is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
Before RJ Scaringe founded the adventure-themed EV company Rivian, he was thinking about bikes.
Well, not bikes exactly. More like pedal-powered hybrid microcars and other forms of alternative transportation. This was three years before Scaringe launched Rivian, and nearly 13 years before the company eventually came out of stealth. By then, Scaringe had decided against building such a vehicle, concluding that the market would be too small, limited to a niche group of enthusiasts like himself.
Still, it would have been cool, right? A Rivian-designed minicar? “It would have been so cool,” Scaringe recalls in an interview with The Verge.
Although that specific idea was set aside, the motivation behind it — creating sustainable and adventurous forms of mobility of all sizes — remained. So about four years ago, Scaringe reached out to Specialized’s chief technology officer, Chris Yu, about starting up a skunkworks that could incubate various pedal-powered ideas.
A Rivian-designed minicar? “It would have been so cool,” Scaringe recalls
Today, the company that spun out of that effort, Also, unveiled its first batch of products: a modular e-bike, a pedal-powered four-wheeler, and an innovative bike helmet that is said to dramatically decrease the chance of head injury in a crash.
It’s a risky move for Rivian, which is currently bracing itself for a steep drop in EV sales following the recent expiration of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit in the US. The company is also gearing up for the production launch of its crucial R2 vehicle next year, which could help Rivian reverse its fortunes. But it has never had a profitable quarter, and there are serious concerns about the company’s ability to weather the next year or so as the EV market contracts. Is now really the right time for a new e-bike lineup?
Maybe so. Also — the company — is well capitalized, having recently raised $105 million from Eclipse Ventures. The startup poached workers from Apple, Google, Specialized, Tesla, REI Co-Op, and Uber. It’s vertically integrated like Rivian, which should give it some runway when it comes to costs. But Also is about much more than just e-bikes.
“We really look at this as a business that’s going to be pursuing a variety of form factors that are all sub-car,” Scaringe said. “We said, first principles, let’s truly rethink the bike in its entirety, and then think of that as a platform for other things.”
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