Rivian, VW, and Other EV-only Companies Are Failover: The Case for a Small, Medium, or Large?

The money will no doubt come in handy, too. Like other EV-only companies, Rivian has been struggling through a period of cooling demand around electric vehicles. The company’s sales are up, but its losses are also increasing. It has $7.9 billion in cash and equivalents, but it has acknowledged it could have to make changes if it is ever going to achieve stability. Rivian has gone through several rounds of layoffs.

While the rest of the auto industry is prioritizing big, heavy electric trucks that sell for six figures, Rivian could shake things up with a cheaper, smaller truck. There was no mention of this vehicle in the announcement of the R2 in March. And none of these silhouettes are instantly screaming “truck,” so it’s unclear whether that’s actually in the cards.

Meanwhile, VW has been going through its own struggles around EVs. The company sells good plug-in models but its market share in North America is decreasing. And its software has been plagued by bugs and customer complaints.

Another thing to note is that the affordable mass-market vehicles are all different shapes. We can’t trust the shapes. It’s possible that there are small, medium, and large vehicles in the works for that category. That seems important.

The Shapes of EVs and MSPs: A Survey of Rivian’s Scroud-Cover Hidden in an Investor Day Event

I’ll admit, I was too distracted by Rivian’s surprise announcement of a $5 billion deal with Volkswagen to develop software and electric vehicles to notice that the buzzy California company was also planning an investor day event on June 27th.

It has been speculated that Rivian’s shroud-covered vehicles look similar to those revealed by the company during a shareholder meeting, which could be due to the same software used to create them.

So to toss into the mix five — five! — new mystery vehicles is either a pretty bold strategy for the future or a desperate effort to stay relevant amid rising costs and cooling interest in electric vehicles. Let’s take a look at the vehicles to see if we can figure out what they are.

That does not look like a van shape. InsideEVs editor-in-chief, and former Verge contributor, is definitely more truck-shaped. Patrick George makes a convincing argument that we shouldn’t read too much into the various shapes. They could be stock images or just placeholders. If anything, Rivian could actively be trying to throw sleuths off the scent with these shapes. (Rivian spokesperson Liz Markman declined to comment on the mystery vehicles.)

In the next column, we can see the R2 and R3, both of which were unveiled in March. There’s another mystery vehicle on top of that column. And all three vehicles will be built on an electrical architecture called “MSP,” which stands for “midsized platform.”