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The Trump administration’s fight against electric vehicles includes everything from trying to get rid of the EV tax credit to freezing funding for charging stations. But EV company Rivian says its strategy hasn’t changed. We talked to CEO RJ Scaringe about why his long-term vision isn’t dependent on current policy, and the company’s future plans for its products. The company makes luxury SUVs and trucks, including 2024’s bestselling premium SUV in California (electric or gas); next year, it will launch a more affordable vehicle that starts at $45,000. Construction on a new factory outside Atlanta is set to begin in 2026, with a $6.57 billion loan guarantee that the Department of Energy finalized just before Biden left officethat legally, Trump shouldn’t be able to take away. The Trump administration is pushing to cut EV incentives, including the $7,500 federal tax credit. What impact do you think that will have on the EV market in the U.S.? There’s a lot of emphasis right now on the very short termwhat happens in the next months or even weeks with policy. But the way we make decisions as a company, were looking at this on a much more long-term basis. The product roadmap we built, the technology we’ve developed, the way we’re designing and building and growing the businesses, is really being architected around a long-term view that the market will move over time to 100% electric. RJ Scaringe [Photo: Rivian] In that transition, it’s critical that there’s a collection of great companies being built in the United States, employing the U.S. workforce, developing the technology, building the products, and making sure that we as a country maintain leadership and what undoubtedly and unavoidably is going to be the core of personal transportation. Combustion will become an increasingly small percentage over time. Even though youre focused on the long-term view, how much do you think current policy matters in terms of pushing EVs forward faster? Policy, of course, matters, but its not the only driver, especially in a situation like this where the end state is so clear. Were paying very close attention to [policy]. But we will adjust around whatever the policy is. When I started the company [in 2009], I didnt start with any idea that there would be policies that are either tailwinds or headwinds. We just said that this is something that needs to happen. And its going to happen with the collective efforts of companies that are innovating with technology and creating compelling products. I think the other thing to recognize, in all the noise and the discussion of electrification and how it’s become politicized, there’s one thing that’s very consistent that’s on all sides of the political spectrum: Creating jobs in new technology, creating manufacturing in the United States, building a really robust ecosystem of companies that are facing that future state is something everyone’s aligned on. We have a plant today in Normal, Illinois and a plant that were building just outside Atlanta, Georgia, with support from both states. They’re different very different states politically, but the amount of excitement and reception we have in both states is outstanding. If some legacy automakers pull back from EVs because there are fewer incentives, does that give you a competitive advantage? We talk about making decisions in the context of our [kids’ futures] . . . I think its really important that every manufacturer is investing heavily in electrification and creating products that are so compelling and so exciting that regardless of whether they’re electric or gasoline theyre going to draw customers in. If we really want to accelerate the speed at which we electrify, the speed at which that transition happens, it’s going to require a lot of choices [for consumers]. Certainly, a lot more than we have today. I say all that because I do think it’s important that other manufacturers invest. If I looked at it purely through the lens of what’s best for Rivian, I think that manufacturers pulling back, myopically, is actually better for Rivian. It [hurts the] competition. But I don’t think that’s good for the world. If some other U.S. automakers do retreat temporarily from EVs, how much is China’s EV industry likely to get farther ahead? If you’re optimizing for the next quarter, I think you can make bad decisions as a business and bad decisions for us as a country. But every business is going to make decisions [based on] what they believe is going to maximize value for their shareholders. Its not an easy challenge, especially in a world where youve got a legacy business that is maybe highly profitable, and youve got a lot of experience. Its a hard decision to say were going to go build products that, by definition, pull demand from our legacy products. Those new products, by virtue of being lower volume and the technology being different, may not have the same profitability to start. Over time, I think electric vehiclesgiven the dramatically enhanced simplicity and fewer partswill become not only cost-competitive, but theyll have a cost advantage relative to combustion-powered vehicles. But theres a lot of work to do in battery technology to get there. [Photo: Rivian] How long will that take? Isnt it right that some EVs are at cost parity with their counterparts now, if you look at total cost of ownership? How far away are competitive sticker prices? I think it depends on the segment. In the premium segment, it’s there. As evidenced by us. We only sell our flagship products today (our R1T, R1S) and the average transaction price is over $90,000. It’s the bestselling premium SUV in Californianot premium electric SUV, preium SUV. It’s doing really well. If you look at other premium SUVs, you could even say it’s priced at a discount. It’s much higher performance. In a premium product like that, there’s a lot of other contributors to cost, so that the relative cost of the battery to the rest of the vehicle is not as significant. To get to cost parity on something that is a $20,000 car, $25,000 car, the battery then makes up such a a large percentage of its price that today it is still difficult. I think over time we’re going to solve that, but it’s a few years out. Whether it’s three years out or five years out, when you squint, you can see it. We’re getting close to it. It’s not, like, 20 years away. Youre launching a more affordable EV next year, right? Yes, and Im so excited. Its probably the most excited Ive ever been for a product were developing, which is funny because I didnt think I could be more excited than when we launched the R1, something Id been working on since I started the company. R2 takes all of the learnings from R1. The cost for us to make it is less than half of R1, and the price is quite a bit lowerit starts at $45,000. [Photo: Eric Anderson/Rivian] You mentioned the idea of designing a car thats compelling not just because its electric but for other reasons. What does that involve? It’s important to have a really clear vision for what both the product and the company stand for and represent. I mean that not just in philosophical ways, but in terms of product/attribute tradeoff. The best products, whether they’re cars or electronics or furniture, are the products that feel really holistically thought through. Where despite the fact that maybe hundreds or maybe even thousands of people have worked on that product, it feels like a singular vision. Apple has done an amazing job of this. Of course, I think we did a really nice job on it with our R1 products. What we’re trying to do with R2 is to capture that. For us, it’s really blending the aspiration of something that feels premiumthe materials are nicely executed, we’re thoughtful in the selection of materialsbut at the same time, the fact that it’s aspirational doesn’t take away from its usability. You can get it dirty. You can fit a lot of gear into it. We often think of it as a platform to go generate the kinds of memories that you’re going to want to hold on to for many years to comethe kinds of things you want to take photographs of. [The cars also] accelerate incredibly well. They’re very capable on road. They’re very capable off road. But we really want all the attributes, all the characteristics of that mosaic, to come together into this feeling. Like this vehicle is your adventure partner. When you look into the future, how do you see EV technology continuing to change? With battery technology, for example, how is that evolving? The most important element is getting cost down, both through the chemistry in the batteries and the rest of the battery packconcepts like cell to pack where were minimizing the amount of structural overhead that exists in the pack to take the overall cost down. And we see with our own products that the cell costs have come down, the pack costs have come down, modules have been massively simplified. I expect that innovation to continue. Of course, [there’s] competition between all the different manufacturerseveryones trying to drive cost down on this system. We have thousands and thousands of people across many different companies that are working on this problem. Its great to see the healthy and, Id say, highly productive competition between different companies in trying to address costs. What about something like solid state batteries? Are they likely to be in cars in the market soon? I think it’ll make its way into cars. It depends on how you define soon. I’d say within the next 10 years, for sure, but within the next two years, not likely, and not at scale. You may see some premium applications sooner, but they’re going to be really expensive because there’s lots of different ways you can accomplish solid state, but the industrialization of solid state still has a ways to go. Last year, you made a $5.8 billion deal with Volkswagen that lets VW access your vehicle software. How do you think about technology differently than some of the legacy automakers? We don’t have large teams of people that used to do something in the old waywe’ve only architected the business around a future state. So, obviously, that means we don’t have an engine design department. And our propulsion team has only ever worked on electric propulsion. There’s not an electric division and a gas division. The existing manufacturers can develop motors, develop battery systems. I think a more challenging aspect for them has been building out software teams and the computer design teams, the electronics design teams. And the reason is it’s so different from what they’ve done historically. [Image: Rivian] How does your “zonal” electrical architecture work? Over time, [other car companies] had this massive proliferation of what are called ECUseffectively little comuters across the car. A modern car might have 75 to somewhere north of 100 ECUs. It was never architected in a proper way. [We have controllers in a few larger zones] versus all these little computers, and we built an entire software operating system and software stack around it that is a very different topology than what incumbents have. It represents various essential cost savings, but importantly, makes managing software many orders of magnitude easier. [Photo: Elliot Ross/Rivian] What’s coming next for Rivian? We have some products that we’re already planning that essentially extend our brand into different segments, different form factors. Obviously, it should be different price points. [Editor’s note: One of the next products is the R3, an even more affordable car.] With the form factor and the overall aesthetics of the [R3], you sort of find yourself saying, is it a hatchback, is it a crossover, is it an SUV? We really wanted something that gave us a chance to demonstrate what we felt really strongly about, which is that the brand we’re building and the company we’re creating has a lot of elasticity. It represents an idea that’s bigger than just a single segment of cars. It’s this idea of, as I said before, enabling the kinds of adventures you want to take photographs of.
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When Rodriguez has an upcoming appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sometimes his daughters grades slip. The stress of not knowing whether ICE will let him stay in the United States has already sent two of his children to therapy, Rodriguez said. They know that when I go to the ICE appointments, we dont know if Ill come back, Rodriguez said in Spanish. The Guatemalan man, who asked not to be fully identified out of fear of retaliation, has already been deported once, and he has been held in ICE custody a few times. Though Rodriguez already has a deportation order and officials could send him back at any time, his attorney has managed to convince the U.S. government to let him stay in the country for now as long as he checks in periodically. That could change under President Donald Trump, who has already launched efforts to follow through on his campaign promise of mass deportations of immigrants. That promise has raised concerns among economists as well as human rights advocates based on the effects of large-scale deportations in the past. The Trump administration has floated ideas that include building temporary detention tent facilities where the government can hold people while it fast tracks their cases as well as using military and local law enforcement to assist immigration officials. The team has already indicated its considering invoking the same law that the government used to round up and detain Japanese Americans during World War IIa moment in U.S. history the government later apologized for and is now widely criticized as racist and xenophobic. Erin Tsurumoto Grassi, whose grandparents were children when they were forced out of their homes under a notorious executive order issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, said Trumps plans will continue that legacy. Its part of a much larger existing problem in this country that ties back to white supremacy, she said. What happened to my family is not necessarily unique when you look at the history of this country, when you look at the things that have been done to people of color in this country. Adam Isacson of the human rights advocacy organization the Washington Office on Latin America said he expects the Trump team to try new, legally creative strategies this time around to bring about the promised deportations. Who had read the quarantine statutes of the 1940s of the U.S. code as a way to exclude almost 3 million people? Isacson said, referring to a policy known as Title 42 introduced by Trump in 2020 as a way to block asylum seekers at the border. I had never heard of it, but Stephen Miller had. People like Rodriguez, who have already been ordered removed, are likely to be targeted for arrest in the coming days as ICE officers work to meet newly established quotas. In several cases during Trumps first term in office, people with such orders sought protection from deportation by living in churches. The only thing that makes us different from other people is that we dont have status, but with everything else were the same, Rodriguez said. We want our children to do well. Planning a Mass Deportation To deport the number of people that Trump has discussed, the administration will have to figure out how to streamline the deportation process, which often drags out in lengthy court proceedings and then in the logistical hurdles of getting a country to agree to take someone back. In his first term, Trump deported more than 900,000 people, according to ICE data. Thats fewer than former President Barack Obama deported in either of his terms. The process of deporting someoneI think their only restraint is resources, Isacson said. Trump has declared a national emergency and ordered the Department of Defense to deploy military troops to assist with immigration enforcement. Incoming administration official Tom Homan, Trumps so-called border czar, has called the military a force multiplier for immigration enforcement efforts. The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the military from participating directly in civilian law enforcement, but troops could provide logistical support from construction to monitoring. For example, every president since George W. Bush has deployed National Guard troops to do logistical work at the border, including to reinforce barriers or monitor Border Patrol camera feeds. Military planes are also now conducting deportation flights. Project 2025, the conservative policy plan by the Heritage Foundation that several of Trumps early appointees helped write, calls for changing detention standards to allow ICE to hold people in tents. The state of Texas has already offered 1,400 acres of ranchland for the administration to build additional detention facilities. Under the first Trump administration, the military participated in building the border wall, and it could be called in to help with this construction as well. As Project 2025 suggested, ICE has already removed restrictions on officers ability to conduct immigration arrests in places like schools, religious buildings, hospitals and emergency shelters such as those used during the Los Angeles fires. And, in keeping with Project 2025s plans, Trumps Day One executive ordersincluded instructions for an expansion of a program called expedited removal, which allows immigration officials to issue a deportation order without going before a judge. Historically, the program applied only to people who just crossed the border, but in his first term, Trump attempted to expand it to include anyone who had been in the United States for less than two years. Initially stalled in court, te change was eventually allowed though later rescinded under former President Joe Biden. I think their hope is that there is some legal device or set of legal devices that can kind of do for them in the interior what Title 42 did for them on the border and allow them to sidestep the immigration laws in whole or in part, said Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants Rights Project. He noted that requiring hearings before a judge to secure a deportation order helps protect peoples due process rights. Its not complicated for the sake of being complicated, Jadwat said. The ACLU has already filed a lawsuit to challenge the administrations re-expansion of expedited removal. Beyond that, the Trump administration is expected to lean into a program known as 287(g) that allows ICE to deputize local law enforcement to do immigration work. Some cities and states, including California, already forbid local participation in that program. Kevin Johnson, a professor of law and Chicano studies at the University of California Davis, said he was especially worried about local law enforcement becoming involved in the mass deportation effort because of what happened in the 1930s, when local authorities rounded up people believed to be Mexicanincluding U.S. citizensand sent them south on trains and boats. We have rules and laws regulating removals from the country, but if we start down the path of mass arrests and quick-and-dirty deportations, then those rules are not likely to be followed, Johnson said. Effects of a Deportation Most mass deportation efforts are rooted in a nativist belief that immigrants take jobs from U.S.-born workers, according to Tom Wong, a professor of political science and founding director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at University of California, San Diego. He said that belief is neither accurate nor rational, but the effects can cause lasting harm. Immigrants are complements, not substitutes, he said, giving the example of an immigrant worker offering child care services so that a U.S.-born single mother can also work. He said that economists have found labor market shortages following mass deportations. The coming removals, he said, could lead to an increase in food prices as well as gaps in construction. Advocates pointed to the daunting task of rebuilding in the wake of the Los Angeles fires as a project that could be impacted by mass deportations. The American Immigration Council recently estimated that Trumps deportation plans could shrink the United States GDP by 4.2% to 6.8%. According to the immigration policy think tanks October report, undocumented workers paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes in 2022, along with $29.3 billion in state and local taxes, while contributing $22.6 billion to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Medicare. But Wong said he does not think messaging about potential economic harm will convince the voters who elected Trump. I think the American public is willing to pay the costs, Wong said. Its going to take a lot of pain before people realize how damaging mass deportation efforts are, he added. Wong said members of the public may begin to wake up to the problems caused by mass deportation once they see the effects on neighbors, coworkers, and loved ones. Rodriguez, the man who is among those facing potential imminent deportation under the second Trump administration, said he works two jobs, one in construction and the other at a restaurant. Ive never hurt anyone. Ive never asked the government to maintain me, he said. The only thing weve done is work every day. He first came to the United States in the 1990s, fleeing the civil war in Guatemala and the obligatory military service that came with it. Over the years, he tried to get attorneys to help him sort out his case, but for one reason or another, it never worked out. He remained undocumented. Meanwhile, he got married and started a family. Then in the mid-aughts, ICE deported him. I had my family and kids here. I was paying for a house, Rodriguez said. I had to come back. He crossed through the desert mountains and returned to California, but during the Obama administration, ICE found him again. This time, the agency allowed him to stay temporarily as long as he checked in periodically with its officers. Rodriguez said he is worried about what will happen to his family if ICE sends him back again. He doesnt want his children to move to Guatemala, and he knows they will suffer emotionally and financially in his absence. He said that when he was in ICE custody, teachers noticed a change in his sons behavior. The boy didnt play with his friends, and they ended up sending him to a counselor. Rodriguez is the breadwinner, supporting his children as they pursue college degrees. Under the law, I guess its right, but for many of us who have been here for years, the family is who suffers, he said. Growing Gardens Though some polls have found public support for mass deportations, Johnson, the Davis School of Law professor, said he believes that many will protest if Trumps threats become a reality. He noted that organized political movements in the Latino community didnt exist during the historical removals of the 1930s and 1950s in the way that they do today. There was no MALDEF that was going to sue to try to stop the repatriation, he said, referring to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a prominent civil rights organization. He acknowledged that there appears to be a lot of support for mass removals, but he also predicted national outrage. Family separation, one of the Trump administrations key immigration policies in its first term, ended because the public couldnt stomach it, Johnson said. Tsurumoto Grassi, associate director of Alliance San Diego and a descendant of Japanese Americans whom the government forced from their homes during World War II, said the stories of resilience during previous immigration roundups can teach community members how to navigate the years ahead. Japanese Americans held under former President Franklin Roosevelts executive order made gardens and planted trees around the prison camps that were hastily constructed to separate them from the rest of society, she said. They found ways to still come together as a community and find their dignity in the midst of all that, Tsurumoto Grassi said. She said that community wisdom from those past experiences is among the ools that people can draw on today. How do we make it through a time when people are treating individuals like they are less than human? she said. We need to look to those stories to give us hope for how do we get through what looks to be a difficult time ahead. Rodriguez said hes hoping that the public will consider people like him before deciding to support the mass deportation effort. The most important thing is that society puts its hand on its heart and thinks about all the people who will be affected if this new administration does everything that its saying, he said. Kate Morrissey, Capital & Main This piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.
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The standing desk is old news. Behold, the standing table. Herman Miller just released a new design that takes the concept of a standing desk to a whole new level. The Spout Sit-to-Stand Table comes in a range of sizes, from 2-by-4 feet to a whopping 4-by-7 feet, supports up to 400 pounds, and can seat a whole team rather than just one worker. Thats because it breaks a key form factor that most other standing desks follow: the number of legs in use. The vast majority of standing desks have only two motorized legs, mostly because theyre easier to stabilize and engineer to move seamlessly. Meanwhile, the Spout table stands on four legs, allowing chairs to be placed comfortably on all sides of the table.[Image: Herman Miller]The biggest challenge in designing a four-leg solution was creating a rigid and stable platform that could seamlessly support large surfaces, a Herman Miller spokesperson shared with Fast Company. The design team and engineers tackled this by developing an elegant 360-degree understructure that not only enhances stability but also scales across multiple sizes, from 2448 deep and 4284 wide.[Photo: Herman Miller]A four-legged standing desk isnt unheard of (in fact, Herman Miller offers a leather-wrapped version), but youd be hard-pressed to find one with 28 square feet of surface space. And, whereas most standing desks on the market tend to live within a minimalist color palette, the Spout can be customized with a wide range of surface materials, edge details, and leg colors, like dusty blue or fire engine red. To keep the tables profile sleek and elegant, its engineers also had to ensure that all of its moving mechanicslike the motors and drive assemblywould be tucked out of view inside the legs themselves.[Photo: Herman Miller]The team devoted countless hours to ensuring that every line and radius aligned perfectly, the spokesperson said. While the table may appear elegantly simple, the precision and complexity behind its design are anything but.Buyers of the Spout table will certainly be paying for this attention to detail. The price of the table varies widely depending on the size you choose and how you personalize it (see a guide here), but the three standard sizes currently available for purchase on the website start in the mid-$2,000s. For a Herman Miller product, this isnt exactly a surprise. Many of the companys office goods have make up their pricey costs not only in their high-quality materials, but also in their status-signaling cachet (see the Eames lounge chairs recent renaissance among tech bros).Personally, Id want my $2,000 desk to come with just a bit more opulence. Still, for any work-from-home tech couples out there or office managers looking to literally level up their space, this might just be the perfect product.
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