Is Rivian Trying To Be The ‘Light Side’ Of The Force?

Rivian hosted its “Automonomy & AI Day” yesterday, and I was struck less by the content of what was said than by the positioning. Most older startup folks tend to talk in science fiction tropes, ranging from extremely mainstream films like Blade Runner to slightly less popular books from others like Asimov or Iain Banks. Rivian, though, reached back to Star Wars, and it feels like a bigger message.

As always, when autonomy comes up, I’m overwhelmed by the sense that it’s easier to talk about it than to do it, but while it’s still profitable to talk about it, expect to hear more of it here on The Morning Dump, without the hype.

China’s government is done messaging to its automakers that it needs to stop underpricing cars, and now it’s legislating. Paper can’t solve everything, but it can solve a lot, and NASCAR and its teams have paper to move forward without destroying the sport.

That’s heavy, so let’s end on fun news: Car goes fast on ice track.

‘I Think Artificial Intelligence Will Become As Accessible As Running Water, Or Electricity’ RJ Scaringe

Rivian’s next vehicle, the R2, is a smaller and relatively more affordable two-row SUV that looks as good as the R1 that preceded it. It will, we learned yesterday, also be the first Rivian to get the company’s in-house developed autonomous chip and, maybe even more importantly, LIDAR, as part of a more advanced, Level 4 ADAS system, as TechCrunch reports:

Rivian said it will expand the hands-free version of its driver-assistance software to “over 3.5 million miles of roads across the USA and Canada” and will eventually expand beyond highways to surface streets (with clearly painted road lines). This expanded access will be available on the company’s second-generation R1 trucks and SUVs. It’s calling the expanded capabilities “Universal Hands-Free” and will launch in early 2026. Rivian says it will charge a one-time fee of $2,500 or $49.99 per month.

“What that means is you can get into the vehicle at your house, plug in the address to where you’re going, and the vehicle will completely drive you there,” Scaringe said Thursday, describing a point-to-point navigation feature.

The “Level 4” of it all is interesting, but I’ll let Jason handle that when he’s around next week. Patrick George also pointed out on the InsideEVs podcast that it’s curious that this is being launched on the cheaper R2 and not the more expensive R1. Again, all stuff worth eventually digging into as we learn more about this vehicle.

If you watch the video above (where the quote about water comes from), even the way this is talked about feels a little different than the way Tesla talks about it. While there’s all the same tech stuff, and all the hype about what it can do, it does feel like dressing up an R2 like R2D2 has a deeper point.

Rivian, which is way undervalued compared to Tesla, is trying to make itself both the renegades and the “light side” of the force. Some of this is probably just a “glow up” to help distract from weak sales, but there may now be a significant competitive advantage to being the EV company with autonomous tech that doesn’t feel like it’s building cars on Narkina 5.

Even using Star Wars, which is a reference that even people who have never seen a Star Wars movie get, is important. Elon Musk may not quite get the meaning of Blade Runner, but he probably groks what’s going on in Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series well enough (he regularly encourages people to read the series). I loved these books when I was younger, too, but the basic premise is that a universe headed towards a Roman Empire-like collapse is saved by a select few super-smart scientists who get to plan out the future for everyone else.

In Musk’s vision of the world, you’ll get the life that the smart people give you, and it’ll be fine, and he gets to be a trillionaire. In this competing vision from Rivian’s RJ Scaringe, the underlying conditions are really the same, but it’s more about you and less about the company. As Scaringe said during his presentation:

“This gives you your time back. You can be on your phone, or reading a book, no longer needing to be actively involved in the operation of the vehicle.”

I’ll believe it when I see it, as always, though I don’t really recommend any of the Foundation books, as The Fifth Season feels more of the moment.

China Would Like Automakers To Cut The Shit

China’s economy does not operate the way our economy does, but the outcomes of state action are just as unpredictable as the “invisible hand of the market,” although I’d argue that most countries have some mix of both.

After encouraging the country’s automakers and startups to lead in electric cars, the ability of Chinese carmakers to overproduce, and the resulting overproduction of cars, led to an overwhelming and brutal price war that involved companies doing strange things like selling new cars as “zero-mile used cars.”

A change was bound to come, and the State Administration for Market Regulation is out with some new guidelines, as Bloomberg reports:

The new rules set price-compliance requirements for vehicle and parts production to pricing strategy and sales practices, according to the draft released by the State Administration for Market Regulation on Friday. Automakers will face “significant legal risks” if they set sale prices below production costs to exclude competitors or monopolize the market, it said.

“Rapid market growth, especially in new energy vehicles, has brought new business models and increasingly complex pricing,” the regulator said Friday. “Problems such as irregular price displays, fraud, collusion and irrational competition have disrupted the market and harmed consumers and businesses.

I don’t necessarily recommend downloading a Word doc from the Chinese government to your computer as I just did, but there is an amusing section about not giving out “gifts” to customers for buying cars. We have these rules in the United States as well, typically under “rebate laws,” and it seems like China is catching up.

NASCAR Blinks

I mentioned on Monday that Michael Jordan could potentially bring down NASCAR. That didn’t happen, as NASCAR seems to have been persuaded by a couple of brutal days in court to settle.

Per ESPN:

“Like two competitors, obviously we tried to get as much done in each other’s favor,” Jordan said, towering over France, 81. “I’ve said this from Day 1: the only way this sport is going to grow is we have to find some synergy between the two entities. I think we’ve gotten to that point, unfortunately it took 16 months to get here, but I think level heads have gotten us to this point where we can actually work together and grow this sport. I am very proud about that and I think Jim feels the same.”

France concurred.

“I do feel the same and we can get back to focusing on what we really love, and that’s racing, and we spent a lot of time not really focused on that so much as we needed to be,” France said. “I feel like we made a very good decision here together and we have a big opportunity to continue growing the sport.”

If you come for Michael Jordan, you best not miss.

Fast Car On Ice

I’m a Flying Spur kind of guy, so if you’re telling me that Bentley set a new fastest winter lap at the farthest north regularly operating track, I’m into it. This all took place at the Drivecenter Arena circuit in Fällfors, which sounds like a place I’d try to catch in SkyCards.

Despite the entirety of the 2.05-mile track being covered in 12” of ice and snow, the Flying Spur Speed was able to complete laps in under three minutes, with the best time standing at 2:58 – the quickest any vehicle has lapped the facility in winter conditions, ever. The Flying Spur’s variable four-wheel drive system and rear-wheel steering combined to give the car outstanding agility in the conditions, and peak speed was 120 mph during the record run despite the longest straight being only 450 metres long and covered in sheet ice.

Heck yeah, good buddy.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

Bust out the popcorn, it’s ELO’s “Hold On Tight.” Why? I have no idea.

The Big Question

What car would you most like to drive on a race track that’s covered in ice and snow?

Top graphic images: Rivian; Lucasfilm; DepositPhotos.com