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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.
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SpaceX just locked up a NASA record no other U.S. spacecraft can touch
SpaceX’s Crew-13 Dragon reached the ISS in under eight hours, and NASA confirmed a record.
SpaceX now owns every spot on the list of the five fastest trips a U.S. spacecraft has ever made to the International Space Station, and its newest entry beat the old mark by more than four hours.
Crew Dragon Grace docked to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module at 7:05 p.m. ET on October 1, just 7 hours and 55 minutes after lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. NASA confirmed the milestone in a space station blog update, writing that the flight “marked the fastest launch‑to‑docking of a U.S. spacecraft in the history of the International Space Station.”
The previous U.S. record also belonged to Dragon. SpaceX’s uncrewed CRS-31 cargo mission reached the station in a little over 12 hours in November 2024. The fastest crewed trip before last week was Crew-11, which took 14 hours and 43 minutes in August 2025, according to Space.com.
A post that Elon Musk reposted on Monday filled out the rest of the ranking. Behind Crew-13, CRS-31 and Crew-11 sit Axiom’s Ax-2 mission at 15 hours and 35 minutes and NASA’s Crew-4 at 15 hours and 44 minutes. All five flew on Dragon.
SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest
Crew-13 carried NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. NASA had projected a docking around 8 p.m. ET, as Teslarati reported the day before launch, and Dragon arrived nearly an hour early. Our launch day coverage noted that the flight was lined up to be the quickest Crew Dragon transit yet.
The speed came from timing more than hardware. SpaceX’s Julianna Scheiman said the station “was in an opportune spot in space,” which let Dragon start closing the gap almost immediately after reaching orbit. “This is close to the fastest it could be,” she added. Most Crew Dragon flights still take close to a day, using a series of Draco thruster burns to raise and phase their orbit before arrival.
Dragon’s next job at the station is a departure. NASA said Monday it is targeting 8:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday, October 7, for Crew-12 to undock, setting up a splashdown off the coast of California around 11:34 a.m. on Thursday. Clearing that port makes room for CRS-35, a cargo Dragon carrying the final set of iROSA solar arrays.
Dragon remains NASA’s only operational ride to the station while Boeing’s Starliner stays grounded, and the agency recently added Crew-15, Crew-16 and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s contract in a $946 million modification.
Elon Musk has acknowledged that early discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) could bring the company into his ambitious Terafab semiconductor project, signaling a possible partnership with the world’s leading contract chipmaker.
Musk confirmed that early talks are underway, but as of right now, they are “just discussions.” There is no confirmation of a deal nor dismissal of the possibility of one, leaving open the prospect of one of the largest advanced-chip collaborations under discussion in the U.S.
@wholemars Just discussions, but something may come of it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The report that speculated on potential discussions between Terafab and TSMC comes from Tim Culpan, who outlined a few ways the collaboration could operate. One is TSMC using the project as an “anchor customer” for future facilities in Texas, potentially contributing process expertise, operational know-how, or capacity while Terafab provides capital, long-term purchase commitments, or both.
Tesla and SpaceX jointly developed the Terafab project, with Intel already participating on the tech side. Elon Musk announced the project in March, and it intends to produce more than one terawatt of AI compute capacity annually once fully built.
Company statements place the first phase at approximately $16.8 billion in cost, with later filings pointing to a total that could reach well into the tens of billions across multiple stages.
Intel joined the effort in April 2026 and is expected to supply its 14A manufacturing process for the full-scale plant.
Musk has said existing suppliers, including Samsung and TSMC, remain important for near-term needs; Tesla already has production arrangements with Samsung for AI5 and AI6 chips, but that future demand from Optimus robots, Cybercab vehicles, and planned space-based data centers will eventually exceed what the global industry can currently deliver.
Terafab is positioned as the long-term answer to that projected shortfall, and Tesla did something similar during COVID to avoid a chip shortage. This is just a much larger-scale solution.
If the partnership were to materialize, it would add TSMC’s industry-leading strategies to a project that already combines Tesla’s and SpaceX’s capital and offtake with Intel’s process technology. For now, the only public confirmation is Musk’s brief acknowledgement that conversations are occurring.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
SpaceX just locked up a NASA record no other U.S. spacecraft can touch
Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner
