The situation in Washington D.C. isn’t good on most fronts from where the founder, CEO, and man in charge of Rivian sits. But there are bright spots, particularly for Rivian (and Tesla).
In Lake Tahoe, California at the launch of the 2026 Rivian R1T Quad, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe told media that straight up, “the policy changes are bad for the world, bad for the U.S.” But he was quick to note, multiple times, that the shifting winds in Washington are actually good for Rivian in the long run.
He was referring, of course, to the Trump administration’s now-successful push to eliminate various electric vehicle tax credits—including the $7,500 point-of-sale rebate for consumers—EV manufacturing incentives for automakers, and subsidies for green energy across the board. (This interview took place a couple weeks before the bill was signed into law.)
You would expect someone whose job it is to sell electric trucks would be against those moves, sure. But it’s undeniable that despite car companies scaling back development of EVs in the face of slowing demand, the global auto industry is going electric. This isn’t the 20th century anymore where American automakers can dominate through sheer scale and set the tone for the rest of the international market. They have to be able to compete, and despite the White House couching its decisions in rhetoric about trade policies and America’s economic independence, a level playing field is slipping out of reach.
According to Scaringe, the anti-EV push “takes away some of the tail winds that are necessary for [the U.S.] to maintain global leadership in technology and what is undoubtedly the end state of the future state.” Not great, as Chinese electric cars are flooding other markets where American OEMs used to enjoy dependable returns.
So where’s the upside? “I think for Rivian, it’s probably a good thing from a competitive landscape point of view,” Scaringe said, adding it’ll be good for Tesla, too. With legacy automakers taking their foot off the throttle in terms of an EV product push, it gives Rivian breathing room to get its smaller R2 crossover rolling off the assembly line in Illinois in 2026 before ramping volume in a new Georgia-based factory. A smaller R3, based on the R2, is to follow at an even lower price point opening up further global markets for Rivian as other automakers fall further behind.
Tesla’s product plans are, of course, much murkier looking into the future. The Cybertruck has proved to be the sales flop everyone expected with less than 5,000 units sold in the second quarter of 2025.
And really, the main blocker for Rivian isn’t Congress itself, according to Scaringe. The legacy automakers like GM or Toyota and their lobbyists are the “biggest adversaries” in any of the EV and emissions-related policies as Rivian struggles to get it to be a “fair game on things like vehicle registration costs,” he said. EVs in some states cost more to register than gas-powered vehicles with the logic being electric vehicles aren’t paying gas taxes, which pay for road repairs and infrastructure enhancements. Starting in 2026 EV buyers in Minnesota will pay double, or more, to register their EVs compared to a gas-powered vehicles, which is said to generate $40 million from EV drivers over the next four years, according to Rep. Jon Koznick, the Republican co-chair of Minnesota’s House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee.
Nearly four years after starting deliveries of the Illinois-built EVs, Scaringe and his team is still fighting dealer franchise laws. The automaker is not legally allowed to sell its vehicles directly to consumers due to antiquated, and hard fought by lobbyists, laws in almost a fifth of the country’s states. “The folks we spend the most energy fighting against in D.C. are actual car companies,” Scaringe said noting it’s “very telling.”
“It’s reflective of their desire that this whole EV thing would just go away,” Scaringe said, noting these automakers need a level of accountability in terms of efficiency.
With today’s fuel economy standards automakers like Stellantis pay EV automakers like Tesla and Rivian money to purchase credits to make up for their Hellcat-powered sins. Companies like GM shifted development dollars into EVs with previous market trends and policies in place, which meant selling more EVs to counterbalance the sales of V8-powered vehicles. Scaringe noted that today legacy automakers have been faced with spending $20,000 discounting or incentivizing the sale of a “medium desirability” EV to not have to “pay Rivian a bunch of money to buy credits.” With the shifts in policies and possible gutting of EPA fuel economy standards Scaringe said those same automakers can suddenly say, “fine, I just won’t sell those EVs.”
Currently, General Motors is investing $888 million into a next-generation V8 engine despite it no longer being America’s truck engine.
Scaringe predicted the U.S. will be in an even worse situation in 2030 than we are today in terms of lack of choice and lack of competition in the EV segment—but legacy OEMs who take this as an opportunity to pull back from EV development are in for a world of hurt in the next decade.
“I think for current leadership teams of these companies (referring to legacy automakers), it’s great. I think for the leadership teams of those companies in the 2030s, it’s really bad. But those are different teams,” Scaringe said.
The CEO noted there are a number of things Rivian and the current administration are aligned on including jobs and manufacturing in the United States, being technology leaders (referring to the Rivian and VW deal), and being a vertically integrated U.S. company.
The irony is laced around this entire situation with the Trump administration’s rhetoric and desires about America First given where Rivian builds its vehicles and who it sells its in-house developed technology to.