Volkswagen and Rivian have crossed all their T's and dotted all their I's in their new $5.8 billion joint venture, which officially kicks off its work on November 13th, the companies announced today.
The new joint venture, dryly named "Rivian and VW Group Technology, LLC," will be led by Rivian software chief Wassym Bensaid and VW Group chief technology engineer Carsten Helbing. Teams will be based in Palo Alto, California, initially, and three other sites are in development in North America and Europe. Developers and engineers from both companies will fill out the ranks of the new venture.
Rivian also showed off a prototype vehicle to a small group of reporters at its Palo Alto office. According to Bloomberg, the vehicle was a VW test vehicle with Rivian software that was created by the joint venture's engineering team over a 12-week period.
With the deal now closed, Rivian will receive an initial $1 billion loan from VW, followed by $1.3 billion in shares in Rivian, and an additional $3.5 billion over the next few years, VW Group CEO Oliver Blume said in a call with reporters Tuesday.
The technology that emerges from the joint venture will underpin vehicles from both companies, from Rivian's more affordable R2
vehicle, which is set to go into production in 2026, to a variety of models from the VW Group, including Audi, Porsche, Scout, and VW.