In the middle of the crisis, the electric car manufacturer Rivian lost its COO Frank Klein (51). After around two years as operational boss, Klein resigned, the start-up from Irvine, California announced on Friday without giving any reasons. Javier Varela, who was most recently deputy CEO at Volvo Cars, will take over his position in August.
The former Mercedes-Benz manager Klein is leaving the company in a difficult phase. Rivian boss RJ Scaringe (41) urgently needs fresh money. The start-up, the next largest independent manufacturer of battery-electric vehicles in the USA after Tesla, is struggling with production problems, inventory declines and declining demand for electric vehicles. In March, Scaringe began construction of the new factory in the US state of Georgia postponed “until further notice”. According to information from manager magazin, major shareholder Amazon also wants to do so no more fresh money to be injected.
Scaringe has therefore prescribed a savings program for the company. As a result, thousands of jobs will be cut and production efficiency will be significantly increased. The company aims to post a “modest gross profit” by the fourth quarter of this year.
Volume model should come onto the market
The new, more cost-effective R2 model will now be built at the existing factory in Normal, Illinois, and will therefore be delivered earlier. The state is paying $827 million in subsidies to expand the factory.
Valera worked for Volvo Cars for a total of eight years, managing the company’s three main regions. He began his career in 1990 at PSA Group (now Stellantis). At Rivian, he will be responsible for operations, procurement, manufacturing and logistics.
Rivian has long been considered one of the strongest challengers to Tesla among pure electric car manufacturers – but is still much smaller. Last year, Tesla built almost 1.85 million vehicles – and Rivian a good 57,000. Rivian ended last year with a loss of $5.4 billion on $4.4 billion in sales.