Should a vehicle be associated with a certain political party? Rivian’s CEO doesn’t think so.
Electric vehicles have been caught in the crosshairs of Donald Trump’s administration. The Trump administration removed the electric vehicle tax credit and signed a resolution to block California’s plan to phase out new gas-powered car sales. Several automakers rolled back their EV plans, and analysts expect an industry-wide slowdown.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe wants to “depoliticize electric vehicles,” he said on the “Decoder” podcast on Monday. Scaringe said that EVs had “become political.”
“They shouldn’t be,” he said.
Scaringe said Rivian employs almost 16,000 people domestically and has one of the “strongest technology teams, I think, in the United States.”
“We spend a lot of time with the administration on that, and there’s a lot of support and enthusiasm for what we’re creating and building in that regard,” he said.
The national emphasis on domestic manufacturing and reshoring the auto industry has bolstered gas-powered vehicles. In June, General Motors announced a $4 billion investment into US manufacturing plants, which included producing gas-powered vehicles to “meet continued strong demand.”
Compare that to just a few years ago, when several large automotive companies were pledging to phase out the combustion engine.
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In August, Scaringe said that he saw a “reprioritization of capital towards internal combustion,” one that was “very bad for my kids and their kids, and very bad for the US auto industry.”
While Trump’s policies are evenly applied to the EV industry, he has publicly supported a select few companies. For much of his presidency, Trump has lauded Tesla — one of Rivian’s competitors — and even purchased one of the company’s EVs.
On the podcast, Scaringe referenced a classic Michael Jordan quote from his partnership with Nike: “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”
“We have a lot of Republicans who buy our vehicles and love them,” Scaringe said. “We have a lot of Democrats who buy our vehicles and love them. We have people who are in the middle, and we have Independents.”
Scaringe said that he wanted Rivian to be “as broad as possible,” creating a “welcome mat” that is agnostic to political beliefs.
“We try very hard not to make what we’re doing political,” he said.
