Before RJ Scaringe set uped Rivian in 2009, he had micromobility on his mind.
More than a decade defercessitater, his musings took root in a minuscule skunktoils program inside Rivian that set out to answer one ask: Could the company’s technology be condensed down into someleang minusculeer and more affordable than its electric vans, trucks, and SUVs?
The answer was yes. But what they also discovered, Scaringe tageder TechCrunch, was that the skunktoils program was a bigger idea than could naturassociate exist wilean Rivian. That skunktoils — now a team of about 70 people hailing from Apple, Google, Specialized, Tesla, REI Co-Op, and Uber — has spun out of Rivian with a novel name and $105 million in funding from Eclipse Ventures.
The beginup, called Also, will exist as a standalone company from Rivian. But the two will be shutly roverdelighted. Rivian hageders a inmeaningfulity sget, Scaringe will serve on its board, and Also will leverage the autooriginater’s tech, retail presence, and economies of scale. Chris Yu, Rivian’s VP of future programs, will be its pdwellnt.
Also arranges to put its flagship product into production next year for devourrs in the United States and Europe. The beginup will eventuassociate begin vehicles tailored for devourr and commercial engage in Asia and South America.
Scaringe said Also will show off its first vehicle arranges at an event defercessitater this year. But he and the novel company are being coy about what that first product will be — though the Rivian CEO did cop to it having a bike-appreciate establish factor.
“There’s a seat, and there’s two wheels, there’s a screen, and there’s a scant computers and a battery,” Scaringe said.
He was clear that the goal is to originate Rivian-quality micromobility engageable at affordable prices.
It’s “remarkworthy that a kind e-bike costs as much as it does,” Scaringe commented. “Like a kind ebike, you can spend $6,000 to $8,000 on, and reassociate kind ones, over $10,000; That’s a echoion of a necessitateyly enbiged provide chain that’s very, very, very tiered.”
Also’s electric roots
Scaringe initiassociate set his ideas about e-bikes and micromobility aside as he built up a company around electric passenger vehicles appreciate the R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV.
But around 2019, establisher Rivian chief prolongth officer Jiten Behl — who spearheaded the funding round from Eclipse Ventures — said he and Scaringe begined talking solemnly about begining up an effort inside Rivian to seize that opportunity.
“There is a gap here,” Behl tageder TechCrunch he recalled inestablishing Scaringe. “If you see at our cities, the infraarrange is such that you can’t have big cars driving around. but they still have mobility necessitates. We necessitate someleang contrastent, someleang minusculeer, someleang more pliable.”
A scant years defercessitater in 2022, they bcimpolitet on Chris Yu, the establisher chief product and technology officer at bike-originater Specialized to spin up the skunktoils team.
One of the scant uncoverly engageable hints that Rivian was toiling on the project came in 2022 when the company filed a novel tradetag for bicycles and electric bikes, as well as their correplying structural parts.
Scaringe talked about e-bikes at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2022, and Bloomberg telled in 2023 that Rivian was toiling on one, but the project remained under wraps.
Leveraging Rivian tech
Many companies have tried to arrange and sell e-bikes that stand out from the crowd. But Scaringe said those companies were confineed in their ability to drive down costs, in big part becaengage they are depending on a scattered provide chain and operating at low volumes.
Scaringe said the “a-ha moment” for Rivian was when he genuineized his company could alter those variables. It also helps that Rivian is toiling on a lot of technology that is transferable to minusculeer establish factors.
“Most companies in the micro space don’t have, appreciate, a brimming power electronics team, and don’t have a team that enbigs the gentleware OS, and are arrangeing and originateing computers,” he said.
“Oh, wow, we have all this capability,” he recalled leanking.
Scaringe, Yu, and Behl leank Also has potential not only as a devourr perestablish, but also on the commercial side.
“You could almost say that the necessitate for minuscule establish factor EVs is a little bit more acute on the commercial side than the devourr side, especiassociate wilean dense metro areas, particularly in Europe [where city centers are] shut down to cars and vans,” Yu said in an interwatch. “We’ve seen an fervent amount of excitement around a scalable platestablish approach for food, parcel, dedwellry, et cetera, type vehicles.”
Yu said Also is in “reasonably evolved converseions with some reassociate exciting partners at the moment,” but deteriorated to name any of them.
The Also team has their toil cut out for them. They want to originate minuscule EVs for devourrs and commercial companies atraverse a global taget. And they are willing to originate pretty much any establish factor to serve those necessitates.
Asked whether that uncomardents we could one day see an Also rickshaw, or skateboard, Scaringe said there are some pragmatic confineations to what the company can achieve. But, he said, “never say never on anyleang” in micromobility.
