Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies, the joint venture between the US EV maker and the German giant, is setting up a development team in Toronto, Canada.
The company is currently hiring for several roles in Toronto, including Android Software Engineers, Simulation Software Engineers, and Embedded Software Engineers.
The information was revealed by Kamen Vitanov, the project’s Director of Engineering, who wrote on LinkedIn that he’s “excited to be building a development team in the Toronto area.”
“Now, Rivian has joined forces with the Volkswagen Group to redefine how people interact with their vehicles and build the next generation of software defined vehicles,” Vitanov added.
Most of the positions focus on developing infotainment apps. The LinkedIn post was first reported by X user ‘Hilbe’ this Thursday.
Rivian and Volkswagen entered a partnership in late 2024, according to which the German automaker agreed to invest $5.8 billion in the EV maker as it adopts Rivian‘s zonal architecture and software stack in its future electric vehicles.
The Irvine-based EV maker secured a $1 billion equity investment from Volkswagen Group, following the achievement of a gross profit milestone in the first quarter of the year, which was a condition for the investment to follow through.
Rivian posted a gross profit of $206 million in the first quarter, which was largely due to the sale of regulatory credits.
However, the EV maker sold the majority of the $300 million regulatory credits allocated for the year between January and March.
CFO Claire McDonough said last month that they “no longer anticipate we’ll be selling or earning revenue from the sale of regulatory credits in the second half of this year.”
In the latest earnings call, following the second quarter earnings results, McDonough noted that Rivian‘s Software and Services segment reported “another strong quarter” with $376 million of revenue and $129 million of gross profit.
“About half of the revenue within Software and Services was a result of the Software and Electrical Hardware joint venture we created with Volkswagen Group,” the CFO added.
Battling tariff headwinds in the US, and as the company progresses towards the launch of its more affordable R2 model, CEO RJ Scaringe stated that Rivian intends to “look at joint sourcing of some of the electronic components” used in the model, which “will be used across the Volkswagen Group as well.”
The chief executive noted in an interview later last month that Rivian had to “do a lot of work to come up with a new supply chain and really dramatically shift how we were sourcing a lot of materials to go into our motors.”
Earlier this year, Rivian‘s software chief Wassym Bensaid commented on the joint venture, saying that “inexpensive cars shouldn’t have low technology.”
Bensaid is the joint ventures’ co-CEO and Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
The company is keen on decreasing “overall development cost, and then the overall cost of maintenance over time” for the three brands, Bensaid told Bloomberg.
To Bensaid, VW’s hardware complexity — “different seats, different doors, different lights, different sensors, different cameras in the different vehicles” — can be mitigated “by moving it to software.”
Rivian‘s software will be integrated in Volkswagen‘s upcoming ID.1 model, an entry-level vehicle to its electric lineup.
The ID.1 will be VW’s first SDV (software defined vehicle), according to Volkswagen brand’s CEO Thomas Schäfer, who said that the vehicle will have an “updatable and very performant electric/electronic software architecture.”
The legacy automaker announced earlier this year that the production version will be launched in 2027, having been anticipated from 2028.
Rivian currently sells its R1 models in both the US and Canada, with its domestic market making up for most of its sales.
The company said it expects the third quarter to be the strongest of the year, as the deadline for the EV tax credit approaches its deadline in the US.
In mid-July, it announced its plans to open a new artificial intelligence and autonomous driving research hub in London, marking its first facility in the UK.
It is not its first R&D center in Europe, as it has already opened one in Belgrade, Serbia, in late 2022.
