Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe spoke about Elon Musk and Tesla on the “Grit” podcast.
Scaringe said Tesla was “inspiring,” but Rivian has not followed Musk’s model.
He said it was important that Rivian did not “cover the same ground as Tesla.”
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe didn’t want his electric vehicle company to become Tesla 2.0.
Scaringe discussed his and Musk’s auto companies on Kleiner Perkins’ “Grit” podcast Monday. Tesla remains a dominant player and has a leg up on Rivian, which Scaringe founded in 2009 at age 26.
Musk’s tenure as Tesla CEO began in 2008, the same year customers first received Tesla’s Roadster sports car.
“Tesla has been a real inspiration,” Scaringe said on the podcast. “One of the things that was so important to me with Rivian was making sure that we weren’t treading the same ground that Tesla was treading.”
When the host pointed out that Rivian initially followed Tesla’s lead and intended to create an electric sports car, Scaringe said he made an “intentional” choice to forge his own path.
“If you’re going to start a car company, you want to create a brand that appeals to enthusiasts,” he said.
Scaringe said he is a sports car fan, so “the logical starting point is to build a sports car, use it to grow the brand and follow it up with more mainstream vehicles.”
“That’s of course how Tesla’s strategy played out, and it worked wonderfully for them,” he said.
Scaringe added that his decision to pivot to a different type of EV product, vehicle topology and experience was “a very intentional effort to also create a new story.”
“Not only for us as a company or a brand, but, more importantly, to help further change mindsets about what sustainable transportation could look like,” he said.
Representatives for Rivian and Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Rivian currently sells the R1S SUV and R1T pickup truck. Scaringe announced in March the arrival of two more vehicles, the R2 SUV and R3 SUV.
The electric vehicle industry has seen a slowdown in sales and growth this summer. In July, Scaringe told The Verge that he believes the problem lies in a “really extreme lack of choice.”
“If you want to spend less than $50,000 on an electric vehicle, I would say there are a very, very small number of good products out there,” he said.
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