On his first day in office on Monday, President Donald Trump declared war on the electric car. In an executive order, Trump signaled his intention to roll back the $7,500 subsidy for clean-car purchases, loosen tailpipe pollution regulations and, broadly speaking, take a hatchet to Biden-era policies that are helping to fuel the growth of EVs.
Yet Rivian founder and CEO R.J. Scaringe isn’t too worked up about how the policy shift will impact his company.
“We spend a lot of time talking about short-term financials, but we’re building a business for the next few decades,” he told InsideEVs on Thursday, adding that he’s still convinced transportation will be 100% electric someday. “So, eh, who cares? It’s going to be a little more challenging, the next couple of years.”
Scaringe said he didn’t start Rivian because of what he thought EV policy might look like down the road. And besides, any changes to pro-EV policies will hurt all makers of EVs in the near term, he said, creating what he described as “small speed bumps.” We still don’t know how all of this will shake out, since Trump can’t do all of this with the stroke of a pen. He’ll need Congress to delete tax credits for EV buyers and manufacturers, for example.
The difference between Rivian and some rivals, though, is that other automakers can lean into their gas-powered offerings if EV sales aren’t going their way. California-based Rivian only makes battery-powered vehicles: the rugged R1S SUV and R1T pickup, along with a commercial van. That fact does worry Scaringe. But he’s not envious of their flexibility—rather, he hopes the coming pullback in EV policy doesn’t make other companies pump the brakes too hard on EVs.
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If rival automakers prioritize immediate financial considerations and underinvest in EVs, that may actually be good for Rivian from a competition standpoint, he said. But it would leave the U.S. behind the ball in the global shift to electric cars over the long term. And it would leave the country with an underdeveloped electric market and not enough choices for consumers.
“If you’re optimizing purely for profitability the next two years and you’re a traditional legacy manufacturer, you could very easily make the spreadsheet case to say, ‘let’s double down on combustion,’ or ‘let’s double down on hybrids,’ which I think is a big miscalculation for the long term,” he told reporters during a roundtable on Thursday.
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Regardless of where U.S. policy goes or doesn’t go from here, the transition to electric transportation is well underway around the world. Take China, for example. That country has exploded onto the scene as the largest and most advanced maker of electric and electrified cars on the planet. EV sales are growing fast in China, and its homegrown automakers like BYD are making inroads around the world at a blistering pace.
Sales of internal combustion vehicles peaked globally in 2017 and have been in decline ever since. Government policy kicked off the shift and definitely helps, but consumer demand and dropping EV prices will keep it going, experts say.
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“I say this all the time to friends of mine who run big car companies: ‘Don’t stop investing. You’re going find yourself in the 2030s, upside down,’” Scaringe told InsideEVs. “Rivian, Tesla, the Chinese—we have a full-throttle focus on EV. And if you’re doing that as your 10% job as an [automaker], you’re going to be in rough shape in 10 years.”
Nobody is quite sure which policies will get the axe under Trump, and which are safe. Automakers are lobbying for certain incentives to remain in place, since they’ve already committed billions of dollars to building EV and battery facilities in the U.S. The fact that many of those new factories and jobs are sprouting up in Republican-led states could act as a shield too. Rivian, for its part, is building its second plant in Georgia.
The startup automaker is planning for the $7,500 incentive for EV purchases (known as 30D) to go away, and Scaringe thinks the tax credit that subsidizes battery manufacturing in the U.S. (45X, if you’re curious) may also end. Both programs were created by the Inflation Reduction Act, which funneled unprecedented sums toward clean-energy initiatives. “What’s absolutely crystal-clear is that the basics of the IRA are going to be taken away,” he said.
The end of EV purchase incentives won’t make a huge difference for sales of the R1S and R1T, Rivian’s two consumer vehicles, Scaringe said. Rivian’s customers generally don’t fall under the credit’s income limits, since those models typically cost over $90,000. “It’s more of an R2 question,” he said, referring to Rivian’s upcoming, more affordable crossover that lands in 2026. He didn’t comment on the credit for leased vehicles, which doesn’t enforce an income cap.
Rivian launched its first EV in late 2021 and sold just over 50,000 vehicles in 2024 but has yet to turn a profit. The startup hopes the R2 will bring it the kind of scale necessary for long-term financial health. A $5.8 billion investment from Volkswagen should help as well.
Got a tip about the EV world? Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com
