Ford and aspiring electric automaker Rivian have just announced a massive investment. US$500 million from Ford for a strategic partnership that will see an all-new Ford EV on Rivian's platform.
"This strategic partnership marks another key milestone in our drive to accelerate the transition to sustainable mobility,” said RJ Scaringe, Rivian founder and CEO. “Ford has a long-standing commitment to sustainability, with Bill Ford being one of the industry's earliest advocates, and we are excited to use our technology to get more electric vehicles on the road.”
Rivian has already started taking orders for its first two models – the R1T pickup and the R1S crossover. The company has put the models on a "skateboard" chassis, a flat platform that contains the battery back and running gear, making it easier to put various modular bodies on top.
The automaker has said the vehicles will get a 180 kWh battery pack that should offer range in the area of 640 km. They're expected to arrive late next year.
As part of this investment announcement, which converts to roughly CAD$674 million at press time, Ford says it will be developing a new vehicle on the Rivian platform. That's in addition to Ford's existing EV plans. Though it's not saying what the new model will be.
Just last week, Rivian said that it had turned down an investment from GM. In February, the company secured US$700 million in funding, chiefly from Amazon.
