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Inside Rivian’s plan to challenge Detroit and electrify the American truck & SUV
Nearly one year ago, McLaren’s top engineer departed the British supercar-maker for a relatively unknown EV startup, Rivian, located 3,000 miles away in Plymouth, Michigan. That engineer, Mark Vinnels, was a founding board member of McLaren and led its engineering team as executive program director for 14 years as they created an entire line of supercars from the ground up. While leaving ultra-high-performance supercars behind seemed crazy at the time, a whole band of McLaren engineers have now followed Vinnels to build world-class electric SUVs and pickups at Rivian.
When Rivian’s CEO, RJ Scaringe, hired Vinnels last November as Executive Director of Engineering and Programs, he tasked him with a familiar mission: build a world-class team and bring their first vehicles to production. Now, Scaringe and Vinnels have attracted engineers across the entire industry, including a whole host of fellow ex-McLaren engineers. From exterior lighting to software and electric propulsion, Rivian’s British talent runs deep.
“These are all truly world-class people, and we had a great team (at McLaren) and we were able to do great things,” Vinnels told Teslarati. “I think a lot of them were motivated in exactly the same way I was.”
Vinnels landed himself at Rivian after a mutual friend, and Rivian board member, Antony Sheriff, insisted that he meet with Scaringe and see what Rivian was working on. “I was super impressed with what I saw, with him (Scaringe) as an individual, and the vision for the company,” he recalled. “From a personal perspective, I had a really interesting opportunity to be involved in something pretty groundbreaking, again.”
While Vinnels had received a variety of job offers from startups over the years, he was particularly impressed by Rivian’s technical achievements and level of funding available. “The concepts were pretty advanced, in terms of the battery, package, detail of the module,” Vinnels said.
Rivian has raised $500M to date from a variety of equity and debt investors. The company has largely been quiet about specific funding deals, but its’ main backers include Sumitomo Corporation of Americas, a US branch of a Japanese conglomerate, and Abdul Latif Jameel, a Saudi Arabia-based family-owned business with close ties to Toyota.
Since Vinnels joined last year, three VPs and three directors have left McLaren to join Rivian, along with several other engineers. While some of these new hires have moved to Rivian’s hubs in the US, the company has recently opened up a development center in the UK.
“The type of people at McLaren are naturally attracted to companies like Rivian, because it’s all about innovation, breaking new ground, doing stuff that is new. How do you attract interesting, dynamic, well-educated engineers; give them great interesting, intellectual, challenging technical problems and a respectable amount of funding to achieve their goals,” Vinnels said. “I think that’s why these people are attracted to what we are doing here. It’s kind of flattering and nice that these guys are making the same decision that I did to come over and work on this great program.”
According to some within Rivian, the biggest recruiting weapon Rivian possesses is Scaringe himself. “People come into the company and they spend ten minutes with him (Scaringe) and they’re sold,” Michael McHale, Director of Corporate Communications at Rivian, said. Vinnels claimed a similar effect on recruiting and building supplier relationships.
“They all love the idea of what we are doing,” Scaringe stated in an interview with Teslarati in July. While building supercars seems like an engineer’s dream job, Scaringe found that many see, “the appeal of doing something that is larger volume and a different performance segment.”
With production of their first two cars looming around the corner, Rivian has ramped up hiring significantly, more than doubling their headcount since the start of the year to approximately 500. In addition to hires from McLaren, Rivian has a significant number of people from Tesla, Faraday Future, and the big three Detroit automakers.
Vinnels’ team is tasked with delivering Rivian’s newly developed “flexible electric platform” to market. The skateboard-like architecture, will not only underpin Rivian’s first two vehicles, an SUV and pick-up truck but another four vehicles in development. The overarching design of all-electric platforms is becoming quite standard in the industry, but the intricate engineering within the platform is where the real magic lies.
While Rivian’s battery management systems and module design were nearly complete when Vinnels joined last year, the suspension, motors, and gearbox have undergone a redesign to squeeze out better performance and efficiency. “We can have such a broad breadth of performance, without traditional compromises (compared to internal combustion engines) and a (higher) level of refinement,” Vinnels said.
Rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars on building their own factory, Rivian has decided to acquire an existing automotive factory. Rivian purchased a former Mitsubishi factory and all of its contents in January 2017 for $16M. The purchase price represents just 1% of the $1.6B investment (in 2018 dollars) Mitsubishi and Chrysler made building the facility in 1988. The plant houses stamping presses, paint lines, body assembly, general assembly, and a few other sub-assemblies. Even in its heyday, the factory never reached its peak production capacity, which is thought to be above 300,000 vehicles per year.
The company’s plant in Normal, IL saw its last vehicle, a Mitsubishi Outlander Sport, roll off the production line in November 2015. But the plant hasn’t been entirely quiet since then. Rivian first occupied the plant in January 2017 and has 65 employees actively maintaining and preparing the facility for production.
This June, Vinnels was splitting his time between engineering meetings and preparing to start “virtual production” at their 2.6M ft² factory. The “virtual production” exercise allows the nearly 100 people from the engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain teams to walk through every part of the manufacturing process before equipment installation is finalized, spotting any potential issues before they arise in production. Rivian completes this on a monthly basis and often includes several suppliers.
“We’ve got enough detail now to discuss and explain with the manufacturing guys exactly how this vehicle will come together on a component level,” Vinnels explained. “So we start with pretty much the first component, for us its some of the components on the body-in-white and we build up exactly how it be built in the production line.” The process reviews each component on a detailed level from design, materials, and build sequence.
At the moment, Rivian is working on refreshing the facility’s stamping lines and plans to overhaul the body lines and paint lines throughout next year. Scaringe stated that the total renovation of the factory will cost roughly $150M.
In preparation for full production at their factory, Rivian has set up a pilot battery-module production line in their Irvine, CA development facility. Scaringe stated that Rivian plans to start production of their battery modules ahead of vehicle production. The company developed their battery modules from the ground up, including the microchips that run their proprietary battery management system. When production spools up, Rivian plans on producing the battery pack from the module level up in their facility in Normal, IL.
Rivian’s battery module is made up of the same sized battery cells that Tesla uses in the Model 3, commonly referred to as 2170, but the physical configuration of the cells differs quite a bit. Though the module is significantly thicker than Tesla’s, with two cells stacked on top of each other, it’s more energy dense by volume and weight. Separating the two levels of cells is Rivian’s cooling systems. Scaringe credits the module’s unique packaging and their custom battery management system for improving efficiency and performance.
The company has declined to give specific production targets, but stated production volume of their first two vehicles would be in the “tens of thousands.” With plenty of room to grow in their current facility, Rivian plans on steadily growing their production volume over the next decade into “hundreds of thousands.”
Just two years ago, when Lucid Motors and Faraday Future were the talk of the town, very few people in the industry had ever even heard of Rivian. Today, the company is considered far more likely to reach production than those same peers. Unlike other automotive startups, Rivian has a sizeable automotive production facility (Faraday Future’s facility was previously a tire factory and has been largely empty for 20 years) and claims to have a more stable source of financing.
From the get-go, Scaringe knew that he would need to find a unique funding strategy to turn his vision into a reality. Instinctively, he leaned on his alma mater, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), to find potential funding partners. After finding a few potential like-minded partners, Scaringe landed on a partnership with ALJ (Abdul Latif Jameel). ALJ’s owner and chairman, Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel, is an MIT alumnus, major donor to the school, and a lifetime member of the MIT Corporation.
Rivian has picked up other investors along the way, but after gaining the backing from ALJ, Scaringe focused quite solely on developing the necessary technology and a go-to-market plan that would differentiate the company.
“They’re (Rivian’s investors) committed to allowing us to continue on the steady path of building the business and launching the product,” Scaringe stated. “It’s precisely what’s allowed us to be so quiet, and not have to be out publicly trying to strum up investor dollars; we can be more focused on what we are doing.”
With Rivian’s roots dating back nearly a decade, Scaringe has shown intense patience and an ability to focus on bringing his core vision to fruition. “I’ve dedicated every ounce of energy I have into building the company,” Scaringe said.
Unlike other EV startups, Faraday Future, Lucid, SF Motors, NIO included, Scaringe isn’t placing his bets on creating another Tesla competitor. He’s set Rivian’s sights on a market full of gas-guzzlers: large trucks and SUVs.
Rivian’s reason for focusing on large trucks and SUVs comes twofold, the lack of vehicle-electrification in the segment and the increasing interest from consumers. Scaringe believes that the segment is ripe for disruption and has lacked real innovation for decades.
“It’s an enormous space. It’s where the Detroit three make essentially all of their money; active vehicles, vehicles that have a high-level of function or utility,” he stated. “What we’re doing is we are bringing a level of technology and performance that resets expectations in this space.”
Scaringe is certainly right about one thing; the Detroit automakers derive an incredible amount of money from their trucks and SUVs. Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas estimates that 90% of Ford’s profits come from their truck division, which includes the F-150. In 2017, Ford sold nearly 900K F-150’s, each carrying an average selling price of $45,000. GMC’s Denali line, GM’s most luxurious trucks and SUVs, accounted for over 11% of GM’s US sales in 2017, with each car selling for more than $60,000 on average, according to the NYTimes.
Instead of simply electrifying an F-150 or GMC Yukon, Rivian has reimagined the concept of a large SUV or truck. Much like Tesla reinvented the idea of a sedan with the Model S, adding rear-facing seats, front trunk, and large touchscreen, Rivian is set to unveil an SUV and truck that offer unrivaled off-road performance, abundant storage, and supercar-like performance.
“I think we’re going to be showing something pretty special, in terms of its vehicle package,” Vinnels said. Rivian claims the vehicle will have upwards of 400 miles of range, speed to 60 mph in less than 3 seconds, and wade through 3.5ft of water. Scaringe boasts that Rivian’s vehicles are something you’d want to throw your surfboard, skis, or tent in and escape for the weekend.
Rivian’s largest battery pack holds a staggering 180kWh of energy and delivers 400+ miles of range. Additionally, Rivian will offer 105kWh and 135kWh configurations, with a starting price just over $60K. The top of the line battery pack will start just under $90K and will deliver close to 800hp, Scaringe stated on the LACoMotion podcast. More details around the configuration of the vehicle will be available next week at the reveal.
As Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, and Audi play catch up to Tesla’s premium EV lineup, Rivian is working to reinvent an entirely different market. The company is confident that their upcoming vehicles are built for the world of tomorrow and will shake up Detroit’s perspective on electric vehicles. “We aren’t here just build one vehicle; we’re here to build whatever the lifecycle volume is, 250,000 or 300,000 vehicles. We worry just as much about the last one as the first one,” Vinnels said.
After nearly a decade in the shadows, Rivian is preparing to unveil their first two vehicles in Los Angeles next week. “We’re confident that what we are showing is pretty much exactly what we will be delivering to the customer,” Vinnels said. The unveiling of Rivian’s truck, the R1T, will be live streamed from a private event on the 26th, while the SUV, carrying a similar name, R1S, will be unveiled on stage at the LA Auto Show the following day.
“It will be like nothing else,” Vinnels stated.
Tesla launched the slightly larger Model Y L in China last year, and it became a hit in no time. The longer wheelbase, larger interior, and slightly more forgiving legroom area in the Model Y L became a sought-after possibility for U.S. buyers, who have been begging the company for a larger SUV.
Now, Tesla needs it more than ever, especially considering the Model X was discontinued alongside its Model S sibling earlier this year. It looks to be more likely than ever, and based on recent reports, it will fall in line with CEO Elon Musk’s prediction that it would arrive in the United States in late 2026.
Recent reports from Forbes and Not a Tesla App both have indicated Tesla plans to bring the Model Y L to the U.S. this year. The reports cite “credible sources,” and an analyst from AutoForecast Solutions named Sam Fiorani stated that the car would enter production later this year.
Fiorani said:
“China, Australia, and India are supplied by the factory in China, which will not supply vehicles to the U.S. Production of the Model Y L is expected to begin in the U.S. in September, which will lead to sales beginning before the end of 2026.”
Production would take place at Gigafactory Texas.
Additionally, a few Model Y L units have been spotted under wraps in the United States, giving more indication that Tesla plans to bring the vehicle to the U.S. When Tesla is close to launching a vehicle in the U.S., it is not uncommon to see these models with the exact car covers that you see below:
Looks like another Tesla Model Y L was spotted in the U.S.! pic.twitter.com/jhsdkcN5Go
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 26, 2026
It makes sense, especially considering Musk hinted the Model Y L would make it to the U.S. in late 2026, but it was up in the air. The CEO said the advent of self-driving might not warrant a larger SUV coming to the U.S. market specifically.
The problem is, consumers do not want to hear that. They love Tesla’s tech, FSD, and other features, but they need more space for growing families. The Model X is gone, and the most anyone can fit in a Tesla right now is seven people in the seven-seat Model Y. That back row is truly only large enough to fit small children comfortably.
Tesla fans have requested a full-size SUV, and the company has made some hints that it could be in the plans.
The Model Y and Model Y L differ noticeably in size, with the Model Y L being a stretched, six-seat variant designed for great interior room. The Standard Model Y measures approximately 4,790mm in length, 1,982 mm in width with the mirrors folded, 1,624mm in height, and 2,890mm in wheel base.
In contrast, the Model Y L extends to be about 4,969–4,976mm long (roughly 179mm or 7 inches longer), stands 1,668mm tall (+44mm), and features a significantly longer 3,040 mm wheelbase (+150mm), while maintaining the same width.
This elongation primarily benefits rear passenger space and enables a 2+2+2 seating layout with captain’s chairs, though it slightly reduces maximum cargo capacity behind the rearmost seats and adds a bit of overall mass and turning radius. The result is a more spacious family hauler that still shares the core footprint and agile character of the original Model Y.
In a major development that will inevitably strengthen Tesla’s dominant position in the American EV market, Polestar has been effectively banned from selling new vehicles in the United States, starting with the 2027 model year.
The U.S. Department of Commerce denied Polestar authorization under the Connected Vehicle Rule, which prohibits vehicles containing certain connected technologies (Cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.) linked to China or Russia due to national security risks, including potential data collection on American drivers.
🚨 A Tesla competitor goes down
Polestar will no longer sell new vehicles in the United States starting with the 2027 model year.
The U.S. Department of Commerce denied the brand authorization under the Connected Vehicle Rule, which restricts the sale of cars with software and… pic.twitter.com/TrwnQeoiES
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 25, 2026
Polestar, which is majority-owned by China’s Geely Holding, could not obtain the required exemption despite producing some models domestically.
Polestar confirmed it will sell off any remaining inventory of the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 models, while continuing service and warranty support for existing customers. No new models or major refreshes will reach U.S. buyers, and the company is pivoting its growth strategy to Europe, where it already generates the vast majority of its sales.
The outcome removes a direct premium EV competitor that had positioned itself as a stylish, performance-oriented alternative to Tesla’s lineup. The Polestar 2 challenged the Model 3, while the Polestar 3 and 4 targeted segments overlapping with the Model Y and upcoming Tesla offerings. Polestar’s U.S. sales had already been sluggish amid intense competition and slower demand, representing just 6 percent of its global volume in the first quarter of 2026.
While Polestar was not on Tesla’s level in the U.S., it still places a dent in the evergrowing field of Tesla competitors in the country, where it has long dominated EV sales.
Tesla faces none of these hurdles. As a U.S.-founded and U.S.-headquartered company with major manufacturing in Fremont, Austin, and Nevada, Tesla’s vehicles are built with compliant domestic and allied supply chains. Its Full Self-Driving technology, over-the-air software updates, and vertically integrated ecosystem were developed entirely in-house without foreign ownership entanglements that trigger national security reviews, at least in the U.S.
Of course, it did face a similar threat in China a few years back:
Elon Musk responds to reports of Tesla ban among China’s military over security concerns
The Connected Vehicle Rule, first advanced under the prior administration and upheld under the current one, is part of a broader U.S. effort to protect the domestic auto industry and critical technology from Chinese influence. High tariffs on Chinese-made EVs and related restrictions have already reshaped the market. Tesla benefits directly: it avoids these barriers while continuing to lead in U.S. EV sales volume, Supercharger network expansion, and energy storage integration.
By clearing Polestar from the new-vehicle playing field, the policy reduces competitive pressure in the premium and performance EV segments where Tesla has invested billions. American consumers seeking cutting-edge electric vehicles now have one fewer option tied to foreign adversaries — and one clearer path to the market leader that has driven the EV transition from the start.
For Tesla, this is more than regulatory relief. It is a strategic tailwind that reinforces its position as America’s premier EV innovator at a time when domestic manufacturing and technological independence matter most.
Tesla Cybercab stands to gain from new rules that the Trump Administration is aiming to enforce on autonomous vehicles. On Thursday, NHTSA, under the Trump Administration’s U.S. Department of Transportation, commenced rulemaking on the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).
This effort aims to eliminate the mandate for manual brake pedals in vehicles that are designed to be driven exclusively by automated driving systems. This would impact the Tesla Cybercab, which the company has stated would operate without a steering wheel or pedals.
Tesla Cybercab launch is imminent after latest sighting at Giga Texas
The Trump Administration is looking to revise FMVSS No. 135, which requires standard braking systems on light-duty vehicles.
Currently, the regulation requires light-duty cars to use traditional manual braking systems that allow operators to slow the vehicle. With the advent of self-driving in the U.S., these regulations need updating, and these are the changes that could come to FMVSS No. 135:
- Removes requirements for hand- or foot-operated brake controls for vehicles designed never to be operated by a human. Existing rules still apply to AVs that retain manual controls.
- All subject vehicles must still meet the same stopping distance performance criteria via alternative testing procedures.
- While this update ensures AVs can physically stop when commanded, NHTSA is separately developing safety performance requirements for AVs in real-world driving scenarios.
- NHTSA will continue to use its broad defect enforcement authority to investigate unsafe ADS behavior and oversee recalls.
As autonomy becomes a greater part of passenger travel, these types of rule adjustments will be more than reasonable. It will give manufacturers the ability to self-certify their vehicles and avoid any red tape that could ultimately delay the deployment of these vehicles.
Administrators are also incredibly excited about the opportunity to play a role in the advancement of self-driving vehicles.
“We are at the cusp of the greatest technological revolution in vehicle technology since the innovation of the Model T,” NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said. “If we want America to lead the way, we have to reimagine our regulatory framework. That’s why under Secretary Sean Duffy’s AV Framework, NHTSA is tearing down pointless barriers to innovative designs while strengthening the fundamental safety requirements that matter and holding AV developers accountable for safe performance.”
The Cybercab entered mass production at Gigafactory Texas in April. Tesla ultimately plans to push the vehicle into its Robotaxi fleet, potentially when frameworks like these are established.
Tesla looks keen to bring larger Model Y L to the U.S.
One of Tesla’s biggest threats just got banned in the U.S.
