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A joint venture between Ford and Rivian on Monday said it would no longer develop electric vehicles together because “the future of the industry and its technology rapidly evolved beyond the plans they initially developed.”
“This decision was not an easy one,” Jürgen Schmidhuber, Ford’s senior vice president for automotive research, said in a statement. “But together with Rivian, we have advanced the electrification of our lineup and established a leadership position in electrified vehicles.”
That’s a significant development because, for Rivian, getting Ford to agree to sell its electric vehicles was an important component of its plan to pursue a limited, consumer-focused Tesla-style automobile business. It also had become clear that Ford will pursue an alternative strategy — one which focused on electric vehicles — as part of its attempt to adapt to the changing auto market.
Ford has announced plans to invest $11 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles over the next five years.