Today, I\u2019m talking with Wassym Bensaid, the chief software officer at Rivian, and the co-CEO of Rivian\u2019s platform joint venture with Volkswagen, which everyone just calls RV Tech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That joint venture kicked off about a year and a half ago with a nearly $6 billion investment<\/a> from Volkswagen. It effectively puts Wassym in charge of the operating system and electrical architecture for every future EV from Volkswagen and its associated brands, including familiar names like Audi, but also new companies like Scout.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s a lot of Decoder<\/em> ideas in there \u2014 I really wanted to know how that joint venture works and how it\u2019s structured to preserve Rivian\u2019s unique software culture, which you\u2019ll hear Wassym talk about as the core element of the whole thing. I also wanted to know where the lines were \u2014 what parts of Rivian\u2019s software get to be just for Rivian, and which parts of the core technology would be shared across the smaller company and the behemoth that is Volkswagen Group. And, of course, I wanted to understand how Wassym navigated the tension between the two. You know, classic Decoder<\/em> bait.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Verge<\/em> subscribers, don\u2019t forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Decoder<\/em> wherever you get your podcasts. Head here<\/a>. Not a subscriber? You can sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s also a big moment for Rivian in general right now. The company is gearing up to deliver the more affordable Rivian R2<\/a>, which is the first vehicle based on this new architecture, and the company also just shipped the AI-powered Rivian Assistant in its R1 vehicles<\/a>. You\u2019ll hear Wassym talk about Assistant as the beginning of a big bet for Rivian, as it tries to create a more agentic software platform in its cars<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I actually got to spend some time with the Rivian Assistant in an R1S ahead of my conversation with Wassym, and I found it to be a fascinating experience \u2014 certainly powerful and engaging while at the same time frustrating in a lot of really interesting ways. So I had a lot of feature requests, bug reports, and questions about the future of AI and voice assistants in cars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So I asked Wassym about all of that, and also about his statements over the years that buttons in cars are just an anomaly<\/a> and of course how he\u2019s feeling about Apple CarPlay and Android Auto these days. You\u2019ll hear it, but spoiler alert: Don\u2019t get your hopes up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This is a really fun episode of Decoder<\/em> \u2014 we really get into the weeds on a lot of my favorite topics to talk about here on the show.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Okay: Wassym Bensaid, chief software officer of Rivian and co-CEO of RV Tech. Here we go.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Wassym Bensaid. You\u2019re the chief software officer at Rivian. You\u2019re also the co-CEO of a very important software joint venture between Rivian and Volkswagen, which is straightforwardly called Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies. Welcome to <\/strong>Decoder<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Thanks, Nilay. Super excited to be here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I am very excited to talk to you. I have a lot to talk to you about. It occurred to me as we were doing the prep for this episode that you\u2019re in charge of building a new kind of software for cars. But because of this joint venture that\u2019s building a new kind of software company that\u2019s building a new kind of software for cars, it is the most fractal <\/strong>Decoder<\/em><\/strong> I think we\u2019ve ever had.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s a lot here. Let\u2019s start with the organization. So, you\u2019re the chief software officer at Rivian. I think a lot of people understand what that means. You\u2019re the guy that they can yell at about CarPlay. Don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll come to that. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s also the new Rivian Assistant, which is an intelligent agent inside the car that I\u2019ve been playing with and I want to ask you a lot of questions about. Then, there\u2019s RV Tech, which is the joint venture with Volkswagen. You\u2019re building a new zonal architecture for a bunch of cars. I believe the R2 is the first car that\u2019s going to run that new architecture.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n How does that all work? What are the lines between RV Tech, where you\u2019re the co-CEO, and your role with Rivian, and what is the boundary between the software you build in the joint venture and the software you build at Rivian?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Before we dive into RV Tech and the joint venture, I think it\u2019s really important to talk about the overall industry landscape. The automotive industry is going through a major disruption. The amount of software content in cars with technologies like electrification, connectivity, and autonomy is significantly increasing. That is creating a big divide between traditional OEMs and new tech-forward companies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Consumers now have much higher expectations in terms of the overall experience and convenience. Multiple OEMs have tried really hard to get software content, but it\u2019s not easy. It requires a very different type of talent. In some cases, it requires complete cultural change because you\u2019re not only developing software. You also need to adopt different methodologies and ways of doing things. You need to be much more agile. When you look at the industry, companies tried to do that in-house. Some of them tried to partner. Some of them tried to use Tier-1 suppliers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A lot of recipes did not really work, and that was the genesis of the great partnership we have now with the Volkswagen Group, which has really taken the Rivian technology stack \u2014 taken the software, the electrical architecture, as well as the Rivian DNA and culture \u2014 and married it with the Volkswagen Group\u2019s incredible scale. It truly provides a fantastic opportunity for both companies because now we have a solution that can not only underpin Rivian vehicles \u2014 as you mentioned, the R2 is the first car the joint venture is shipping \u2014 but then also, in the future, every single electric model in the VW Group. This is from your premium cars like Audi, to luxury cars with Porsche, Bentley, and Lamborghini, all the way to mass market cars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That suddenly provides an opportunity of scale. Also, it exercises the technology in very different ways, and it puts us in a wonderful position so that we can build an architecture and operating system for the entire industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That question about the architecture and operating system feels very complicated. As you said, the industry is moving to software-defined vehicles, which is a great buzzword. Every car executive I talk to clearly has a different definition of what \u201csoftware-defined vehicle\u201d means. What is your definition of \u201csoftware-defined vehicle\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n First of all, I hate that buzzword.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [<\/strong>Laughs<\/em><\/strong>] You brought it up.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Actually, I can\u2019t find a better name. So, I admit that I\u2019m also using the same for a lack of a better definition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But think about it this way. When you look at the older architecture in cars, it\u2019s really an aggregation of multiple mechanical components. Underneath that, there are, in some cases, hundreds of electronic units, and each one of them is meant to do one thing. That\u2019s actually mirroring the way those cars are built because they are developed using different Tier-1s and other suppliers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In that world, integrating an end-to-end vehicle feature requires a ton of coordination between many of those suppliers. It requires very long development cycles. That approach kind of worked in the past when the expectations of consumers were not super high in terms of those end-to-end features. But I think with the advancement of EVs and with the types of user experiences that Tesla, Rivian,, and the Chinese cars are offering now, that\u2019s no longer an option for any car manufacturer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019ll give you a small example. When you walk to Rivian \u2014 and I know you\u2019re currently testing a [Rivian R1] Gen 2 Quad \u2014 let\u2019s say you have your Apple digital key. You walk to the car and then the car recognizes you. Then, there\u2019s a lighting sequence, and your entire profile is configured. Whether it\u2019s the seats, the steering wheel, the infotainment system, the HVAC, everything is configured for you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That sequence takes probably just 15 seconds, but doing that in the traditional world requires the coordination of more than 10 suppliers. You need to talk to the seat supplier. You need to talk to the door supplier. You need to talk to the HVAC supplier. You need to talk to the infotainment supplier. You need to talk to the security system. You need to talk to the cloud. You need to talk to the third party for the digital key. Just imagine that you want to slightly change that sequence for whatever reason. You have to go through another cycle of changes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This is why that old model really doesn\u2019t work anymore. Cars are now integrated systems with what we call \u201czonal computers.\u201d We think about them as general-purpose, powerful compute that we place in the middle of the car, and they become the centralized brain of those different functions. The more software you can move on those zonals, the more it can provide control over those end-to-end features for the customers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So, this is the pitch that every pure-play car startup has been making for a long time, right? The way that the OEMs built cars was done, and you shouldn\u2019t have 1,200 ECUs from 1,200 different suppliers. That was fine for gas cars that were pretty dumb, where the only computer was like my old Pioneer head unit that had a fold-out screen. By the way, I love that head unit, if you could bring that back. I have fond teenage memories of my dumb old car with that head unit. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Now, the whole car is a computer, and you expect a lot of things to happen but that integration is too hard. What I would say broadly is that legacy OEMs have known this for years. They have been on their own journey to solve this problem, to cut down on the number of ECUs.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ford CEO Jim Farley was <\/strong>on the show five years ago<\/strong><\/a> saying things like, \u201cToo many ECUs; we\u2019re going to cut it down.\u201d Volkswagen, in particular, <\/strong>had its own giant project to do this that failed<\/strong><\/a>. I think there\u2019s enough distance. You\u2019re a year and a half into the new joint venture, and we can say Volkswagen\u2019s CARIAD failed. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Why do you think the new joint venture and the infusion of Rivian culture is going to be successful when Volkswagen\u2019s attempt to do it on its own did not net any positive results?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n You\u2019re getting me in trouble, Nilay.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What I personally appreciate about the Volkswagen Group\u2019s decision is the recognition that developing what are called software-defined vehicles requires a complete, clean-sheet approach. You cannot approach it with Band-Aids and by having some level of software content in the car. As you said, the Volkswagen Group has tried. Actually, it has tried twice. But deep inside, there are two things that are really important here. One is that you need the right talent who are able to develop true software. Not abstracted functions like what the automotive industry is using \u2014 you have probably heard about AUTOSAR \u2014 but a true, hard-coded operating system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Then, you also need a deep cultural change with a very different way of approaching the car and its overall development. The traditional model said that cars were defined many, many years in advance. People claim they know about software features four or five years in advance, and then it\u2019s a very fixed waterfall approach. The way we design cars at Rivian is that we actually design the car around the electrical architecture, the software, and the adaptability of the software. So, software and technology have been at the table since very early on. It actually impacts the overall packaging of the car. We really use that platform and that operating system mindset so that we have a car that can evolve over time and get better and better for our customers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Such changes are so deep that to do it well, you either need to have the right partner or you go with a clean-sheet approach. I think the Volkswagen Group has made the right decision to partner with Rivian in this case and to not only embrace the technology that we built from the ground up but to also embrace the culture, the approach, and the DNA of Rivian as a company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n How is the joint venture structured? I know you have a co-CEO, Carsten Helbing, who\u2019s the Volkswagen CTO. So, you\u2019re the two co-CEOs. How is it structured underneath that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s a technical team underneath that: software engineering and electrical engineering. The technical team reports to me, and Carsten is my partner in crime. He takes care of the operations, and he\u2019s also the main interface with the Volkswagen Group. There\u2019s a ton of complexity in terms of managing different requirements and different inputs from the brands. He\u2019s really doing all that arbitration so that we continue pushing towards a platform approach and reduce the overall complexity of the portfolio we\u2019re supporting with the VW Group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One of the questions I have here is that you describe it as an operating system. That seems like a good framework. People understand what operating systems are. I realize car operating systems are vastly more complex than people give them credit for, but it\u2019s an operating system.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Then, there are the expressions of the operating system. I know that when our audience thinks of the software in the car, they think of the infotainment screen and that\u2019s it. That\u2019s just one expression, right? The user interface that Rivian is running… There are going to be other expressions for Volkswagen, for Scout, and I presume for Lamborghini. They\u2019ll all be running the same core operating system expressed in different ways.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n That is a real push-and-pull dynamic. Where do the features live? Who gets to build which feature? What are the core capabilities of the operating system and the platform versus what Lamborghini wants that it doesn\u2019t want Rivian to have? How do you make those decisions?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n First of all, I think it\u2019s important to clarify the role of the joint venture. So, we\u2019re responsible for the underlying electrical architecture and the operating system. When you look at a modern car today, pretty much every single interaction you have with the car is powered by software. You don\u2019t realize it in a lot of cases. People tend to associate software with infotainment and with what they see on the UI and the screen, but there\u2019s software everywhere in the car. I mean, there\u2019s the way the car navigates, the way the car drives, the way the car saves energy, the way the car does cabin comfort. All of that is actually managed through software.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So, the way to think about this is that our role is to, first of all, build an electrical architecture with as few computers as possible in the car so that we simplify the overall packaging and the overall bill of materials. This is the brains of the system. On top of that, we develop software that the different brands can use so that they express their own identities. Think about it as us doing 80 to 90 percent of the hard work. Then, we provide customization hooks so that an Audi drives like an Audi and a Lamborghini has a different UI than a Rivian. But what\u2019s happening under the hood, what\u2019s happening behind the scenes, is based on the same platform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you think about that underlying electrical architecture and the zonal computers \u2014 you say we\u2019re going to cut down the number of computers but have fewer and more powerful computers \u2014 one of the things that seems like an obvious opportunity for Rivian that might be way more complicated for Volkswagen is that you have a big battery that can just power those computers all the time. They can be online, they can be functional, they can be available. Volkswagen also makes gas cars and hybrids. There\u2019s some pendulum swinging in the industry between electrics and gas vehicles, particularly here in the United States. Is that a challenge or are you just not thinking about their gas cars at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/chorus\/uploads\/chorus_asset\/file\/24792604\/The_Verge_Decoder_Tileart.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n