Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe offered extra particulars Thursday on the corporate’s plans to replace the {hardware} in its EVs subsequent yr — below a program internally referred to as Peregrine — that he says will lead to main value financial savings.
One of many largest 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 value financial savings alternative could be for Rivian over the following six months. “The flexibility to consolidate ECUs isn’t 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 primarily little computer systems which have a selected set of capabilities or domains that they management. ECUs are present in each trendy automobile 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 quite a lot 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 can 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 selected position, the computer systems are tasked with zones or areas throughout the automobile. The result’s a diminished variety of ECUs and improved effectivity. It’s additionally simpler to fabricate and eliminates plenty of additional wiring.
“Now we have the robust conviction that proudly owning the whole thing of the digital stack — so all of the computer systems within the automobile — after which proudly owning the software program stack that sits on them creates a possibility 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.
“Loads of OEMs will declare to have the flexibility to do an over-the-air replace,” he mentioned. “However they’re comparatively rare and so they are usually very floor degree like clock strikes on the display screen and the colour adjustments on the display screen, however they’re not essentially altering the best way the dynamics are within the automobile 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 means of 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 energy,” he mentioned. “So we’re working by means of, as we converse, all these points such that it’s seamless and quick that the plant comes again on and it’s operating in a short time.”
Whereas Scaringe has talked in regards to the new ECU structure earlier than and efforts to shore up the availability chain and develop into vertically built-in, he has but to publicly share what the overall value financial savings per automobile will probably be by upgrading the {hardware} and bettering manufacturing processes. In the course of the firm second-quarter earnings name in August, Scaringe mentioned the corporate plans to scale back the variety of ECUs in its automobiles by 60% and the wiring harness size by 25%.