**Ford Invests in Rivian with $800 Million Deal**

In 2019, Ford invested a whopping $800 million dollars in Rivian, the upstart electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer. This move seems unusual for a big car company like Ford to partner with a smaller competitor, especially considering the history of the Big Three killing off smaller companies.

However, Ford's investment in Rivian is not just about helping out a struggling company. It's also about gaining access to cutting-edge technology that Ford needs to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving EV market. By investing in Rivian, Ford can keep pace with its competitors and avoid developing competition from scratch.

**Amazon's Huge Investment in Rivian**

Rivian's biggest investor is none other than Jeff Bezos' Amazon, which ordered a massive 100,000 units of Rivian's delivery vans in 2019. This order was the condition of Amazon's investment in the company and became a top priority for Rivian shortly after the announcement.

However, it's worth questioning how much impact Rivian's electric delivery vans will have on Amazon's carbon emissions. Will they really help reduce Amazon's environmental footprint? The answer lies in the production process, disposal cycle, and other factors that are not yet aligned with the vision of a sustainable future.

**Environmental Concerns Surrounding EV Production**

In October 2021, an investment group pressed Rivian to address the potential human rights abuses and environmental harms associated with the battery life cycle. As reported by Nolan in an episode of Wheelhouse, the production of EV batteries is problematic due to the mining process, which can be dirty and even involve child labor.

Rivian responded to these concerns by promising to release a full impact report in 2023, citing their commitment to being climate neutral by 2032. This is a step forward compared to Tesla, which has yet to announce a climate neutral target date.

**The Future of EVs**

While Rivian's R1T electric vehicle may be cool and exciting, the reality is that EV production still has a long way to go before it can truly be considered sustainable. However, with Amazon and Ford in their corner, Rivian is well-positioned to make an impact on the market.

Only time will tell if Rivian will top Tesla's stronghold on the market or succumb to the same fate as other companies that have tried to take down the EV giant.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enif you've been feeling a little tingle in your automotive dingle lately it's because the world's first fully electric off-road proven pickup truck with surprise surprise drift mode is delivering to customers in the real world as we speak and i'm not talking about tesla and that atari ass pickup i'm talking about a little company called rivien the hype around this company is crazy how is an ev startup worth more than the ford company who are these guys are they really gonna disrupt the ev game or will they fade into obscurity like so many other claimed tesla killers in the past let's get you up to speed on rivian thank you to dr squatch for sponsoring today's video i used to be ignorant of all natural hygiene but now everything makes sense i tossed out that big box two in one shampoo and conditioner and started respecting my roots with the high performance hygiene of dr squat looks like someone needs a lathering lesson say goodbye to that big box way ahead of you all natural jerry i've been nourishing my scalp with dr squatch's all-natural hair products for weeks pine tar glad to see you're learning from our adventures you want to take an even closer look closer look wait i i didn't teach you how to looks like someone's all natural powers are growing all thanks to you all natural jerry what do you think of my follicle forest smells outdoorsy and looks so healthy come on i'll show you around unlike those harsh big box shampoos that strip the natural oils from your head dr squat's shampoo naturally hydrates and soothes your scalp with the finest ingredients nature has to offer talk about smooth handsome hair someone's been using dr squatch's conditioner too that's the power of their pine tar conditioner it's packed with avocado oil shea butter and pine tar to scrub cleanse and condition your happy scalp so proud of you nolan feels like just months ago you're putting all kinds of harsh chemicals into your body and now look at you standing on your own head looking and smelling your best take us home before i shed some all-natural tears of happiness all right make your loved ones cry for joy this holiday season by giving the gift of high performance hygiene with these awesome squatch miss bundles i'm talking soap deodorant air care even to build your own bundle get festive freshness day by going to doctorsquash.com or clicking the link below plus new customers can save 20 when they use code dsc donut at checkout looks like there's only one thing left to do nolan whoa or should i say all natural nolan did we just become best friends yup doctors squash rivian aims to change the truck and suv game the same way that tesla rocked luxury sedans and let's be honest that's not gonna be easy truck folks are one of the hardest ev markets to crack but rivien seems to have a maybe genies plan to actually make it happen now we'll get into that later and we'll dig into where and who this company came from but right now let's take a look at what they're bringing to the eevee table it's a crew cab pickup with more than 800 buff lightning horses 900 beefy boy pound feet of twerks and the ability to hit 60 miles per hour in three seconds on dirt like a freaking group b car rivian didn't politely place the r1t on the eb table they overturned the table splattered spaghetti sparkling apple juice and a bunch of protons and electrons all over the wall all that power and speed it's great but how far can i drive this wally looking ass thing on a single charge how about 300 miles per charge standard and 400 for an extra 10 000 400 miles per charge and it'll cost you 100 a mile less than the operating cost of your freaking sti now speaking of all-wheel drive it's standard on the r1t each 21 inch wheel is powered by its own electric motor this allows for what i like to call the lawnmower turn the left and right wheels rotate in opposite directions twisting the truck on its axles like one of those freaking lawn mowers with yolks instead of a steering wheel that's a pretty nifty trick but how does this truck handle the rough and tumble well check out this video of a stock r1t tackling moab's infamous hell's gate earlier this year i mean yeah sure akia sedona did it but i mean it's still cool so the r1t and uh rivien's suv that's going to come out later the r1s are built on a skateboard architecture where the heavy batteries are mounted under the passenger compartment now this gives these beasts a low center of gravity they can carve corners way better than your average truck or suv which is probably why it has drift mode i'm going to be honest guys i think drift mode is stupid why it's like the lamest old white guy version of like pr appealing to young people we have a professional drifter on our staff you think he gives one single crap about drift mode on this truck no because he lives drift mode he is drift mode and this drift mode is like lame one other major advantage of a skateboard chassis is the versatility that it offers now when your cars all use the same effective floor pan or drive train you can drop whatever kind of bodies on it that you want we saw this at sema this year ford released an ev crate motor roadster shop made a chassis for it and i'm really excited to see a bunch of new i mean old electric cars really the sky is the limit that's one of the biggest assets to rivien they can make whatever they want they can expand their vehicular portfolio without breaking the bank it's like me at orgy just throw another body on it now the rivien r1t starts at just under 70 000. all right compare that to the 40 000 base price of ford's upcoming evf 150 the lightning it's big benji's you know what i mean but the trucks are aimed at different markets all right rivien's crosshairs fall on affluent pataguchi sporting granolas in tahoe and that's honestly a really smart move ford's more interested in feeling out how their primary blue-collar f-150 base will accept an eb truck with the tagline electric adventure vehicles and options like an integrated camp kitchen with a working stove and a three-person rooftop tent it seems like rivien have carefully defined their lane and they're sticking to it this is the maybe genius plan i was talking about earlier and you know what since you and i have such an open and honest you know relationship i feel i can give it to you straight this truck will meet 90 of the truck buying public's needs most truck owners aren't installing a front hitch for a snowplow they aren't hauling tons of gravel once a week they're going to the store all right they're going camping and the r1t it can go to the store dude it can go camping it can also tow up to 11 000 pounds now where did this company come from and what planet is its ceo obsessed with conquering 38 year old rivien ceo r.j scarange doesn't give a about mars or even your anus he cares about our he might care about your anus he cares about our cozy little home planet earth rj grew up near melbourne florida two hours east of tampa the death metal capital of the world as a kid when he wasn't getting straight a's tinkering on projects with his engineer father or helping rebuild old porsches in his neighbor's restoration shop he was exploring the forests and the swamps of his extended backyard the name rivien actually comes from the indian river lagoon where rj paddled around in his rowboat as a kid swamp kid c so naturally young rj developed a deep appreciation for nature and all that wrenching on classic porsches made him into a serious car enthusiast but teenage rj was deeply concerned about climate change but he also wanted to go fast and at 18 years old he decided that one day he would start his own car company that would align his values and he decided the massachusetts institute of technology aka mi fricken t was a good place to learn how to do it now during his time at mit's famed sloan automotive laboratory rj nerded out on engineering details like exhaust gas recirculation and variable valve timing stuff that helps internal combustion engines reduce environmental impact but the more he learned about internal combustion the more problems he found now electric cars though not a perfect solution seemed like a big step in the right direction so he took a big step himself and founded mainstream motors in 2009 now as with any startup the first few years were rough they didn't even have a freaking ping pong table they didn't even have a freaking slide they didn't even have ipas on tap they even have any cold brews so we're going to skip ahead a few years to the early 2010s when the lightning bolt that was tesla's model s struck gold finally making evs a viable option as real practical cars and all of a sudden major car companies around the globe were finally taking ev seriously they were scrambling to catch up to tesla and they pretty much still are rj and his gang of 15 or so dedicated employees realized that if they were gonna have any chance against these behemoths they'd have to find a niche to focus on from 2010 to 2014 rj and crew built concept cars of any genre that wasn't yet electrified they tried a sports car they tried a supercar they made a freaking dune buggy truck thing but they didn't have the resources to bring any of these into production all that failure sucked but it ultimately birthed the idea that changed everything now with nothing working out his way rj did what we all do when nothing's working out our way we question every little thing about ourselves is it me what is wrong with me why don't i have any friends outside of work i don't know from this dark night of the soul this trip through the jaws of a spiritual chipmax 44 industrial wood chipper our man found his answer who was rj he was a mountain biker a camper a runner of rivers an explorer of swamps a clown of mountains he was a swamp kid he was an outdoor enthusiast why not build an ev for people like him that wasn't on the market yet and thus rivien was born they were able to secure a bunch of support and in 2017 rivian bought a former mitsubishi manufacturing plant in normal illinois for cool 16 million bones cool buying a near production ready facility instead of starting from scratch is a brilliant move and rj didn't make it up it's the same thing that elon musk did when he bought a plant in california riven hit the ground running and within a year working r1t and r1s prototypes were complete soon after they were unveiled at the la auto show and as of this moment in which i'm talking to a camera from behind my cool new desk rivian has delivered more than 150 r1ts to customers around the country rivian plans to deliver more than 1 000 cars to customers by the end of this year 2021 the dream is becoming a reality okay cool but even with a singular granola focus how long can rivian compete with the big boys like ford have you ever heard the phrase if you can't beat them join them ford invested 800 million dollars in rivien in 2019. seems weird for an upstart car manufacturer to get a lifeline from a big boy car company right i mean the big three are notorious for killing smaller companies well ford's not dumb and when someone comes around toting tech that they know they need to master with a quickness it's much easier for them to toss money their way in the name of collaboration than it is to try and develop competition and while that ford cash certainly didn't suck rivian's biggest whale swam along in the form of everyone's second favorite self-obsessed space billionaire jeff bezos his middle name is preston amazon ordered 100 000 rivian delivery vans in 2019 to help achieve bezos's 2040 goal of net zero carbon emissions across operations now this massive fleet order was the condition of amazon's investment in the company and it became pretty much priority number one for rivien just over a year after the announcement prototypes of the amazon van rolled out in 16 u.s cities but you got to ask how much will riven's electric delivery vans really trim amazon's carbon emissions and let's get into it are rivian evs really that much better for the environment now obviously the idea of everybody driving around in fast cool evs that don't further pollute our already totally planet um is great but the realities of the ev production operation the disposal cycle they don't line up with this vision yet case in point in october 2021 an investment group pressed rivian to address the potential human rights abuses and environmental harms associated with the battery life cycle as nolan has covered in an episode of wheelhouse last year the stuff we make ev batteries out of right now primarily lithium and cobalt is nasty the mining process is nasty the production process is nasty and handling these batteries at the end of their life cycle is nasty there's also serious human rights violations alleged at some of these minds like sub-human working conditions and freaking child labor not cool i'm gonna go on record right now and say unless you're a cute kid on a sitcom in a movie child labor is not cool big daddy cool disney channel cool they get to be famous put a little kid into mine not cool ribbian responded to the investment group's human rights and environmental questions a month later by promising to release a full impact report in 2023 citing their plan to be climate neutral by 2032 and noting their battery suppliers commitment not to use the environmentally sketchy deep seed mining process this is better than tesla on at least one point elon's ev company has yet to announce a climate neutral target date uh to learn more about how green evs really are check out uh an episode of wheelhouse i'll put the link in the description so i gotta say i think the rivian r1t is cool the reviews i'm reading for this thing are very positive even better than those for the chipmax 484 industrial wood chipper but i really can't be sure about this thing until rivian sends us one to test ourselves maybe a moa regardless of everything i see in rivien the makings for an exciting new chapter in the ev game will it topple tesla's stronghold on the market probably not uh only time will tell but with amazon and ford in their corner i think it's a safe bet rivian won't end up in the tesla killer graveyard jeff bezos hates elon musk so much he sued nasa about going to the moon thank you guys so much for watching this video and everything else on donut media to make sure you don't miss anything hit that subscribe button hit the like button really helps us out again i really think you should watch that episode of wheelhouse uh i'll put it right here let me know what you think about uh evs in general uh are we gonna fight wars over lithium in the future i'm gonna go ahead and say probably we got new merch go to donutmedia.com uh get on the mailing list so you don't miss anything we have a points program now you get points for your birthday get points for signing up then you get discounts on donut stuff i love youif you've been feeling a little tingle in your automotive dingle lately it's because the world's first fully electric off-road proven pickup truck with surprise surprise drift mode is delivering to customers in the real world as we speak and i'm not talking about tesla and that atari ass pickup i'm talking about a little company called rivien the hype around this company is crazy how is an ev startup worth more than the ford company who are these guys are they really gonna disrupt the ev game or will they fade into obscurity like so many other claimed tesla killers in the past let's get you up to speed on rivian thank you to dr squatch for sponsoring today's video i used to be ignorant of all natural hygiene but now everything makes sense i tossed out that big box two in one shampoo and conditioner and started respecting my roots with the high performance hygiene of dr squat looks like someone needs a lathering lesson say goodbye to that big box way ahead of you all natural jerry i've been nourishing my scalp with dr squatch's all-natural hair products for weeks pine tar glad to see you're learning from our adventures you want to take an even closer look closer look wait i i didn't teach you how to looks like someone's all natural powers are growing all thanks to you all natural jerry what do you think of my follicle forest smells outdoorsy and looks so healthy come on i'll show you around unlike those harsh big box shampoos that strip the natural oils from your head dr squat's shampoo naturally hydrates and soothes your scalp with the finest ingredients nature has to offer talk about smooth handsome hair someone's been using dr squatch's conditioner too that's the power of their pine tar conditioner it's packed with avocado oil shea butter and pine tar to scrub cleanse and condition your happy scalp so proud of you nolan feels like just months ago you're putting all kinds of harsh chemicals into your body and now look at you standing on your own head looking and smelling your best take us home before i shed some all-natural tears of happiness all right make your loved ones cry for joy this holiday season by giving the gift of high performance hygiene with these awesome squatch miss bundles i'm talking soap deodorant air care even to build your own bundle get festive freshness day by going to doctorsquash.com or clicking the link below plus new customers can save 20 when they use code dsc donut at checkout looks like there's only one thing left to do nolan whoa or should i say all natural nolan did we just become best friends yup doctors squash rivian aims to change the truck and suv game the same way that tesla rocked luxury sedans and let's be honest that's not gonna be easy truck folks are one of the hardest ev markets to crack but rivien seems to have a maybe genies plan to actually make it happen now we'll get into that later and we'll dig into where and who this company came from but right now let's take a look at what they're bringing to the eevee table it's a crew cab pickup with more than 800 buff lightning horses 900 beefy boy pound feet of twerks and the ability to hit 60 miles per hour in three seconds on dirt like a freaking group b car rivian didn't politely place the r1t on the eb table they overturned the table splattered spaghetti sparkling apple juice and a bunch of protons and electrons all over the wall all that power and speed it's great but how far can i drive this wally looking ass thing on a single charge how about 300 miles per charge standard and 400 for an extra 10 000 400 miles per charge and it'll cost you 100 a mile less than the operating cost of your freaking sti now speaking of all-wheel drive it's standard on the r1t each 21 inch wheel is powered by its own electric motor this allows for what i like to call the lawnmower turn the left and right wheels rotate in opposite directions twisting the truck on its axles like one of those freaking lawn mowers with yolks instead of a steering wheel that's a pretty nifty trick but how does this truck handle the rough and tumble well check out this video of a stock r1t tackling moab's infamous hell's gate earlier this year i mean yeah sure akia sedona did it but i mean it's still cool so the r1t and uh rivien's suv that's going to come out later the r1s are built on a skateboard architecture where the heavy batteries are mounted under the passenger compartment now this gives these beasts a low center of gravity they can carve corners way better than your average truck or suv which is probably why it has drift mode i'm going to be honest guys i think drift mode is stupid why it's like the lamest old white guy version of like pr appealing to young people we have a professional drifter on our staff you think he gives one single crap about drift mode on this truck no because he lives drift mode he is drift mode and this drift mode is like lame one other major advantage of a skateboard chassis is the versatility that it offers now when your cars all use the same effective floor pan or drive train you can drop whatever kind of bodies on it that you want we saw this at sema this year ford released an ev crate motor roadster shop made a chassis for it and i'm really excited to see a bunch of new i mean old electric cars really the sky is the limit that's one of the biggest assets to rivien they can make whatever they want they can expand their vehicular portfolio without breaking the bank it's like me at orgy just throw another body on it now the rivien r1t starts at just under 70 000. all right compare that to the 40 000 base price of ford's upcoming evf 150 the lightning it's big benji's you know what i mean but the trucks are aimed at different markets all right rivien's crosshairs fall on affluent pataguchi sporting granolas in tahoe and that's honestly a really smart move ford's more interested in feeling out how their primary blue-collar f-150 base will accept an eb truck with the tagline electric adventure vehicles and options like an integrated camp kitchen with a working stove and a three-person rooftop tent it seems like rivien have carefully defined their lane and they're sticking to it this is the maybe genius plan i was talking about earlier and you know what since you and i have such an open and honest you know relationship i feel i can give it to you straight this truck will meet 90 of the truck buying public's needs most truck owners aren't installing a front hitch for a snowplow they aren't hauling tons of gravel once a week they're going to the store all right they're going camping and the r1t it can go to the store dude it can go camping it can also tow up to 11 000 pounds now where did this company come from and what planet is its ceo obsessed with conquering 38 year old rivien ceo r.j scarange doesn't give a about mars or even your anus he cares about our he might care about your anus he cares about our cozy little home planet earth rj grew up near melbourne florida two hours east of tampa the death metal capital of the world as a kid when he wasn't getting straight a's tinkering on projects with his engineer father or helping rebuild old porsches in his neighbor's restoration shop he was exploring the forests and the swamps of his extended backyard the name rivien actually comes from the indian river lagoon where rj paddled around in his rowboat as a kid swamp kid c so naturally young rj developed a deep appreciation for nature and all that wrenching on classic porsches made him into a serious car enthusiast but teenage rj was deeply concerned about climate change but he also wanted to go fast and at 18 years old he decided that one day he would start his own car company that would align his values and he decided the massachusetts institute of technology aka mi fricken t was a good place to learn how to do it now during his time at mit's famed sloan automotive laboratory rj nerded out on engineering details like exhaust gas recirculation and variable valve timing stuff that helps internal combustion engines reduce environmental impact but the more he learned about internal combustion the more problems he found now electric cars though not a perfect solution seemed like a big step in the right direction so he took a big step himself and founded mainstream motors in 2009 now as with any startup the first few years were rough they didn't even have a freaking ping pong table they didn't even have a freaking slide they didn't even have ipas on tap they even have any cold brews so we're going to skip ahead a few years to the early 2010s when the lightning bolt that was tesla's model s struck gold finally making evs a viable option as real practical cars and all of a sudden major car companies around the globe were finally taking ev seriously they were scrambling to catch up to tesla and they pretty much still are rj and his gang of 15 or so dedicated employees realized that if they were gonna have any chance against these behemoths they'd have to find a niche to focus on from 2010 to 2014 rj and crew built concept cars of any genre that wasn't yet electrified they tried a sports car they tried a supercar they made a freaking dune buggy truck thing but they didn't have the resources to bring any of these into production all that failure sucked but it ultimately birthed the idea that changed everything now with nothing working out his way rj did what we all do when nothing's working out our way we question every little thing about ourselves is it me what is wrong with me why don't i have any friends outside of work i don't know from this dark night of the soul this trip through the jaws of a spiritual chipmax 44 industrial wood chipper our man found his answer who was rj he was a mountain biker a camper a runner of rivers an explorer of swamps a clown of mountains he was a swamp kid he was an outdoor enthusiast why not build an ev for people like him that wasn't on the market yet and thus rivien was born they were able to secure a bunch of support and in 2017 rivian bought a former mitsubishi manufacturing plant in normal illinois for cool 16 million bones cool buying a near production ready facility instead of starting from scratch is a brilliant move and rj didn't make it up it's the same thing that elon musk did when he bought a plant in california riven hit the ground running and within a year working r1t and r1s prototypes were complete soon after they were unveiled at the la auto show and as of this moment in which i'm talking to a camera from behind my cool new desk rivian has delivered more than 150 r1ts to customers around the country rivian plans to deliver more than 1 000 cars to customers by the end of this year 2021 the dream is becoming a reality okay cool but even with a singular granola focus how long can rivian compete with the big boys like ford have you ever heard the phrase if you can't beat them join them ford invested 800 million dollars in rivien in 2019. seems weird for an upstart car manufacturer to get a lifeline from a big boy car company right i mean the big three are notorious for killing smaller companies well ford's not dumb and when someone comes around toting tech that they know they need to master with a quickness it's much easier for them to toss money their way in the name of collaboration than it is to try and develop competition and while that ford cash certainly didn't suck rivian's biggest whale swam along in the form of everyone's second favorite self-obsessed space billionaire jeff bezos his middle name is preston amazon ordered 100 000 rivian delivery vans in 2019 to help achieve bezos's 2040 goal of net zero carbon emissions across operations now this massive fleet order was the condition of amazon's investment in the company and it became pretty much priority number one for rivien just over a year after the announcement prototypes of the amazon van rolled out in 16 u.s cities but you got to ask how much will riven's electric delivery vans really trim amazon's carbon emissions and let's get into it are rivian evs really that much better for the environment now obviously the idea of everybody driving around in fast cool evs that don't further pollute our already totally planet um is great but the realities of the ev production operation the disposal cycle they don't line up with this vision yet case in point in october 2021 an investment group pressed rivian to address the potential human rights abuses and environmental harms associated with the battery life cycle as nolan has covered in an episode of wheelhouse last year the stuff we make ev batteries out of right now primarily lithium and cobalt is nasty the mining process is nasty the production process is nasty and handling these batteries at the end of their life cycle is nasty there's also serious human rights violations alleged at some of these minds like sub-human working conditions and freaking child labor not cool i'm gonna go on record right now and say unless you're a cute kid on a sitcom in a movie child labor is not cool big daddy cool disney channel cool they get to be famous put a little kid into mine not cool ribbian responded to the investment group's human rights and environmental questions a month later by promising to release a full impact report in 2023 citing their plan to be climate neutral by 2032 and noting their battery suppliers commitment not to use the environmentally sketchy deep seed mining process this is better than tesla on at least one point elon's ev company has yet to announce a climate neutral target date uh to learn more about how green evs really are check out uh an episode of wheelhouse i'll put the link in the description so i gotta say i think the rivian r1t is cool the reviews i'm reading for this thing are very positive even better than those for the chipmax 484 industrial wood chipper but i really can't be sure about this thing until rivian sends us one to test ourselves maybe a moa regardless of everything i see in rivien the makings for an exciting new chapter in the ev game will it topple tesla's stronghold on the market probably not uh only time will tell but with amazon and ford in their corner i think it's a safe bet rivian won't end up in the tesla killer graveyard jeff bezos hates elon musk so much he sued nasa about going to the moon thank you guys so much for watching this video and everything else on donut media to make sure you don't miss anything hit that subscribe button hit the like button really helps us out again i really think you should watch that episode of wheelhouse uh i'll put it right here let me know what you think about uh evs in general uh are we gonna fight wars over lithium in the future i'm gonna go ahead and say probably we got new merch go to donutmedia.com uh get on the mailing list so you don't miss anything we have a points program now you get points for your birthday get points for signing up then you get discounts on donut stuff i love you