{"id":2522,"date":"2025-12-11T01:47:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T01:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=2522"},"modified":"2025-12-11T01:47:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T01:47:03","slug":"rivian-ceo-says-its-a-misconception-evs-are-politicized-with-a-50-50-party-split-among-r1-buyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=2522","title":{"rendered":"Rivian CEO says it\u2019s a misconception EVs are politicized, with a 50-50 party split among R1 buyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If Rivian\u2019s sales are any indication, owning an electric vehicle isn\u2019t such a partisan issue, despite President Donald Trump\u2019s rollbacks of mandates, incentives, and targets for EVs.<\/p>\n

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At the\u00a0Fortune Brainstorm AI conference\u00a0in San Francisco on Tuesday, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said it\u2019s a misconception that electrification is politicized, explaining that most customers buy a product based on how it fits their needs, not their ideology. The questions car buyers ask, he said, are the same whether they\u2019re purchasing one with an internal combustion engine or a battery: \u201cIs it exciting? Are you attracted to the product? Does it draw you in? Does the brand positioning resonate with you? Do the features answer needs that you have?\u201d<\/p>\n

Buyers of Rivian\u2019s R1 electric SUV are split roughly 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, Scaringe told\u00a0Fortune<\/em>\u2019s Andrew Nusca. \u201cI think that\u2019s extraordinarily powerful news for us to recognize\u2014that this isn\u2019t just left-leaning buyers,\u201d he added. \u201cThese are people that are saying, \u2018I like the idea of this product, I\u2019m excited about it.\u2019 And this is thousands and thousands of customers. This is statistically relevant information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buying an EV was once an indication of left-leaning politics, but the politics got scrambled after Tesla CEO Elon Musk became the top Republican donor and a close advisor to Trump. That drew some new customers to Tesla, and turned off a lot of progressive EV buyers, with many existing owners putting bumper stickers on their Teslas explaining that they bought their cars before Musk\u2019s hard-right turn. Trump and Musk later had a stunning public feud, in part over the administration\u2019s elimination of EV and solar tax credits.<\/p>\n

But Scaringe said he started Rivian with a long-term view, independent of any policy framework or political trends. He also insisted that if Americans have more EV choices, sales will follow. Right now, Tesla dominates a key corner of the market, namely EVs in the $50,000 price range. Rivian\u2019s forthcoming R2 midsize SUV will represent a new choice in that market, with a starting price of $45,000 versus the R1\u2019s $70,000.<\/p>\n

Ten years from now, Scaringe said, he hopes\u2014and believes\u2014that EV adoption in the U.S. will be meaningfully higher than it is today across the board, explaining that the main constraint isn\u2019t on the demand side. Instead, it\u2019s on the supply side, which suffers from \u201ca shocking lack of choice,\u201d especially compared with Europe and China, he added. EV options in the U.S. are limited by the fact that Chinese brands are shut out of the market. <\/p>\n

More choices for U.S. EV buyers would presumably create more competition for Rivian\u2014and indeed, the flood of low-price Chinese EVs in other auto markets has created a backlash, with countries such as Canada imposing steep tariffs on them. But Scaringe appears to view more competition as positive for the market overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that the existence of choice will help drive more penetration, and it actually creates a unique opportunity in the United States,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Rivian #CEO #misconception #EVs #politicized #party #split #among #buyers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Rivian\u2019s sales are any indi… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[2132,2606,884,1826,2607,529,2090,2091,2602,2604,2603,2160,2601,2605,853],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2522"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}