Volkswagen and Rivian officially team up on £4.5bn joint venture

American EV start-up Rivian and the Volkswagen Group have announced ‘Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies’ as the name of their shared company. With “Rivian’s industry-leading software” and “Volkswagen Group’s significant global scale”, VW says the venture will bring “best-in-class software technology for both companies’ future electric vehicles”.

As part of the deal, Volkswagen is committing to invest a total of $5.8billion (£4.5billion) into Rivian by 2027, to gain access to the US firm’s advanced EV platform tech. Then, in the second half of this decade, we can expect to see new Rivian and Volkswagen Group cars or vans based on an all-new Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) platform created by the joint venture. As well as accelerating software and platform development, the brands also hope that pooling their resources can lower vehicle-production costs at a time when the flow of lower-priced electric cars from China into western markets is increasing.

While Rivian has been focused on electric trucks and SUVs, Volkswagen says the partnership will cover “all relevant vehicle segments, including subcompact cars”. Eyeing up Rivian’s electrical architecture and software, Volkswagen says it expects to launch its first models from the venture in 2027 – sharing technology with the upcoming Rivian R2 SUV due in 2026. This was revealed earlier this year, showcasing Rivian’s all-new platform.