While Rivian might be known for electric pickup trucks and SUVs, the manufacturer has been quietly developing e-bikes for years. Rivian announced on Wednesday that the secret venture was spun off into a new micromobility company called Also. The EV manufacturer made the decision with the idea that Also would be better positioned for success as an independent business. Now, if only the people involved had picked a name that didn’t make the spin-off sound like a second thought.
Rivian stated that Also deserved independence to be “optimized around different products, brand positioning and markets.” That does make sense to some degree, with Rivian currently producing large trucks and Also developing e-bikes.
RJ Scaringe, Rivian’s founder and CEO, said in a release:
“For the world to fully transition to electrified transportation, a range of vehicle types and form factors will be needed. I am extremely excited about the innovations developed by the Also team that will underpin a range of highly compelling micromobility products that will help define new categories.”
However, it seems like the most crucial reason was to garner investment. Eclipse Ventures, a venture capital firm, invested $105 million into Also in parallel with the spinoff. Rivian will be a minority shareholder in the micromobility company.
Rivian isn’t the first car company to build a bicycle
With Rivian working on the smaller R2 and R3 crossovers it unveiled a year ago, the automaker could come to regret jettisoning Also. E-bikes and whatever products that Also brings to market could benefit from being associated with Rivian’s broader vehicle line-up, and vice versa, especially with a young generation of city-dwellers and suburbanites who are far more like to own an e-bike or electric scooter before their first car.
While micromobility is a term that emerged during the last decade, Rivian is far from the first car manufacturer to build bicycles. French automaker Peugeot started producing bicycles in 1882, just a few years before it entered the automobile industry. Both divisions of the company coexisted for over a century. Peugeot’s factory team was the most successful cycling team of all time, winning the Tour de France nine times before the team’s dissolution in 1986. In the following years, Peugeot sold off the license to distribute its bicycles. You can still buy a bicycle branded as Peugeot today, but the brand name and lineage are its only ties to the automaker.
