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Tesla gets nod from Rivian CEO for combating ‘untruths’ about electric vehicles
The long, arduous road that Tesla traveled over the past years was recently acknowledged by RJ Scaringe, the 35-year-old CEO of electric vehicle maker Rivian. During a fireside chat at the Automotive News World Congress, Scaringe noted that his 10-year-old company aims to do to pickup trucks and off-road-capable SUVs what Tesla did to the performance and premium automotive segments. That is, he wants Rivian to disprove any untruths that are currently prevalent in the truck and SUV industry.
“I think any great brand … to build a brand that customers are going to be excited about and that customers are going to want to be part of, it has to fundamentally reset expectations. It has to disprove untruths. Tesla took the untruth that electric cars were boring and slow — that they were glorified golf carts — and they disproved that. They showed people that an electric car can be exciting and fun. What we need to disprove is that an electric vehicle can’t get dirty, and that an electric vehicle can’t be rugged, and an electric vehicle can’t go off-road and take your family places, and that an off-road vehicle can’t be good on-road,” he said.
Rivian’s first two vehicles, the R1T pickup truck and the R1S SUV, seem perfectly capable of playing the part. Rivian impressed the EV community and the auto industry when it emerged after 10 years of operating on stealth mode. Both vehicles are well-rounded and refined, created through years of work by a team that included alumni from McLaren (yes, that McLaren). Both have four electric motors that provide immense power and torque, both offer range of over 400 miles per charge, and both are built with intelligent driver-assist features that can transition into full self-driving in the future. During the R1T’s unveiling last November at the historic Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, Rivian’s intentions of tapping into the premium EV market were evident.
During his recent fireside chat, Scaringe mentioned that the market Rivian is going for are people who own adventure vehicles and luxury vehicles. In a later statement, Scaringe expressed a point related by Elon Musk during the days of the original Roadster, when he noted that the small, two-door high-performance sports car should perform on the same level as the best fossil fuel-powered cars around. For Scaringe, this same point stands true for the R1T and the R1S.
“We want to get the guy who already has a Range Rover sitting next to a Tesla [in the garage], or the [Jeep] Wrangler sitting next to the [BMW] i3, and grab them with something that was just completely different than what they thought was possible. It will be the best-driving truck or SUV in the world. It must be, because if it’s not, why would somebody pick us over a Ford or over a BMW?” he said.
For now, though, Scaringe noted that Rivian is determined to learn from the experiences of companies like Tesla, while integrating concepts from established automakers such as GM and Toyota. With the successful unveiling of its first vehicles, after all, Rivian is about to tackle one of the hardest parts of being an automaker — actually building cars.
“We do recognize the complexity of assembling and putting vehicles together, of managing a very complex supply chain and logistics network, and we’re very [cognizant] of the nuts and bolts, and of the need to follow a proper process to ensure that, when we launch the vehicle, it can be launched with as few problems, errors, and challenges as possible,” Scaringe said.
When Elon Musk wrote his Master Plan Part Deux, he openly admitted that it is very difficult to become successful in the United States’ auto market. Considering the number of automakers that have gone under, Musk lightly noted that starting a car company is downright idiotic, and starting an electric car company is “idiocy squared.” As foolhardy as the venture might have been, though, Tesla has thrived, driven by an ever-increasing demand for its premium electric cars and energy storage products. The Model 3, the company’s most affordable vehicle to date, has been making a dent in the US’ auto market, becoming the overall best-selling luxury car in the country last year.
It has not been easy for the Silicon Valley-bred carmaker. The Model 3 ramp, for one, is described by Elon Musk as one of the most difficult periods of his career. Musk bet Tesla’s future in the electric sedan, and it took longer than expected to reach the company’s self-imposed production targets. Nevertheless, since hitting its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 per week at the end of Q2 2018, Tesla has steadily improved its footing with the electric car’s production. In Q3 2018, Tesla even posted a profit. The fourth quarter of 2018 might be just as successful.
If Rivian’s strategy so far is any indication, though, the company stands a good chance of avoiding some of the challenges faced by Tesla during the ramps of the original Roadster, the Model S, X, and 3. Rivian, for one, has already secured a facility in Normal, Ill. The company is also working closely on the development of its vehicles’ battery packs. Apart from this, Rivian is also consulting the veterans of the auto industry. In his recent appearance at Autoline After Hours, for one, auto teardown specialist Sandy Munro, who conducted a thorough analysis of the Tesla Model 3, mentioned that Rivian is one of his firm’s clients.
Elon Musk
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.
SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.
At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.
SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation
The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
