VW and Rivian Want to Sell You Their Tech (Yes, You Too)
You know what's wild? Volkswagen and Rivian just spent a year locked in a room building an EV platform together, burning through $5.8 billion of VW's money in the process, and now they're basically saying to the rest of the auto industry: 'Hey, want some of this?' It's like watching two kids build the coolest treehouse on the block and then offering to franchise the design. Bold move.
Their joint venture, snappily named RV Tech, announced this week that they're open to licensing their electrical and software platform to other automakers. You know, the same platform that's supposed to save VW from its software nightmares and keep Rivian from running out of cash. Wassym Bensaid, Rivian's software chief and RV Tech co-chair, told reporters at an event in Palo Alto that they're 'solving a problem for the larger automotive industry.' Translation: We've got something good here, and we'd like some of that sweet, sweet licensing revenue.
Here's the thing that makes this interesting: Bensaid isn't wrong about the margin profile. Making cars is hard, capital-intensive, and frankly a bit of a slog. Licensing software and electrical architecture to other manufacturers? That's pure profit, baby. It's the difference between running a factory and collecting checks for intellectual property. One requires dealing with suppliers, labor negotiations, and supply chain headaches. The other requires lawyers and PowerPoint presentations.
The platform they're peddling uses zonal architecture, which is the hot new thing in EV design. Instead of having a million different computers scattered throughout the vehicle controlling different systems, you consolidate everything into a few powerful zones. Fewer wires, simpler design, easier to fix when things go wrong. Tesla and BYD have been doing this for years, and traditional automakers have been scrambling to catch up.
For VW, this partnership is existential. The German giant has been tested by Chinese automakers and Tesla on the software front. Their first attempts at in-house software development were not as successful as they had hoped. Models got delayed, features were buggy, and customers were not amused. Turning to Rivian for help was essentially admitting defeat, but it was the smart kind of defeat where you recognize your weaknesses and partner with someone who's actually good at the thing you're terrible at.
Rivian, meanwhile, needs the money. The California startup posted a $130 million automotive loss in Q3, which was only offset by gains from software and services. Having a financial lifeline from VW is keeping the lights on while they ramp up production of the R2, their more affordable SUV launching next year. And if they can turn around and license this tech to other automakers? That's found money that could actually make Rivian profitable, a concept that has eluded them since inception.
The first real test of this platform will come when Rivian launches the R2 in early 2026, followed by VW's ID.EVERY1, a compact EV targeting a $23,000 price point that's slated for 2027. VW's also planning to use the tech in Scout vehicles, the retro-styled electric trucks and SUVs that are supposed to recapture some of that old American off-road magic.
Winter testing starts in Q1 2026 on Audi, VW, and Scout models, which will give engineers real-world data on how the system performs when the mercury drops. This is important because batteries hate cold weather, and software tends to get weird when things freeze.
VW has licensed platforms before. Ford and Mahindra both used VW's first-generation EV platform for their own electric models, so there's precedent here. But this feels different. The RV Tech platform is more sophisticated, more software-focused, and coming at a time when the entire industry is desperately trying to figure out how to make EVs that people actually want to buy without hemorrhaging money on every unit sold.
The question is: who's going to bite? Smaller automakers without the resources to develop their own platforms might jump at this. Mid-tier brands struggling to keep up with electrification mandates could see it as a shortcut. But the big players? They've all got their own programs already in motion, and admitting you need to license someone else's tech is a tough pill to swallow.
Still, desperation makes strange bedfellows, and the auto industry is nothing if not desperate right now. If RV Tech can deliver on the promise of a scalable, reliable, and actually good EV platform, they might just have buyers lining up. And if they don't? Well, at least VW and Rivian will have each other.
