Ford Motor Company has announced that it will invest $500 million (~Rs 3,500 crore) in the Amazon based electric vehicle startup company Rivian. The half a billion-dollar investment is to drive the co-development on a new generation of Ford vehicles based on Rivian underpinnings.
Rumours were afloat that Rivian was in talks with General Motors for a similar venture, however, both companies have now confirmed that an all-new, next-generation battery electric vehicle for Ford’s growing EV portfolio will be developed using Rivian’s skateboard platform.
The Michigan based startup, Rivian already has developed two vehicles which include the five-passenger R1T pickup and seven-passenger R1S SUV both of which are claimed to deliver up to 400-plus miles of range on a single charge. These two vehicles are said to reach the market by late 2020 as the company plans to begin manufacturing operations in the Normal, Illinois facility which was once used by Mitsubishi. These SUV’s are targeting the future electrically powered offroad market, which has not been captured by competitor Tesla as yet.
Ford intends to develop a new vehicle using Rivian’s flexible skateboard platform. This is in addition to Ford’s existing plans to develop a portfolio of battery electric vehicles. As part of its previously announced $11 billion EV investment, Ford already has confirmed two key fully electric vehicles: A Mustang-inspired crossover coming in 2020 and a zero-emissions version of the F-150 pickup.
Ford has stated that the structure of the deal will allow Rivian to remain an independent company. But Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of Automotive, will join Rivian’s seven-member board. Currently, the investment is subject to customary regulatory approval. “As we continue in our transformation of Ford with new forms of intelligent vehicles and propulsion, this partnership with Rivian brings a fresh approach to both,” said Jim Hackett, Ford president and CEO. “At the same time, we believe Rivian can benefit from Ford’s industrial expertise and resources.”
Additionally, Ford has also announced that their wholly owned subsidiary, the creators of the Transportation Mobility Cloud (TMC) Autonomic have signed a multi-year, global agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The partnership between both companies will enable the expansion of the availability of cloud connectivity services and connected car application development services for the transportation industry.
Autonomic’s TMC system will be powered by AWS to become the standard connected car solution for Ford vehicles. Ford claims that the decision to partner with AWS was encouraged by their global availability and their portfolio of services which include Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, analytics, and compute services. The collaboration represents an expansion of the existing relationships between Ford, Autonomic and AWS.
