Rivian’s RJ Scaringe explains Tesla Model Y’s Secret Sauce
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe talked a bit about the Model Y’s secret sauce and his thoughts about its popularity.
Scaringe sat down with The Verge for an interview and talked about Rivian’s roadmap for the R2 and R3, the deal with Volkswagen, and the Tesla Model Y.
According to Scaringe, the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y are “highly compelling” products. He also stated that the Tesla vehicles do not have a lot of competition on the market. Plus the competition that is on the market often try to replicate Tesla’s design and features.
“Ironically, because of the Model Y’s success, you have a lot of incumbents that have built products that look and feel and are shaped a lot like a Model Y. That’s very different from the internal combustion space where you have hundreds of choices, lots of brands, lots of variety of form factors.
“What we’ve witnessed over the last few years is because of lack of choice, we’ve had a lot of customers that have gone to one single brand and have had to have a lot of elasticity of their form factor desires. So maybe they wanted a true SUV and got a very car-like crossover with the Model Y.
"Maybe they wanted something that was a little bit bigger, but they got something that was more like the Model Y. Maybe they didn’t love the Tesla look, but it’s the best product, so they took the Model Y,” said the Rivian CEO.
Scaringe predicts that drivers are waiting for electric SUVs that differ from the Model Y, like the Rivian R2.
“The R2 very intentionally, much like we did with R1, is not trying at all to be a Tesla Model Y. It’s going to compete from a price point of view, with very similar pricing. It’s a very similar size. It’s slightly shorter than a Model Y, but it’s not trying to replicate a Model Y,” he said.
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