Tesla rival Rivian raises $2.5 billion to make electric trucks and SUVs
The market for electric trucks is about to get crowded. …
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Upstart electric vehicle maker Rivian has added $2.5 billion to its war chest, the company announced on Friday.
It’s Rivian’s fifth fundraising round in just 18 months. The company raised $2.85 billion in four previous fundraising rounds between February and December of 2019. This gives Rivian more than $5 billion to spend on manufacturing capacity for its forthcoming electric trucks and SUVs.
Rivian is planning to build two consumer vehicles that were both introduced to the public in 2018. There’s an electric truck called the R1T and an SUV called the R1S. Both are based on the same battery-powered all-electric skateboard platform and boast ranges up to 400 miles.
We named Rivian’s truck the star of the New York Auto Show in 2019. “You might not have heard of Rivian yet, but you’re going to,” my colleague Jonathan Gitlin wrote last year.
Rivian also has a deal to manufacture 100,000 electric delivery trucks for Amazon, part of Amazon’s effort to reduce its carbon footprint. Amazon invested in Rivian last year and put more money into the company in the latest round.
Rivian also counts Ford among its investors—though plans to build an SUV for Ford’s Lincoln brand based on Rivian’s technology have been shelved.
The next couple of years will be big ones for startups making electric trucks. Rivian is due to introduce the R1T next year, where it will compete head-to-head with Tesla’s Cybertruck and another <a
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