Volkswagen accelerates electric car, joint venture with Rivian

The two groups will work towards a full range of software-defined cars: high efficiency and advanced autonomous driving

By: Francesco Barontini

Nov 15, 2024 at 4:11am ET

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Volkswagen and Rivian have been collaborating for some time and are gradually intensifying the relationship. Now they are officially launching a joint venture to work together on increasingly modern and efficient electric cars.

Oliver Blume, CEO of Volkswagen, said the partnership is designed to enable the German group and the American start-up to bring the best possible technical solutions to their battery-powered cars quickly and at a lower cost.

A complete range

Specifically, Volkswagen will leverage Rivian's IT and electronics expertise to create software-defined electric cars: next-generation vehicles that will want to stand out from the competition precisely because they are so technologically advanced.

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Volkswagen had already announced in June that it would invest $5 billion in the joint venture with Rivian, now it is announced that the total size of the deal is $5.8 billion, or around £4.6 billion, which will be paid out by 2027. The name of the new company has also been announced: Rivian and VW Group Technology, which will see 50-50 equal participation of the founders.

The new models, which will be jointly designed, will cover all relevant market segments, including compact cars and citycars. The new JV will be led by Rivian's chief software engineer Wassym Bensaid and Carsten Helbing from the Volkswagen Group.

Rivian R1S and Rivian R1T

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Centres in Europe and the USA

Initially, the design teams will work in a centre in Palo Alto, California. Then three more locations in North America and Europe will be added. By combining Rivian's software expertise and VW's enormous production capacity, the JV plans to reduce development costs and accelerate the deployment of new technologies, including advanced autonomous driving.

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said that this joint venture 'marks an important step forward in helping the world transition to electric vehicles' and added that the company is 'excited to see Rivian's technology integrated into other brands' vehicles'.