Remember that scene in Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, when Mr. Potter is about to offer George Bailey a job? But before he does, Mr. Potter gives George credit for skillfully navigating the Great Depression and keeping the Bailey Bros. Building & Loan afloat. “You and I were the only ones that kept our heads. You saved the Building & Loan, I saved all the rest.” (Or stole the rest, George mutters.)
This iconic bit of American cinema comes to mind as the lower-priced Rivian R2 EV rolls out to its first customers this week. With the launch of the SUV, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe talks openly about this midsize SUV potentially propelling the automaker into mainstream status by selling in high volume.
Base Trim Engine
Electric
Base Trim Transmission
single-speed Automatic
Base Trim Drivetrain
Rear-Wheel Drive
Base Trim Horsepower
350 hp
Base Trim Torque
355 lb-ft
0-60 MPH
5.9 sec
Segment
Compact SUV
In a way, Scaringe is George Bailey and Elon Musk is Mr. Potter – the only two automotive CEOs who have managed over the past 18 months to weather an American political storm that has stalled the EV market, cost automakers tens of billions of dollars in wasted EV investments, and encouraged the industry to revive internal combustion, its lifeblood for 125 years.
While Tesla remains the 800-pound gorilla driving EV sales in a conflicted US market, Rivian managed to post its first gross profit of $144 million in 2025, after net losses of about $5 billion in each of the previous four years. The game is on – While legacy automakers are rewriting their EV playbooks and scaling back their product plans, Rivian is pushing forward, despite the headwinds.
First Rivian R2 Manufacturing Validation Builds At Normal, Illinois PlantRivian
There was a time when Scaringe was a bit more guarded with his comments to the media. But last week at the R2 launch in Utah, the CEO spoke frankly in a media roundtable about the market, its challenges, the company’s future, plans to sell the R2 in Europe, and much more.
A ‘Fairly Lazy Explanation’ About EV Market
2027 Rivian R2Tom Murphy / Valnet / CarBuzz
Scaringe answered a wide range of questions for 40 minutes, frequently smiling and sharing witty banter with his chief lieutenants and seemingly speaking with a sense of pride because the automaker has sold 175,000 vehicles – not bad for a startup – and has a viable plan for growth. But when CarBuzz asked him to size up the EV market in the US, Scaringe answered the question with the freewheeling knowledge of a college professor… and the candor of George Bailey.
“There’s sort of two sides to the way you could present what’s causing this,” he said. “One is, you say customers don’t want EVs,” but he called that a “fairly lazy explanation” for what’s happening in the market.
While there were big swings in US sales in 2025 due to tariffs and the elimination of tax credits, Scaringe said EV sales have been up slightly, to about 7% of the US market, which is way behind Europe and China.
“I think it’s much more of the fact that there’s just very few great choices.”
–Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe
2027 Rivian R2Tom Murphy / Valnet / CarBuzz
Among new EVs, he sees few products compelling enough to convince a shopper to leave a hybrid or an ICE vehicle. He praises the Tesla Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover, “but there’s a limit to how many customers there are going to be for that type of vehicle, both in terms of customers’ desire to have design that maybe appeals to them or a brand that appeals to them.”
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‘A Wildly Underserved Market’ For EVs In US
2027 Rivian R2Tom Murphy / CarBuzz / Valnet
“If you want capability to do something like what we’re doing today, you have to make a capability compromise,” he said, referring to the Model Y. “I think it’s a big ask to say for the US auto industry to electrify, you have to buy one of two vehicles that fall into the category of highly compelling,” Scaringe said, referring to both the Model 3 and Y.
“I think R2 represents… the first real alternative in that price range – call it $45,000 to high $50,000 price range, where customers have something that’s really compelling in terms of performance, capability, packaging, features, aesthetics.”
The high-volume Model 3 and Y make up “around 50% market share” in the US, from one platform. “That’s not a reflection of a healthy or well-served market,” he said. “It’s a reflection of a wildly underserved market, and it only becomes more apparent when you recognize those are products that launched a number of years ago.”
2027 Rivian R2 exteriorRivian
While he sees the R2 as necessary to add variety to the US market, he’s not opposed to more competition.
“I hope there’s many other products sort of underpinning some of the things I’ve just said… We strongly feel this way, that more choice ultimately is going to help the space. It’s going to lead to broader customer adoption of electric vehicles. It’s going to lead to broader build-out of things like infrastructure for charging.”
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
Rivian still has a lot of work ahead to secure its future. Building world-class EVs that actually make money is the first step, and the R2 might serve that purpose, having been developed with a hawkish focus on eliminating waste and excess weight and consolidating components wherever possible. And while automotive executives will talk all day about the capability of their latest model, it’s not every day that a CEO talks candidly about the shortcomings of a rival.
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But RJ Scaringe is measured with his words and clearly has a solid grasp of the current state of the EV market and Rivian’s place in it. “The end state to us is really clear,” he told journalists. “It is going to be nearly 100% electric, and it’s just a question of when – not if, in our eyes.”
It’s good that he used the term “nearly 100%,” to account for pickup truck owners who don’t see batteries and electric motors up to the task of pulling a large boat, camper, or horse trailer cross-country, at least not now, through the haze of an American automotive market in constant flux.
