisions and the

30:48

CEO. Whereas within Rivian, the

30:51

technical leaders report directly to me.

30:53

It means I have a large number of direct reports

30:55

because everything I just described, the whole product team reports

30:57

to me. And then I have, that's

30:59

with my chief product officer hat on, and then I have

31:02

the CEO side of my role. So I have a CFO

31:04

that reports to me, general counsel reports to me. And

31:06

so the way I run the

31:08

team is I have a product leadership team meeting

31:11

like my regular staff meetings around product leadership. And

31:13

we have quarterly off sites and all the things

31:15

you'd expect for someone who's running

31:17

a product and technology organization to do. And I

31:20

have a similar set of meetings

31:22

that happen from like an executive leadership

31:24

point of view. And so in

31:26

the executive leadership team, I'm both the CEO and I

31:28

also represent product. That's worked really well,

31:31

but it's also something that we've iterated on quite a bit

31:33

as a team. And for me, it

31:35

took a while to make sure we had the

31:37

right rest of the leadership team that would give

31:39

me the bandwidth to be as focused on product

31:41

as I am. Yeah. Well, I have to have

31:43

you back maybe next year after

31:45

R2 and R2. This year still works. Yeah. Because

31:47

I mean, it works when you have one product, right?

31:50

You hit R1 and now you're going to have more.

31:52

And I'm always curious because that seems to be the,

31:54

especially founders near the founder. That seems to be the

31:57

scale point. One of the things I've learned over the

31:59

last year, we've had a lot of great over time

32:01

is the right organizational structure in two or three years

32:04

is likely different than the organizational structure that's

32:06

most effective today. And

32:08

when I've preemptively tried to

32:10

pull what I think will be the

32:13

future state organization structure into today, it

32:16

generally is the wrong decision. So if I

32:18

said, let's design this to look like a

32:20

company that has 10 different

32:22

products, theoretically, you can understand

32:24

why we did it. I would say, oh, we're getting ready

32:26

for when we eventually have 10 different products. But that's so

32:28

in the future that right now we don't, we have an

32:31

R1 and we have a new platform which

32:33

we call a mid-size platform, but it's R2

32:35

and R3, which is a sibling set of products. And

32:38

those products need to be, you know,

32:41

home run over the fence, like the just

32:43

absolutely insanely good. So the whole future of the

32:45

business depends on it. So there's not a

32:47

lot of decisions that we're taking lightly. We're

32:49

looking at every inch of the vehicle. And in

32:51

the case of R2 and R3, really,

32:54

really focusing on costs so that out of

32:56

the gate, they have a

32:58

much better cost structure than what we launched with

33:00

on R1 so that we can get to scaled

33:03

profitability and healthy, positive

33:05

free cashflow. Yeah, this is great.

33:07

It leads right into the other classic decoder question. How

33:10

do you make decisions? What's your framework? In

33:12

our business, I say this all

33:14

the time, but like the thing about a car is

33:17

the number of decisions is so significant. We've

33:19

tried to estimate it. I would argue there's

33:22

many tens of millions of decisions necessary to

33:24

be made in development of a car different

33:27

than if you were designing, let's say a whiteboard

33:29

or a water bottle or something where conceivably

33:31

one or two people could make every single

33:33

product decision on the entire thing by

33:36

necessity, unless you were going to take 20,000 years to develop

33:39

the product and live forever. Like you need to

33:41

have a lot of people working in parallel, making

33:44

truly thousands of decisions every day. And

33:46

those decisions may really be really big, like what's

33:49

the size of the battery pack to really

33:52

small, like what's the radius on the corner

33:54

of a part to minimize stress concentration, like

33:56

those kinds of things. What

33:59

we've done in terms of... of trying to

34:01

ensure that to the

34:03

extent possible, the many millions of

34:05

decisions we'll make over the course of developing a

34:07

product to make sure those feel

34:09

as if one single brain made all those

34:12

decisions, as we talk a lot about the

34:15

philosophy of how we make decisions. What's

34:18

the purpose of the product? What's

34:20

the trade-offs we're willing to make

34:22

around cost versus performance versus perceived

34:25

quality? We have lots

34:27

and lots of iterations around reviews.

34:30

We essentially work really hard to train the organization

34:33

so that the front of the vehicle feels like

34:35

it was designed by the same team as the

34:37

back of the vehicle. The way we approach cost

34:39

optimization in the interior feels consistent with how we've

34:41

approached it in let's say the chassis

34:44

system. And we don't always get it right.

34:46

There are mistakes that get made. We have to fix them. There

34:48

are mistakes that get made that we have

34:50

to address. But we

34:52

do really consciously understand that we do need

34:54

to make a lot of decisions. So for

34:56

us to be functional, we have to have

34:58

highly distributed decision-making. We built

35:00

some frameworks around this. So we understand

35:03

who's the decision maker, who's the, we say who's the D,

35:06

who do we need to inform about the decision, who

35:09

are the people that have to be

35:11

a participant in providing input into the decision.

35:14

And some of these, like my example of like

35:16

a radius on let's say, a part that comes

35:18

together, let's say a welded assembly or a cast

35:20

part, probably one person can make that. There's probably

35:22

not a lot of people involved, but

35:25

on something like what's the door

35:27

opening look like on the car, there's 50 people

35:30

that'll be involved. And there's a seal team,

35:32

there's a window team, there's a door closures

35:34

team, there's a scuff and paint quality team.

35:37

There's like a lot of people that play

35:39

into that. Some of it takes

35:41

practice. When we first started, we didn't

35:43

have as much experience making these kinds of distributed

35:45

decisions. And now it's like, I really feel an

35:47

R2 where the teams are flowing, the

35:50

things that we can't reach decision on get

35:52

escalated. Ultimately, if the escalation point can't

35:54

make the decision, the escorts again, it gets to me

35:57

and then my role is to help navigate decision. But I'd say,

36:00

I end up, as a percentage of total

36:02

decisions, I'm making a very, very small percentage of the decisions.

36:04

I participate in the big decisions, but every day, as

36:06

we're in this conversation, many decisions are getting made as

36:08

we speak. You used some Amazon

36:11

language already in this conversation. You said

36:13

One Way Door, which is a classic

36:15

Amazon decision-making vocabulary. You said, who

36:17

has the D, which I think is also Amazon. You very much

36:19

started with $700 million from Amazon. How

36:21

much of Amazon's decision culture have you

36:24

inherited, and how has that changed? I

36:26

think a lot of Amazon's strengths, because

36:28

Amazon invested in us in 2019, but two

36:31

years before

36:33

we launched our first product. That

36:35

influence has been really helpful. I think One Way Door

36:37

is a key part of their decision framework, which is,

36:40

if a decision's a One Way Door and it has big

36:42

implications, spend time on it. If

36:44

a decision's reversible and doesn't

36:47

have huge implications, make

36:49

it quickly. That's certainly true

36:51

in a vehicle. The nature of our product, there's

36:55

30 plus thousand discrete parts, 2,500 source

36:57

components. There's just

36:59

such a large volume that it's

37:02

inevitable that mistakes or things will

37:05

get done without something having to

37:07

be revisited. I think the

37:09

One Way Door concept is a big one that we've really connected

37:11

with and associated with. The

37:14

other thing that we try really hard to achieve,

37:16

we don't always achieve, and I'd say that I don't think there's

37:18

any company in the world that always achieves this, is

37:21

absolute clarity around who is responsible

37:23

for the decision. It's key

37:25

for accountability. It's a critical element for how

37:27

we truly enable scaled

37:30

distributed decision making. We

37:32

do spend time on that. If something's unclear, you'll

37:34

be in a meeting and you

37:37

find yourself in this infinite do loop of debate.

37:39

You're like, wait a second. You say, who's the

37:41

D? Who owns this decision? Somebody raised their hand.

37:43

What do you think and why do we not

37:45

have a better framework? It's

37:49

just a very efficient way to help navigate

37:51

driving the efficacy of the

37:53

teams. Let's put this into practice.

37:55

A big decision that you had to make recently was you

37:58

decided to expand the factory. And

40:00

so it was a nice way to have the first plant launch where

40:03

it takes some of that risk out. That's a question we get

40:05

asked all the time. We were worried about cannibalization. But the third

40:07

reason was it allows us

40:09

to minimize the risk of launch and speed

40:12

the launch up because we're taking a team

40:14

that we've, you know,

40:17

over time, painfully in many

40:19

ways, brought the team to a place where

40:21

it's now working well. You know, when we launched, we

40:23

didn't have experience in training. We didn't have experience in

40:25

running a plant. We now have a high functioning team.

40:28

And so we said, boy, it'd be great to take this high functioning

40:30

team and launch the next platform.

40:34

And so rather than launching first

40:36

in Georgia, where we have new plants, new product,

40:38

new team, some new technology

40:40

all at once, we're now going

40:43

to have new product and existing plant with existing

40:45

team. So it's a way to reduce the amount

40:47

of time that market and remove the risk. Now,

40:50

saying that Georgia is still a really important

40:52

part of our overall strategy. And in terms

40:54

of R2, it'll be our largest R2 plant.

40:56

It's a 400,000 unit a year

40:58

plant is what's been designed. You know,

41:00

just talking to you and then thinking about Rivian over

41:02

the years, it feels like a lot of the game

41:04

you're playing is just sort of

41:06

managing cash till you get to the appropriate scale. This

41:08

has been written about a lot. I'm sure you are

41:11

frustrated with some of the coverage, but it's, it's sort

41:13

of the game, right? You Rivian burns a lot of

41:15

cash. I think you're still losing money in each R1

41:18

unit you're selling. You've said you're

41:20

going to get to annual profit this year. What's

41:22

the actual phrase? We saw we're going to get

41:24

the positive gross margin. Positive gross margin this year,

41:26

but you still have to like turn profits.

41:29

You got a bunch of investors. You got to pay back. Is

41:32

that how you're thinking about this dance? Like I

41:34

got to get to volume and R2 and R3,

41:37

scale up Georgia. Now you're making 600,000 cars

41:39

a year at the two plants. And

41:42

that'll, that's it. We're, we're often running

41:44

or is there, is there

41:46

another step after that? No, that's

41:48

it. The thing to keep in mind

41:50

is we're investing very heavily into technology

41:52

platforms and vehicle platforms that are designed

41:55

for scale. So if we look

41:57

at what we produce today, we're, this year

41:59

we've our guidance. for the years 57,000

42:01

units of production and roughly

42:03

57,000 units of deliveries. But

42:06

we've got completely in-house electronics, completely in-house

42:08

software stack, in-house perception stack that we

42:10

just launched on the Gen 2, complete

42:13

in-house autonomy. Each of

42:15

those are huge development efforts, and we're

42:18

making those because we're bullish

42:20

on the long term for the business, and

42:22

we believe the structural cost advantages, structural performance

42:24

advantages that result in the end are

42:26

worth it. But that base

42:28

metabolism of the business that results from

42:30

being so heavily vertical in those areas

42:33

means we need a certain level of scale to

42:36

cover that. That's always been the

42:38

case that we put that in our S1, and that's why R2 and

42:40

R3, you know, in that platform

42:42

is so important for scale. What

42:44

we didn't anticipate, if I

42:46

were to wind the clock back to 2019 or 2020, is when we were

42:50

sourcing R1, we had to

42:53

go out to suppliers in 2018 and 2019 when the

42:55

auto industry was at

42:57

peak volume, so things were like humming. And

43:00

we had to go convince suppliers to

43:02

spend time, resources, and bandwidth on

43:05

supplying us parts with

43:07

the, in 2018, 2019, a brand that was

43:09

very unproven for a company that

43:11

didn't have a working plant for a product that wasn't

43:14

yet complete, and in an

43:16

environment where it wasn't clear how rapid

43:18

the demand for electrification would grow. So

43:21

we had very little leverage, and so we

43:23

had to sign up for massive risk premiums

43:25

for sourcing the bill of materials that went

43:27

into the launch configuration of R1. And

43:30

our assumption all along was that as soon as

43:32

we launch, we'll see the success. Those companies will

43:34

want to continue working with us on R2, and

43:37

we'll have leverage to then negotiate those

43:39

risk premiums down. And

43:41

we made some progress that you can see it

43:43

in our quarter-over-quarter improvements. What

43:46

we didn't anticipate was the supply chain crisis, and

43:48

so the supply chain crisis hit us in the

43:50

base of our own we launched. And

43:52

so all these suppliers that we thought we'd be able to say,

43:54

hey, look, we're doing great. The product's

43:56

the best-selling premium EV in the United

43:58

States. It's the Arwinist's. the best selling premium

44:01

vehicle EV or non EV in California. And we're

44:04

about to launch our to work with us to

44:06

come down and cost those suppliers that actually we

44:08

don't have enough supply, can you pay us more

44:10

money? It was just like a

44:12

perfect storm. And we finally have gotten through that,

44:15

where we've resourced a very significant portion or bill of

44:17

materials for any of those suppliers that worked with us.

44:19

That was great. They lowered the price they treated us

44:21

as a as a long term partner. For

44:24

the suppliers that didn't that weren't willing to remove

44:27

the almost extortion level

44:29

premiums we had to move on.

44:31

So we had to break those supply agreements, we had to

44:33

go bring on new suppliers, suppliers that wanted to be part

44:35

of our long term story. Yeah,

44:37

that's a lot of effort to replace the bill

44:40

of materials in a car. So is that drive

44:42

the zonal architecture 17 EC used to seven was

44:44

that an opportunity for you to say we're leaving

44:46

these guys behind? That was more of a technology

44:49

move. That's more on things like windshields

44:51

or seats or stent metal

44:53

parts is the rest of the vehicle that that had

44:56

to be resourced. And you said you're

44:58

at the R1 events you saw it but the I mean,

45:00

the car looks very similar, but most

45:03

of it's new. So even everything under the

45:05

surface is new. And so that is

45:07

what's giving us a step change in cost structure, which

45:09

we'll start to see near the end of the year,

45:11

which is back to your capture of

45:13

my statement that will be positive gross margin by

45:16

by q4 this year. We

45:20

have to take another quick break. When we're back,

45:22

I ask RJ some burning questions about test driving

45:24

the second generation R1S. Ryan

45:31

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apply. We're

46:34

back with Rivian CEO RJ Scrange to talk about

46:36

the second generation R1S, which I had the chance

46:38

to test drive over the weekend. So

46:41

I spent the weekend in a Gen 2 R1S. It

46:43

was a lot of fun. Very fast. Great drive train.

46:45

I had the new Enduro motors and the dual setup.

46:47

It's good. Yeah, the dual setup. Imagine four of those.

46:50

The quad motors, nuts. I got

46:52

a lot of tickets when I was a teenager. I'm not looking

46:54

to get tickets as an adult, but I thought

46:56

about it. It's an expensive car. I had

46:59

the base model. It was still almost 90K

47:01

as options. I

47:03

look at the landscape for,

47:05

you know, you spent 90K on a Benz.

47:07

You're in basically a pillow. A $90,000 F-150,

47:11

like a Platinum F-150, is like

47:13

a pure luxury experience. It's almost

47:16

like ridiculous. The

47:18

R1S is not that. Right. Is

47:20

all that money in the drive train? Is it in

47:22

the new motors? Is that what people are

47:24

buying for the money? Is it just having an EV? What

47:27

you drove, it sounds like you're in like a

47:29

dual performance Max pack. So our biggest battery pack

47:32

with our two motor system, a

47:35

performance frame of that. As you

47:37

said, probably $90,000. I don't know exactly

47:39

which one. But the base price on

47:41

the vehicles around $75, $76

47:44

for the base R1S, which is a smaller battery

47:46

pack, is a very similar drive train to what

47:48

you had. It's a similar acceleration. One

47:51

of the things we focused on when we developed

47:53

the product and the portfolio is to give people

47:56

choices along the price spectrum. So if you're highly price sensitive,

47:58

you have to give people choices. you

48:00

can get something that's really nice for 75, $76,000. If

48:04

you want a lot more range or more performance,

48:06

you can spend up from there. With the new

48:09

tri-motor and then our updated quad,

48:11

it allowed us to move the pricing levels

48:13

even higher for the highest spec because the

48:15

performance is now, it's

48:17

just so staggering. But this is kind of the

48:20

pricing matrix trap, for

48:22

lack of a better word, right? You're selling a very expensive

48:24

car that is priced, even at the low

48:26

numbers at 75, 76, you're

48:29

just fully in luxury car territory. But that's not

48:31

Rivian. I don't think you're trying to sell a

48:33

luxury car, you call them adventure vehicles. The

48:36

expectations around the number are of one experience, and then

48:38

you're still losing money in each one that you sell.

48:40

How do you bring that in line? Is that just

48:42

the job that R2 is meant to do? We

48:45

think of the R1 product has always been

48:47

thought of as our flagship vehicle. So it's

48:49

gonna be our highest

48:52

priced vehicles. We think there's a subtle difference, but

48:54

it's important. We think of them as very

48:56

premium vehicles, but not luxury, because they're vehicles that are

48:58

designed to be used. You can get them dirty, you

49:00

can drive them off road. It was very clear that

49:02

I could hose out the inside of this car. Yeah,

49:04

they're designed to be heavily used. There

49:08

was a moment when my six year old was like a little

49:10

car sick in traffic, and I was like, oh, it'll

49:13

be fine. I'll just hit it with the garden hose.

49:15

We got through it, it was fine. She watched the

49:17

screen. That's good, I like that. That's hilarious. So the

49:19

R2 though is a much lower cost architecture. We had

49:21

an investor day where we talked about some of this,

49:23

but it benefits from some of the

49:25

supply chain leverage that I talked about before, where

49:28

we're sourcing this from a very different

49:30

vantage point. R1, its success has been

49:32

really helpful in sourcing R2, because many

49:35

of these suppliers, which I remember meeting with in 2018,

49:37

2019, and

49:39

they decided to put pricing that had

49:41

a lot of premiums. And what they've seen is, basically

49:44

what we've said we were gonna do, we've done.

49:46

So the volumes we anticipated were now hitting. They

49:49

also see that the R1 has been

49:51

a huge market success in

49:54

terms of electric vehicles over $70,000. It's

49:57

by significant to be the best selling vehicle. So

50:00

it outsells Model S, it outsells Model X. So

50:02

in that premium segment, it does really well.

50:05

And so the hope is if we can take the

50:07

success we've had at price points, as you

50:09

said, north of $70,000 and

50:12

translate that to price points north of $40,000, if

50:16

we have any semblance of the market share that

50:18

we've been able to capture at the high end

50:20

at this more middle price band,

50:22

call it the average, near the average transaction price of

50:25

a vehicle in the United States, we

50:27

hope that will translate to significant volume, certainly

50:29

well beyond what we can produce in normal and

50:32

allow us to turn on our Georgia facilities

50:34

to supplement the demand that exists there. Do

50:37

you anticipate that you're gonna start making money

50:39

in R1 as you hit scale as this

50:41

goes on? When do you think that will

50:43

happen? As we

50:45

said, this Q4 will be positive gross margins

50:47

on a unit basis that'll make money by

50:50

the end of this year. The scale

50:52

of our operating expenses, the scale of our

50:54

R&D is very large. So

50:57

the denominator of R1 revenue just isn't big

50:59

enough. We need more volume to

51:02

cover all of our operating expenses. But

51:04

the question of, does making one more

51:06

car lead to us having more

51:08

or less money? The answer to that will be

51:10

yes, it will lead us having more money. Is that

51:12

gonna be the case for R2 and R3 from

51:14

the start? Yeah, so that's a big difference. And

51:17

we haven't given any of the numbers

51:19

yet, but sourcing

51:21

R2 has been about as different as one

51:24

could have ever imagined from R1. Now use

51:26

an anecdotal example just to illustrate the point.

51:29

On R1, when we would be

51:31

sourcing lots of the components, I would go

51:33

to Detroit to meet with suppliers and

51:36

maybe I would get a

51:39

vice president to

51:41

meet me in some conference room after waiting in a

51:43

lobby for 30 minutes for a meeting that the suppliers

51:45

laid to. More often than not,

51:47

it'd be like a senior manager of sales

51:49

or maybe a director of sales. We

51:52

were very low in terms of how those suppliers

51:54

prioritized us. If I contrast that with the same

51:57

systems I got the same suppliers on R2. the

52:00

CEOs of those suppliers are flying to normal

52:02

Illinois to meet with me. And

52:05

so it's such a different sourcing

52:07

environment. So the pricing that we're seeing for

52:10

similar components is

52:12

much, much lower. Now on top of that, we've

52:15

architected the vehicle to be simpler. You

52:17

know, R1 is a pretty

52:19

remarkable thing. It's, you know, active damping.

52:21

It's got electro hydraulic roll control. It's

52:24

got massive adjustment in the ride height

52:26

with air suspension. Whereas R2 is a

52:28

passive spring, semi-active

52:31

damper. Pretty straightforward, you

52:33

know, passive anti-roll bar in

52:35

the chassis system. Body architecture

52:37

isn't designed for the extreme off-roading

52:40

of what we see in R1. You

52:42

know, it's still a capable vehicle off trail, but it's not

52:45

nothing like what we did with R1. You're

52:47

anticipating a lot of demand for R2, right? Like

52:50

it feels like you're gearing up for this to

52:52

be the mainstream vehicle. There's a

52:54

lot of just noise about the

52:56

EV industry right now or sales up, are

52:58

they down? Is it just Tesla sales are

53:00

dropping? Is it people are, all

53:02

the early adopters already bought it. Do you

53:04

see the latent demand for a car like

53:06

R2, like ready

53:09

for your ambition? It's

53:11

funny you say latent demand. I actually use that exact phrase

53:13

all the time. There's a

53:15

massive amount of bias

53:18

that's gone into describing what's happening in

53:20

terms of EV growth and

53:23

the causality of its slowdown in growth. Notice

53:25

I said slowdown in growth. It's still growing,

53:27

just not growing as fast. But

53:29

the causality of that is something that

53:31

we can debate. And I think more

53:33

often than not, people are assigning the causality to

53:36

say there's not a lot of demand for EVs.

53:39

And often the folks that are saying that are saying

53:41

that because they've developed and launched EVs that haven't done

53:43

that well. What I would say

53:46

is the primary reason for the slowdown

53:48

is there is an extreme, truly

53:51

extreme lack of choice. If

53:53

you want to spend less than $50,000 for an EV, I'd

53:56

say there's like a very, very small

53:58

number of great products. Tesla, you know,

54:01

Model 3, Model Y are highly compelling,

54:03

great products, but they don't have

54:05

a lot of competition. And

54:07

the products that are trying to compete with them

54:09

more often than not, without being specific have

54:12

unfortunately replicated the

54:15

package, the shape or the overall

54:18

proportion of the vehicle such

54:20

that they're branded, they're not a Tesla

54:22

branded vehicle, but they decide to. The

54:25

center line of the vehicle is almost identical to

54:27

a Model Y. The seating package is within millimeters

54:29

of a Model Y. The performance

54:31

is slightly worse than a Model

54:33

Y. So ironically,

54:36

because of the Model Y success, you have a

54:38

lot of incumbents that have built products that look

54:40

and feel and are shaped a lot like a

54:42

Model Y. That's very different

54:44

than the ICE, the internal combustion space where

54:47

you have hundreds of choices, lots of

54:49

brands, lots of variety of

54:51

form factor. And so what

54:54

we've witnessed over the last few years is because

54:56

of lack of choice, we've had a lot of

54:58

customers that have gone to one single brand and

55:01

have had to have a lot of elasticity of

55:03

their form factor desires. So maybe they wanted a

55:05

true SUV and got a very

55:07

car like crossover with the Model Y. Maybe

55:10

they wanted something that was a little bit bigger, but

55:13

they got something that was more like the Model

55:15

Y. Maybe they didn't love the Tesla look, but

55:17

it's the best products they took the Model Y.

55:19

So I think you have a

55:21

market that's fairly saturated with Teslas. And

55:24

I think the customers that are waiting on the sidelines

55:26

saying, you know, I bought a Toyota

55:28

RAV4, I bought a Highlander and I want

55:31

that kind of SUV like profile,

55:33

but I want an EV, but there's nothing out

55:35

there for me. They're probably still waiting. We

55:37

see that evidenced through the

55:40

really positive reaction to the R2. And

55:42

the R2 very intentionally, much like we did with R1,

55:45

it's not trying at all to be a Tesla Model

55:47

Y. It's going to compete from a price point point

55:49

of view, very similar pricing. It's

55:51

very similar size. It's slightly shorter than a Model

55:53

Y, but it's not trying to replicate

55:55

a Model Y. And I think that's not to say Model Y

55:58

isn't a great car. I think it's an awesome car. Yeah,

1:02:00

in the back seats. Yeah. The front seats, they're just

1:02:02

right there. But in the back ones, on the R1,

1:02:04

they're a little hidden away. That's a

1:02:06

great question. We've gone to electronic, just so anybody's listening,

1:02:08

we have an electronic release on the inside of the

1:02:11

car instead of a manual latch. And

1:02:13

the benefit of that is it allows the release to

1:02:15

be software defined, and you can open and close, or

1:02:18

open the door without necessarily having to pull a

1:02:20

cable. In the back of

1:02:22

the vehicle, there's only an electronic release. And

1:02:24

so the scenario in which you need

1:02:26

to get out of the vehicle, in the case of, let's

1:02:28

say, like going into water, what

1:02:30

we're actually working on is when you're in the vehicle,

1:02:33

since it's being submerged, the window's lower. That's

1:02:36

actually the most effective way to get out of the car is to be

1:02:38

able to climb out the window. So

1:02:40

that's something we're looking at very closely. What we

1:02:42

do on R2, whether there's a handle or whether

1:02:44

we lower the windows or use the front door,

1:02:46

that's a question. We haven't answered that. But it's

1:02:49

one that a lot of people last about. Yeah.

1:02:52

It's interesting how many people are focused at that with R1.

1:02:55

Well, it's a very, very extreme corner case

1:02:57

of a car being submerged. And there's lots

1:02:59

of ways to solve getting out of it

1:03:02

that are beyond just the release. But that's pretty

1:03:05

much what people are, like

1:03:07

what happens if I find myself in a lake? How do I get

1:03:09

out? The reality is it's very hard to

1:03:11

open a door once you're submerged, as you probably know. So

1:03:14

the better thing to do is have the

1:03:16

windows open as it's sinking. Yeah. All right,

1:03:18

last one, much more minor. You mentioned maps

1:03:20

and the mapping system. This is just me.

1:03:23

The way the map zooms when you're

1:03:25

getting to a corner has consistently confused

1:03:27

me every time I've driven an R1

1:03:29

car because it changes the distance that

1:03:31

you have to think about. Can

1:03:33

you just give me a setting to turn that one off? We

1:03:35

could. Look, it's an

1:03:37

audio show. RJ is looking off in the distance,

1:03:39

being like, what should I say? Yeah,

1:03:43

we could. Yeah, we could definitely do that. I'm just trying to

1:03:45

think of the mirror tilting I agreed

1:03:47

with. I could give you one. This one

1:03:49

doesn't bother me. But now that you brought it up, I'm

1:03:51

sure I'll see something. Well, if you spend all your time

1:03:53

in a car without it, then you have one with it.

1:03:55

You're like, I'm looking at the map, and the scale has

1:03:57

changed. This will be the first

1:03:59

call I make after you all. team to see if we can

1:04:01

fix that. Fair enough. All right.

1:04:03

And then when is the R3X coming out? That's my

1:04:05

last question. When can I buy an R3X? Oh,

1:04:08

I wish tomorrow. I'm so excited about the R3X. It's

1:04:11

probably the car that we get the most questions

1:04:13

about. And it's

1:04:16

just, I mean, the packaging on it is

1:04:18

just exceptional. But as soon as we possibly

1:04:20

can, but we're not giving a date. And

1:04:23

we are learning from previous mistake we made, which is when

1:04:25

we launched R1, we launched R1T, R1S, and

1:04:27

the commercial van all at the same time. So

1:04:31

we sort of like almost choked to death trying

1:04:33

to ingest that much complexity. So what we're doing

1:04:35

with this new platform is we're launching R2 first,

1:04:38

allowing some time to get that

1:04:41

stable and then launching R3. I will

1:04:43

say this, the first R3 that we're launching, it's

1:04:45

going to start with R3X. And then

1:04:47

we'll bring in base R3 after R3X. So

1:04:50

that's good. That's news. I like that. Yeah, that's news. All

1:04:53

right. We haven't announced exactly when. But everyone at Rivian

1:04:55

is highly incentivized because we all want one so bad

1:04:57

to get the R3X in as soon as possible. It

1:04:59

does feel like it's going to be hit. RJ,

1:05:02

thank you. You've given us a lot of time. Thank you, Sir. I'm sure you're

1:05:04

going to be a decoder. Yeah, it's fun. Thanks so much. I'd

1:05:10

like to thank RJ for taking the time to join Decoder.

1:05:12

And thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If

1:05:14

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1:05:16

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1:05:18

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