Idea-Driven Husband, Dad, Surfer, Snow-Boarder, and Creative Director Who Lives for the Kind of Thinking That Makes Right Now a Very Cool Place to Be.
Austin
Joined March 2010
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bass phillips retweeted
RJ Scaringe says the VW-Rivian JV will “continue to expand and grow.”
Today, the $5.8B partnership is focused on Rivian’s electrical architecture + software — not AI or autonomy. But RJ says there are clearly opportunities to add more over time.
And VW may only be the beginning.
Rivian sees an opportunity to sell its technology across “many different brands.” No other customers have been named yet.
This is the part of $RIVN I think the market still underestimates.
Build the technology once. Scale it through Rivian. Then license it across the industry.
eletric-vehicles.com/rivian/…
bass phillips retweeted
Gasoline-only vehicles fell below 50% of new car sales worldwide during the first half of 2026.
Battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) were about 17% of all car sales.
Conventional hybrids comprised an 18% share. Diesel and plug-in hybrids made up the remaining 16%.
gadgetreview.com/gas-only-ca…
bass phillips retweeted
Munro Live took a very different look at the R2 — not a teardown, but as a family SUV.
And that’s where the R2 really shines.
Two kids, a dog, school bags, soccer gear, groceries — the reviewer kept coming back to how much usable space Rivian packed into a smaller SUV.
Big cargo area.
Useful frunk.
Dual gloveboxes.
Huge door pockets.
120V outlet.
Roll-down rear glass.
He also liked the fast UI, separate driver display and Rivian’s haptic steering-wheel controls.
Universal Hands-Free worked well in his short test too, though he correctly pointed out it’s still supervised: no automatic stops for lights/signs, and the driver has to stay engaged.
His final take was pretty simple:
Comfortable. Quiet. Quick. Practical. Fun to drive.
R2 keeps getting praised for the same thing: it feels like Rivian took the best parts of the R1S and compressed them into a much more usable mass-market package.
That’s exactly what $RIVN needed.
youtu.be/oUh8W5fCRk8?si=Jxhd…
bass phillips retweeted
One month and ~1,200 miles later, this longtime Tesla owner says he doesn’t regret buying the Rivian R2 — but the comparison is more nuanced than “R2 beats Model Y.”
Where the R2 wins for him:
• More comfortable seats
• More head/shoulder room + better rear-seat space
• Boxier cargo area that works better for camping
• Roll-down rear glass, external frunk button, dual gloveboxes, outlets + flashlight
• Smooth charging experience across Tesla + Rivian networks
• Highway hands-free has improved a lot vs. early R1
He estimates he used driver assist for roughly 70% of the road trip, and after 1,000+ miles, range wasn’t a major problem. At ~75 mph, arrival SOC estimates were pretty accurate. At 80–85 mph, efficiency dropped noticeably.
But the biggest weakness was software polish.
He ran into key detection issues, camera glitches, charging-route weirdness, garage-door control problems, mirror reset issues, and slower remote commands vs. Tesla.
That stuff matters because it hits you every day.
The ride is another tradeoff: Soft mode is comfortable, but body roll caused motion sickness on twisty roads. Medium/Firm helped a lot, though the R2 still doesn’t feel as planted as a Model Y.
And in city driving, he still misses Tesla FSD.
So his verdict is basically:
For camping, space, comfort and road trips → R2.
For software maturity and unfamiliar city driving → Tesla still has the edge.
If he bought again, he’d probably skip Performance and go with a cheaper Premium trim + smaller wheels.
That’s actually a pretty strong endorsement.
He’s not saying the R2 is perfect.
He’s saying that after a month of real ownership, bugs and all, he’d still choose it again for the things that matter most to him. $RIVN $TSLA
youtu.be/i8UDG39nkZU?si=t8wd…
bass phillips retweeted
EddieX spent a week with the ~$60K R2 Performance, and this might be one of the better “real life” R2 reviews so far.
656 hp. 0–60 in 3.6 sec. ~330 miles rated range.
But what impressed him most wasn’t the speed.
It was how complete the R2 felt as a daily EV.
Big interior, tons of storage, frunk, roll-down rear glass, quiet ride, good charging, smart navigation, and haptic steering controls that actually feel useful.
On one road-trip leg, he used Rivian’s hands-free system for roughly 90–95% of the drive.
It’s not FSD yet.
He still had to take over around exits, parked cars, stop signs, and some lane-change situations.
A few annoyances too: flaky key detection, average audio, and a lease price he thought was high.
But his conclusion was pretty strong:
If he were buying a practical EV today, the R2 would be in his top 3.
That’s what matters to me.
R2 isn’t just fast or cool.
It’s starting to look like a genuinely complete everyday EV. $RIVN
youtu.be/IODey0Wo_kw?si=6pEp…
bass phillips retweeted
Rivian and Redwood Materials Expand Partnership to Span the Lifecycle of the Battery
Redwood will now recycle Rivian’s battery scrap and end-of-life packs as well as provide energy storage for its manufacturing plant
IRVINE, Calif. — October 14, 2026 — American automaker Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN) and energy technology company Redwood Materials today announced a major expansion of their partnership, establishing Redwood as one of Rivian's key partners to enabling end-to-end energy solutions—recycling Rivian’s production scrap and end-of-life EV batteries, as well as providing stationary battery storage at its manufacturing plant in Normal, Illinois.
Through the partnership, Redwood collects Rivian EV battery packs through Rivian’s nationwide network of service centers when they are no longer suitable for in-vehicle use. Redwood then evaluates each battery pack to determine whether to repurpose it for energy storage—deployed directly at Rivian's manufacturing facilities or at other locations—or to recycle it. Redwood will now also recycle battery scrap generated at Rivian's manufacturing operations.
This new scope of the partnership builds on the existing work, announced in April 2026, that is deploying 10 megawatt-hours (MWh) of battery energy storage from repurposed Rivian battery packs at the automaker's manufacturing plant in Normal, Illinois.
“Giving Rivian battery packs a second life in stationary storage is a massive unlock for the energy transition," said RJ Scaringe, Rivian Founder and CEO. "By partnering with JB and the Redwood team we're turning retired EV batteries into a powerful tool to make the grid more reliable and lower energy costs for everyone.”
"Every Rivian battery pack that comes back to us is a potential source of domestic grid energy storage in addition to critical materials," said JB Straubel, Redwood Materials Founder and CEO. "Redwood’s unique ability to integrate and redeploy Rivian batteries with our technology is an opportunity to enable fast, flexible and more cost-efficient energy storage. As the demand and cost for energy keeps rising, working with companies like Rivian is how we help meet these challenges.”
When EV batteries reach the end of their useful lives in vehicles, they often still have substantial useful energy capacity for second-life applications, such as stationary storage. Energy storage applications with repurposed batteries can ease stress on the grid during periods of high electricity demand, improving grid reliability while reducing energy costs for the user, as well as the grid at large. During periods of low demand or when low-cost renewable energy is most productive, these packs can store electricity for easy dispatch during periods of higher demand. When paired with Rivian – and other – EV battery packs, Redwood's proprietary technology architecture offers an integrated system that can respond intelligently to the needs of the facility it is serving.
Once batteries are no longer useful in energy storage applications, or where scrap is generated during manufacturing, they can be recycled. Redwood's advanced process is capable of recycling and recovering critical minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper at rates exceeding 95 percent, encouraging the development of a circular, domestic supply chain for battery materials in the United States.
This expanded partnership reflects a broader shift underway in how American manufacturers source power. As grid connections take years to secure and conventional infrastructure remains supply-constrained, companies increasingly need partners who can solve more than one piece of the problem—recovering materials, managing recycling, and deploying storage as a single system rather than separate vendors. Rivian’s work with Redwood is a model for that approach: one partnership spanning the full lifecycle of a battery, built to move faster than the grid alone can.
bass phillips retweeted
Engadget gave the Rivian R2 a 9/10 and called it the “Goldilocks electric SUV.”
Not too big. Not too small. Not too expensive.
They praised the roomy interior, Rivian’s homegrown software, strong performance, 300+ mile real-world range, and especially Universal Hands-Free, which they said felt smoother than Ford BlueCruise on highways.
The downsides: charging peaked at 161 kW in their test, surface-street hands-free still needs work, and the $44.9K base R2 doesn’t arrive until spring 2027.
The biggest takeaway for me:
Rivian took almost everything people like about the R1S and put it into a smaller SUV that costs $20K–$30K less.
That’s exactly why R2 matters so much for $RIVN.
engadget.com/2284218/2027-ri…
bass phillips retweeted
In case you missed it, late last week a federal judge issued an emergency injunction BLOCKING border barrier and road construction across the Big Bend region, after the Trump admin lifted a temporary pause on construction in Big Bend National Park
sierraclub.org/press-release…
bass phillips retweeted
WE WON AN INJUNCTION AGAINST THE BORDER WALL!!! I still can't quite believe that after 21 years of litigation and more than a dozen lawsuits, our incredible attorneys finally cracked the code. All wall construction is now stopped across the entire Big Bend region.
While construction pushes on in the Rio Grande Valley, in Arizona and elsewhere, I hope this victory can prove that DHS's authority to strip away legal protections from border communities and wildlife is not boundless. Enough harm has been done. It's time to restore environmental, public-health and cultural-preservation protections across the entire borderlands.
Great coverage here from KVIA journalist Mia Tricarico
bass phillips retweeted
BREAKING: Bulldozers and excavators are being trucked out of Big Bend after our historic legal victory halting construction across the region on Friday.
bass phillips retweeted
Fur import ban: Parliament enshrines it in law
Switzerland has definitively enshrined the ban on fur from production involving animal cruelty in law 👏
Great news #Switzerland
wildbeimwild.com/en/cantonal…
bass phillips retweeted
Switzerland becomes first country to ban fur imports and sales humaneworld.org/en/blog/swit…
bass phillips retweeted
Ford backs a big new solar farm for its Michigan factories.
electrek.co/2026/10/02/ford-…
bass phillips retweeted
Scientists could not be more clear: if we do not make meaningful strides to tackle the climate crisis, the damage done to our oceans will be permanent.
This would mean the loss of critical wildlife and more dangerous flooding which threatens the lives of millions of people.
cnn.com/2026/09/30/climate/o…
bass phillips retweeted
I think Tesla bros get so cranky about Rivian coming up because they know being a second move can have an advantage
After all, Apple has shown you that over the years..
bass phillips retweeted
Everyone: Comment to save Roadless Rule of the wild lands. Comment to OPPOSE Forrest Service's proposal to rescind the Roadless Rule. ➡️regulations.gov/docket/FS-20…
Comment due by10/6/26 #SaveWildlifeWildland
bass phillips retweeted
How many birds are killed by offshore #wind turbines?
Study, initiated by the energy company Vattenfall, was carried out at the Hollandse Kust Zuid offshore wind farm in collaboration with Wildlife Imaging Systems (WIS) and Wageningen University & Research (WUR).
WIS installed 16 thermal cameras on an offshore wind turbine, covering all angles and operating 24 hours a day.
Researchers analysed more than four million bird movements over one and a half years, using radar and AI-based cameras.
They found that more than 99.8 per cent of migratory birds reliably avoided the wind turbines.
euronews.com/2026/10/02/how-…
bass phillips retweeted
UPDATE: They won 🏆 the dozers will remain stopped!
A federal judge just paused every mile of border wall and road construction across the entire 500-mile Big Bend sector, while the fight against it continues.
This win didn't come from one side. Five border county sheriffs, three Democrats, two Republicans, signed a joint letter saying a wall here made no sense. Fourteen judges from every Texas border county backed them. Over 2,000 people rallied at the Texas Capitol. Ranchers, landowners, tourism operators, journalists, conservationists, people from Washington, all of it, together.
The judge appointed by George W. Bush agreed with them: the government is likely to lose this case, and the harm of letting construction continue outweighs anything they'd gain from it.
Maybe we get to keep our darkest skies yet. #DemsUnited
bass phillips retweeted
Absolutely, nothing to see here. Except a new investigation revealing fossil fuel industry scientists helping write some of the world's most influential climate reports. Because what could possibly go wrong when the industry driving the climate crisis has interests tied to the science informing its solutions?
theguardian.com/environment/…
