Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Marja Sparrange is with us. He's of course head of
Speaker 2: the sixteen billion dollar market CAAP automaker. We're talking about Rivian.
Speaker 2: We talk about this company all the time with us
Speaker 2: at Bloomberg Tech Summit here in San Francisco, and we
Speaker 2: have Ed Ludlow, a member of our team cost of
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Technology who knows this company so well. Hey, one
Speaker 2: thing I want to start with Rja is there's a
Speaker 2: lot going on today, the bromance in the White House
Speaker 2: between Elon and Donald Trump. It seems like it's over
Speaker 2: and it's not going well.
Speaker 3: So I'm just curious have you been able to kind
Speaker 3: of win market share or anything as a result of
Speaker 3: kind of Elon's position at DOGE And I'm just curious
Speaker 3: how it might play out here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think Teslamon, Yeah, I think in general,
Speaker 4: it's the thing that's been surprised is just how politicize
Speaker 4: A lot of things have be common. So I'll let
Speaker 4: you equals become politicized. Specific brands within the electric vehicles
Speaker 4: pace to politicized, and so what we've tried to do
Speaker 4: as a brand really really focused on is to focus
Speaker 4: on what we stand for, the products, the ratch meets
Speaker 4: and and you know, there's a famous Michael Jordan quote
Speaker 4: which is we have Republicans that you know, he said,
Speaker 4: Republicans and Democrats both by Nikes. And it's the same
Speaker 4: thing with Rivians. I'll go to Rivian events. I was
Speaker 4: just in New York yesterday and yeah, there's it's such
Speaker 4: a beautiful mix of backgrounds, perspectives, cultures that are drawn
Speaker 4: to what we're building as a brand. Right and we're
Speaker 4: about to launch what we call R two, which is
Speaker 4: a lower priced vehicle starts at forty five thousand dollars
Speaker 4: and that product will even you know, broaden the aperture
Speaker 4: even more.
Speaker 5: And so I think what Kars asking is if there's
Speaker 5: net positive effect for you from this environment on sales
Speaker 5: and pre orders.
Speaker 4: I think that's what she was asking.
Speaker 5: I think you were benefiting from this.
Speaker 2: Environment to test some movement. Have you benefited from it?
Speaker 4: I think there are a lot of customers that are
Speaker 4: looking for a brand I want to connect with, so
Speaker 4: that we're seeing that for sure.
Speaker 1: Sort of on that and thinking about the politics of
Speaker 1: this rare earth. I mean, you and the team have
Speaker 1: been really clear that you've been working to educate the
Speaker 1: Trump administration when it comes to the complexities around processing
Speaker 1: rare earth here in the US. We did hear from
Speaker 1: the President earlier today after a call with President Chiji
Speaker 1: and Pang. He said there should no longer be any
Speaker 1: questions respecting the complexity of rare earth's products. Are you
Speaker 1: still concerned about accessibility to rare earth?
Speaker 4: Well, first, I'd say I appreciate that the administration recognizes
Speaker 4: this is an issue that's important, and I think that
Speaker 4: we've done a lot of work and smell a lot
Speaker 4: of time with the administration on this topic. I think
Speaker 4: this is perhaps one of the biggest topics surrounding you know,
Speaker 4: the trade tensions with China. Well, it's well documented that
Speaker 4: a vast majority of the world's processing for these rare
Speaker 4: earth metals happens in China. So this is something that
Speaker 4: you know, we're going to continue to be very focused on,
Speaker 4: continue to have concerns about until we start to see
Speaker 4: it really move.
Speaker 1: What's your backup plan.
Speaker 4: Which we have many backup playing.
Speaker 1: You can't get access to these rare earths for some
Speaker 1: raison an extended period of time, which are essential in
Speaker 1: making evs and batteries.
Speaker 4: What do you do? So what we've we've done, we've
Speaker 4: spent time on over the last several months, is to
Speaker 4: build alternative supply chains. But they're not they're not elegant
Speaker 4: because they're not set up for scale, and and a
Speaker 4: lot of people beyond us are also trying to build
Speaker 4: these alternative supply chains. So I think, you know, the
Speaker 4: hope is that in the short to medium term we
Speaker 4: see this open back up. And I think in the
Speaker 4: long term we're probably going to see both investment into
Speaker 4: building earth capacity outside of China and then innovation to
Speaker 4: remove rare earths from products. You know, So if you
Speaker 4: take in an electric vehicle, the reason this is so
Speaker 4: important is the motors use permanent magnets. Then permanent magnets
Speaker 4: have earth metals, you know, things like dysprosium, you know,
Speaker 4: all those things on the periodic table that you forget
Speaker 4: about there. Yeah, yeah, but those those rare battles are
Speaker 4: needed in the magnets. But you can create an electro
Speaker 4: magnet to power the rotor, you know, the rotors a
Speaker 4: spinning part of the motor. But then you've got to
Speaker 4: get power to the rotors, so that you can do
Speaker 4: it with a brush, you can do it with induction,
Speaker 4: So it's a more complex motor product, but it does
Speaker 4: remove the complexity of global trade.
Speaker 2: Around or is that a little bit time away.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not gonna you can't flip your design over overnight.
Speaker 4: But I would say I think a lot of the
Speaker 4: arto industry is going to start finding innovative ways that
Speaker 4: are perhaps maybe be a little more expensive. That reduced
Speaker 4: the RELI.
Speaker 5: Once somewhere people wonder how nimble you are there, Like,
Speaker 5: do you remember when we first met seven years ago
Speaker 5: with respect your suppliers really wouldn't engage with you because
Speaker 5: of scale. So if you have had to pivot a
Speaker 5: little bit because of policy, particularly for planning that are two,
Speaker 5: have you been able to get your spires to listen
Speaker 5: to you and be effect to change what's changed?
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, we've talked about the slide. I mean
Speaker 4: our relationship was suppliers. A leverage we have with those
Speaker 4: suppliers is so much stronger today with our two and
Speaker 4: what's to come than what we had, you know in
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen or twenty twenty, even twenty eighteen. But I'd
Speaker 4: say the thing that's really helpful for us in our
Speaker 4: two is it's not as if this is a surprise
Speaker 4: we saw, you know, if you're going into summer of
Speaker 4: last year, we saw some of these tensions already rising
Speaker 4: between the United States and China, and that was as
Speaker 4: we're planning for and sourcing our two. So we contemplated
Speaker 4: and in many ways anticipated a lot of these situations
Speaker 4: we're now dealing with in terms of tariffs, in terms
Speaker 4: of trade restrictions happening. So in the medium to long term,
Speaker 4: it's we're pretty well covered. In the short to medium term,
Speaker 4: you know, things get shut off. That's really challenging. And
Speaker 4: so that's where I think the rare challenge is that
Speaker 4: if this this happens, were it's off, it just creates
Speaker 4: a lot of pressure on a very thin non China
Speaker 4: supply chain.
Speaker 5: I still think there's a lot of interest in Rivian.
Speaker 5: What I hear is there's also a lot of interest
Speaker 5: in also Chrome ability spin off. Would you consider kind
Speaker 5: of de risking yourselves a little bit by allowing outside
Speaker 5: investors to write you a check into that venture and
Speaker 5: then get you some capital, or de risk your own
Speaker 5: balance sheet in that respect.
Speaker 4: So we spun this micromobility portion of rivine out and
Speaker 4: we actually raised outside capitals. We brought okay, we brought
Speaker 4: one hundred and five million dollars in at the.
Speaker 1: Start of the year, which is from a CLIPS which.
Speaker 4: Is from a Clipse exact right, and so it's now
Speaker 4: independently financed from Ribbune and it's you know, it's a
Speaker 4: really exciting set of products. We're going to show those
Speaker 4: products in the fall.
Speaker 5: But with the venture, look at even further outside capital
Speaker 5: to get going a little bit.
Speaker 4: We could, yeah, we could, but we're really happy with
Speaker 4: where it is. It's it's exciting to build a new
Speaker 4: business with the strength of all the Riview technologies and
Speaker 4: starting right.
Speaker 2: I said thirty seconds at the end to wrap up
Speaker 2: our So with everything that's going on from the administration
Speaker 2: kind of push back, it feels like against alternative energy
Speaker 2: at EBS. Do you think it's a real setback or
Speaker 2: things will keep moving and forgive me, it's just about.
Speaker 4: The reason thirty seconds, All right, go Look, I think
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of noise in the short term,
Speaker 4: but the end state is still really clear. The world's
Speaker 4: going to electrify. We're going to move towards sustainable, carbon
Speaker 4: neutral transportation, and the countries and the businesses that focus
Speaker 4: on the future state are the ones that are going
Speaker 4: to be participants in the long term. And so you know,
Speaker 4: we talk about this often with demonstration, which is the
Speaker 4: importance of US companies having technical leadership, production capacit around
Speaker 4: these these areas and make sure we're there.
Speaker 2: We did it, Dardy, thank you so much. Great way
Speaker 2: for us to rap with this hour. Urguscreage, thank you
Speaker 2: of course at Rivian and of course our and ledlove