If big automakers want to win on AI, they need to start making more of their own software, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said.
“I think it’s inconceivable that by, call it early 2030s, that a car company can exist at scale and maintain their market share and not have a software defined architecture,” Scaringe told Stripe cofounder John Collison on Collison’s “Cheeky Pint” podcast.
Scaringe said that right now, most major automakers rely on “little islands of software” for specific functions that aren’t always able to communicate with each other. This reality just isn’t compatible with an AI world.
“There’s so many abstraction layers between the actual code and the manufacturer. I think that must go away for you to be competitive in a world of AI, where you want deep contextual understanding of what’s happening across the vehicle and being able to create these highly immersive, highly evolving experiences that get better and better over time,” he said.
Automakers who don’t adapt could soon feel the pinch, Scaringe said.
“If manufacturers don’t make that change, they’re just going to lose market share,” he said. “And the ones that do have that technology are going to gain a lot of market share in the next 10 years.”
It is a bit self-interested to pitch automakers on upping their software game, Scaringe said. Rivian, which has its own tech stack, has an up to $5.8 billion partnership with Volkswagen to work on developing software for both companies. Rivian’s leader said that outside similar agreements, traditional automakers might struggle.
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“I think every car company is either going to try to develop it themselves, which is hard because they don’t typically have those skill sets,” Scaringe said. “Try to source it from suppliers. That’s very hard because those companies are precisely the ones that don’t want to see all their little computers go away. Or, work with us.”
Rivian is already showing a taste of what the future holds, Scaringe said. He pointed to the company’s viral Halloween mode, a yearly update where owners can transform their vehicles with lights and sounds. Past editions have included Back to the Future and Knight Rider.
“We’re at the tip of the iceberg of being able to do these very immersive, very hard to recreate modes that are just, you can’t do with a traditional architecture,” Scaringe said.
