Before RJ Scaringe founded Rivian in 2009, he had a trivial point in his mind.
More than a decade later, his meditations were rooted in a small skunk project inside Rivian, which set out to answer a question: Can the company’s technology condense it into something smaller and more affordable than electric vans, trucks and SUVs?
The answer is yes. However, they also found that Scaringe told TechCrunch that it was a bigger idea that the Skunkworks program was a natural presence within Rivian. That Skunk – now stands out from Rivian by about 70 teams from Apple, Google, Specialized, Tesla, Rei Co-op and Uber with a new name and $105 million in funding. Eclipse Adventure.
The startup will also exist as a standalone company of Rivian. But the two will be closely related. Rivian owns a minority stake, and Scaringe will serve on its board and will also leverage the automaker’s technology, retail operations and economies of scale. Chris Yu, vice president of Rivian’s future plans, will serve as its president.
It also plans to invest its flagship products for consumers in the United States and Europe next year. The startup will eventually launch vehicles tailored to consumer and commercial uses in Asia and South America.
Scaringe said it will also show off its first vehicle design at an event later this year. But he and the new company were frustrated with the meaning of the first product – although the CEO of Rivian did give it a bike-like look.
“There is a seat, two wheels, a screen, and some computers and a battery,” Scaringe said.
It is clear to him that the goal is to make Rivian-quality micro-driving available at an affordable price.
“It’s worth noting that a good e-bike costs just as much as it does,” Scaringe commented. “Like a good ebike, you can spend $6,000 to $8,000 and it’s very good, over $10,000; this reflects a well-developed supply chain, very, very, very layered.”
And electric root
Scaringe initially put his ideas on e-bikes and minibikes on the shelves as he set up a company on electric passenger cars like R1T pickup trucks and R1S SUVs.
But around 2019, former Levian chief growth officer Jiten Behl led Eclipse Ventures funding, said he and Scaringe began to talk seriously about efforts to start catching the opportunity within Rivian.
“There’s a gap here,” Bell told TechCrunch, who remembers telling Scaringe. “If you look at our city, the infrastructure is like that, you can’t let big cars drive. But they still need the need for mobility. We need something different, something smaller, something more flexible.”
A few years later in 2022, they brought Chris Yu, former chief product and technology officer at Bike-Maker, to launch the Skunkworks team specifically.
One of the few public tips Rivian has been working on the project was in 2022, when the company proposed New trademark For bicycles and electric bicycles and their corresponding structural components.
Scary Talking about the 2022 TechCrunch Dispract e-bikeand Bloomberg Report In 2023, Rivian is working on one, but the project is still under siege.
Using Rivian Tech
Many companies are trying to design and sell e-bikes that stand out from the crowd. But Scaring said the companies’ ability to reduce costs is limited, in large part because they rely on sporadic supply chains and low volume operations.
Rivian’s “A-ha moment” was when he realized his company could change those variables, Spalin said. This also helps Rivian is working on many technologies that can be transferred to smaller forms.
“Most companies in microspace don’t have a full-power electronics team, nor a team that develops software operating systems, and are designing and building computers,” he said.
“Oh, wow, we all have all these abilities,” he recalls.
Scaringe, Yu and Behl Think not only have consumer gaming, but also business-oriented potential.
“You can almost say that the demand for small electric vehicles is more commercially than the consumer side, especially in dense metro areas, especially in Europe, acute [where city centers are] “Shut up cars and vans. We’ve seen exciting excitement around scalable platform approaches like food, parcels, delivery, etc.” Yu said in an interview.
Yu also said, “A reasonable high-level discussion was currently in place with some very exciting partners,” but declined to disclose any of them.
The team also cut their work for them. They want to build small electric vehicles for consumers and commercial companies in the global market. They are willing to build almost all forms that adapt to these needs.
When asked if this means we can also see rickshaws or skateboards one day, Scaringe said the actual limits the company can achieve. But, he said, the tiny act of “never say anything”.
