-
President Donald Trump moved to ax Biden-era tax incentives for electric-vehicle purchases.
-
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe told BI that EV companies like his faced uncertainty but weren’t doomed.
-
Scaringe said a lack of an EV tax incentive would push Rivian to explore lower-priced vehicles.
The CEO of the electric-vehicle startup Rivian said President Donald Trump’s move to revoke EV subsidies wasn’t keeping him up at night.
In an interview with Business Insider at Rivian’s new San Francisco flagship store on Thursday, the CEO, RJ Scaringe, said the EV industry faced a “high degree of uncertainty” in the next few years but argued that Trump’s step to ax parts of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which includes a $7,500 tax incentive for EV purchases, was “less impactful than people believe.”
“I don’t think removing a $7,500 credit is going to change the end state,” he said. “The end state’s still clear. It’s still going to be electric.”
Scaringe said the removal of the credit would create an opportunity for Rivian to explore lower-priced vehicles.
In March, Rivian announced its R2 SUV, which it said would start at $45,000. The company plans to begin production in 2026.
On Monday, his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order signaling his intention to eliminate what he called the “electric vehicle (EV) mandate” and “promote true consumer choice.” The order called for removing “state emissions waivers” and “other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies and effectively mandate their purchase.”
Stocks of smaller EV companies fell, with Rivian falling by more than 6%. The CEO shrugged it off.
“It wasn’t like market values dropped by 50%,” he said. “They dropped by 5%, 10%.”
Scaringe described the Biden-era subsidies as a “tailwind,” but he said that Rivian’s business wasn’t designed to rely on incentives and that his company didn’t expect them to last forever.
“It’s not like the business has some deep fundamental design around IRA,” he said, referring to the Inflation Reduction Act. “It was there — that was nice. It’s not going to be there now, but it’s OK.”
EVs have become a hot-button political issue in recent years. Former President Joe Biden pushed electric vehicles as part of his administration’s broader goal to combat the climate crisis. Trump has repeatedly bashed the technology, once arguing that EVs were “too expensive” and criticizing their range.
Scaringe said his vehicles had attracted customers across the political spectrum. He argued that the best way to deal with the controversy around EVs was to create a product people want.
“I think we have to be really careful that it doesn’t feel like people are being forced to make a decision,” he said. “And so the best way to do that is to make products that are so cool and so desirable that it’s not something that you’re buying purely because it’s sustainable — you’re buying it because it’s exciting.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
Read the full article here