FOUNDER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, RIVIAN AUTOMOTIVE
DAY JOB: Electric-vehicle builder, with nearly $6 billion in funding since 2009, most of it in past two years. Backers include Ford, T. Rowe Price, Cox Automotive and Amazon, the latter of which has plans for some 100,000 of its electric-powered delivery trucks over coming years. First releases, a pickup truck and SUV, expected to hit market next year.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: Adding to OC’s cluster of automotive firms, and related jobs, in a big way. Plans for the biggest expansion of any local manufacturing company in works in Irvine. Plans to significantly boost its Irvine and Tustin operations, with a trio of new leases totaling more than 300,000 square feet in the area. Adding hundreds of jobs to OC base.
NOTABLE: Existing Rivian sites in OC, Carson, and Los Angeles, expected to be consolidated in Irvine, currently home to Rivian’s integration engineers, battery team, power inverter team, customer experience, concept design, facilities, logistics and other departments, according to the company. “The technology that moves our vehicles, and the experiences that move our customers, are developed here,” it says.
QUOTABLE: “The main asset of any community is its people, and as resources stretch thinner for every community across the world, we want to do whatever is possible for a pre-production company in our position to help,” Scaringe said in May, when declining a previously agreed $1 million grant from a Illinois town where Rivian also has manufacturing operations.
FAST FACTS: The company’s inaugural EV products, the R1T truck and R1S SUVs, are being touted as offering up to 400 miles of range and providing “an unmatched combination of performance, off-road capability and utility,” it says. Recent reports put the expected cost of the R1T in the $70,000 range.
