Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe offered extra particulars Thursday on the corporate’s plans to replace the {hardware} in its EVs subsequent yr — underneath a program internally known as Peregrine — that he says will end in main price financial savings.
One of many greatest payoffs? Altering the digital management unit (ECU) structure inside its EVs, Scaringe emphasised throughout an interview Thursday on the Morgan Stanley Laguna Convention.
“By far the most important is the ECU consolidation,” Scaringe mentioned when requested what the No. 1 price financial savings alternative can be for Rivian over the subsequent six months. “The flexibility to consolidate ECUs shouldn’t be just a few $100, we’re speaking multi-thousand-dollar financial savings, to maneuver to, you recognize, a fraction of the variety of computer systems in vehicles than what we’ve traditionally seen.”
ECUs are basically little computer systems which have a particular set of features or domains that they management. ECUs are present in each trendy automotive and their numbers have grown as automakers have added extra know-how. Historically, legacy automakers have purchased ECUs — and the software program that sits on them — from a wide range of Tier 1 suppliers. Scaringe mentioned that outsourcing makes it difficult to enhance the software program stack, together with rolling out wi-fi updates to automobiles.
Rivian, like its predecessor Tesla, has developed its personal ECUs and software program. As a part of the {hardware} improve, which is able to roll out to its R1 automobiles subsequent yr, the corporate is switching to a so-called zonal management structure. Because of this as an alternative of an ECU having a particular function, the computer systems are tasked with zones or areas throughout the car. The result’s a decreased variety of ECUs and improved effectivity. It’s additionally simpler to fabricate and eliminates plenty of further wiring.
“We now have the sturdy conviction that proudly owning the whole lot of the digital stack — so all of the computer systems within the car — after which proudly owning the software program stack that sits on them creates a chance to have a way more holistic buyer expertise and consumer interface expertise, which is nice from a requirement standpoint,” Scaringe mentioned Thursday, including that it permits them to have common and significant updates to the software program stack.
“Numerous OEMs will declare to have the power to do an over-the-air replace,” he mentioned. “However they’re comparatively rare and so they are typically very floor degree like clock strikes on the display and the colour adjustments on the display, however they’re not essentially altering the best way the dynamics are within the car or the best way the sensor stack is is being utilized.”
On Thursday, Scaringe mentioned the corporate has a “huge” pilot facility in Southern California that’s getting used to trial new engineering and manufacturing processes, which incorporates this {hardware} improve. The ability has a mini-production line run by Rivian’s operations group to work by any meeting course of or sequence points, he mentioned.
“We’re going to be integrating a bunch of product updates on the plant and the plant can’t go down for months; it must be the plant is down for a few weeks and we come again on at full power,” he mentioned. “So we’re working by, as we communicate, all these points such that it’s seamless and speedy that the plant comes again on and it’s working in a short time.”
Whereas Scaringe has talked concerning the new ECU structure earlier than and efforts to shore up the provision chain and turn out to be vertically built-in, he has but to publicly share what the entire price financial savings per car can be by upgrading the {hardware} and bettering manufacturing processes. Throughout the firm second-quarter earnings name in August, Scaringe mentioned the corporate plans to cut back the variety of ECUs in its automobiles by 60% and the wiring harness size by 25%.
