Rivian’s First E-Bike Is Out of This World: One on One with RJ Scaringe
I think I just know something that nobody else noticed. Like I can’t say yes you can. How come this magical experience you get out of a Rivian doesn’t exist in anything smaller than a car? So Rivian also has a bike or also has a bike. All right, let me just show you. Also is the brainchild of Rivian, an ebike that rides more like your R1S and functions like nothing else you’ve ever seen on the market. It has regen braking, a phone key to operate, and did I mention it has pedal by wire? And this is not just another ebike. We have a connected helmet. We have a completely modular software designed pedaling system for the ebike. And we also have a quad. And they all charge from a USBC charger. Today I’m going to get a chance to ride it and find out if all this tech actually costs the same as a Rivian. I feel like this guy needs no introduction. You guys know who this is. So I want to talk to you about Rivian’s tech and how that’s gone into these bikes. these also bikes cuz they’re also you might notice that this looks almost identical to the Amazon delivery vehicle that Rivian has. But this is not Rivian. This is Also. Yes, Also is a brand. You’ve heard of Rivian before. You might not have heard of Also, but this is their micromobility branch where they’re taking Rivian’s tech, putting it into compact electric vehicles that are actually bicycles. It’s built on the same platform as their ebikes. And you’ll notice that it looks unlike any other bike that you’ve ever seen before. That’s because it’s a one sizefits-all. It takes Rivian’s tech and transforms the bike to a daily commuter to a trail rider or even a kid and cargo hauler. So, this is an example of how that modular design works right here. Hit swap seats. It’s going to unlock it from the frame right here. And let’s see. There you go. You swap out your seat, whatever you want to do for that day. And unlike traditional ebikes, also bikes and quads use a pedal bywire drivetrain where pedaling doesn’t mechanically drive the wheels. Instead, sensors detect effort and software commands an electric motor to propel the bike. This gives it an effortless experience in the same way that we did within Rivian to create this incredibly immersive experience. But in this case, also redesign the powertrain architecture to allow for a pedal by wire. So it’s completely software defined. So when you are pedaling like right now it’s on in drive mode so there’s no there’s nothing there but as soon as you put it into drive it will have you know a resistance that’s just the generator providing feedback and it feels really nice. It also um but we also we also I feel like I keep saying also like this could be a drinking game, right? So, if you want to have some fun, see how many times I say also in this video accidentally or maybe on purpose and bring your drink, have some fun, but don’t drink and drive. That’s not a good idea. Don’t never drink and drive. They also brought EV grade batteries into the bikes and charged with USBC at 240 watts and birectional power. This is the battery pack that powers everything. And there’s enough power in here that you can actually charge your iPhone 55 times, which is crazy. These are 2170 lithium cells. And how many of them are there? Do you know? Um, there’s 42 in this one. And then the base battery has 28. There’s around that 550 W hour mark. And the performance is like the 88 850 W hour. And then right here, it shows you your battery percentage. There’s two USBC’s on top. So, this is a pizza oven on the back of the bike right here, but it kind of brings up all these ideas that you have for future use cases with this bike. Now, you do have that battery down here that has a USBC, so you could potentially put something that needs to charge. It’s kind of like when people take their electric cars out and they go camping and they’re plugging into it. We now have all that ability with our bikes. And this is the TMQ. This is a pedal assist quad. So, you take all that same tech that’s in the bikes and they put it into a four-wheel form factor. Now, there’s two different versions of this. We have the commercial one over here, and then we also have personal one over here. And this is probably what I’m most excited about because this is what I have been waiting for. And then the battery is underneath here. It’s also removable. Also, you can charge it with that USBC charger. How many times I just say also, but add those to the list. Should we just go sit in here? If you’re done, if you’re done with it, like if you go back there, I can go up here. Okay, let’s do this. Totally. I love this. It’s so fun, huh? I spent several years at Specialized through a mutual RJ. And I got connected. We started talking about, hey, how come like this magical experience you get out of a Rivian, like ownership drive experience that you get out of a Rivian, how come that doesn’t exist in anything smaller than a car? And so that culminated in me actually joining Rivian. What I joined Rivian to do was specifically to build out this skunk works at the time skunkorks program and division focused on how do we re-engineer and reoptimize the platform that Rivian has built for R1 and EDV into smaller than car modes. Just like the center screen on a Rivian, it’s it’s highly intuitive to go in and reconfigure the entire experience. And by the way, because it’s smart, it’s connected. When you walk up with your key, it knows it’s you. So, it goes back to your preferences, your ride modes, your settings, and your key is uh your phone. That’s right. And uh if I walk up to it with my phone as a key, it can totally recognizes that it’s me and it changes to my settings, my profiles, my last um known adjustments. Now, this video isn’t sponsored by Also, and all of my thoughts are my own, but it is sponsored by Oslo Sleep. So, I take my sleep pretty seriously. I have three kids, and I travel around the world to make content. I am constantly on different time zones. I am sleeping in hotel rooms or even on airplanes. And I found these tiny sleep buds by Oslo that have really helped out my sleep a lot. So, what I love about these is that they can connect to my phone. So, if I want to wind down by listening to a podcast or watching something on my phone, I can use them and then they will transition into a sleep sound like rainfall or ocean noises, whatever I want. It just really helps mask out external noise so I’m able to get better sleep overall. I also have really small ears and I have a hard time finding comfortable earbuds that go inside my ears. But with these, they have four different sizes. They don’t stick out of your ears or fall out. So, even if you are a side sleeper, they still fit in your ears and they’re really comfortable. I think that you guys will enjoy them, too. I have a code for you of $35 off, KJA35. You can also just scan this barcode to get that discount and I’ll link everything down below. But let me know if you guys like them and let’s get back to the video. So, then also, how did you come up with that name? Were you like, I kind of want to do an ebike also, so let’s just call it also. Also, we uh we spent a lot of time on naming as you can imagine. Um but R.J. and I kept coming back to also because you know in this space a lot of times people are like I’m a car person and it’s only cars or I’m a bike person, it’s only bikes. But for most people it’s also it’s more than just one thing, you know, like I do the school drop off every morning on the back of an ebike with my kid, but on the weekends I’m going to go, you know, uh hiking up in the mountains and I take my R1. So, we rotate to go to the modes. Yep. Okay. And this is where you would lock and unlock it right here. Once you’re in this screen, now you can swipe down. And this is where we can swap our seats or eject a battery. The thing that we’re sitting in the TMQ, it looks really different from the bike, but it’s actually underneath the skin identical in terms of the propulsion systems, Dream Ride, infotainment, it’s all the same. And because uh Dream Ride is so flexible with Pedal byWire, it allows have someone hop on pedal this thing very effortlessly while having an assortment of kids or dogs in your case in the back. And you can charge it with a USBC charger. So just you don’t have to have an extra charger. Like wonderful just use that. I love love that. That makes so much sense. It’s like why incredible, huh? Why has it hasn’t this been done before? A regular ebike because it’s so kind of mechanical first and not really software defined. The experience is really limited to the mechanical parts, namely the shifter. And so because we built everything in house, the experience that we’ve crafted and we’re aiming for is much more akin to the most modern EVs like Rivian. And so you’re able to just hop on and go. You pedal and it goes. There’s no like figuring out shifting and accidentally shifting the wrong way. I also really like what you’ve done in terms of security where you go to the grocery store, you leave your car, you don’t think about somebody just like picking up your car and taking it, right? But if you are transcending mobility and this becomes this third option to really get around, that’s a big deal because bikes are easier to steal than a car. Uh, honestly, it’s probably the biggest pain point that caused a lot of people to say, you know what, it’s faster, it’s more fun, but it can get stolen. I don’t want to deal with that. And so, we wanted to use tech in service of how do we solve for that as completely as possible. And so, what we have is a walk away lock experience. And it’s removable, so you can go somewhere, take this with you. We wanted this to have like a handle so when you’re walking around you have something to hold it by. But then that same handle when you approach the bike you slide it in and you twist the handle 90° and that twisting activates this mechanism which then cinches and pulls it into the bike. Holds it all together. And so when you walk away everything locks. The wheel locks, the cranks don’t move. The battery locks. The top frame locks. And importantly, it’s connected. And so if someone kind of like comes by, bumps the bike, or is curious and they’re trying to see what’s going on, you actually get notified on your phone, push notification that your bike’s being tampered with. And if someone’s like picks it up and starts moving away, we have GPS and LTE, so there’s real-time tracking of its location. You can see where it’s going. And uh lastly, if in the really bummer case where someone is it’s gone, um you can actually remotely disable and brick the product. It’s really important because um it’s a really powerful version of bricking kind of like Apple bricking because we own every piece of software, every board on the product. And so there’s really no way that anyone could get any use out of the bike or even any one of the individual parts in the bike. So you could go and sell the copper out of the motor and melt down the rest of the the metals and and sell those, but outside of that kind of like glass thing, it’s the most secure experience you can have. So check this out. This is the Alpha Wave helmet, and I’ve never seen anything like this before. It uses connected technology and is incredibly safe and has all kinds of crazy things inside of it. But before I get too far into it, I have a quick favor to ask of you guys. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to our channel. We know that more than a million of you guys tune in every single month, but seven out of 10 are not subscribed yet. Doesn’t cost you a thing, but it does help us out a lot. It helps us get noticed and invited to events just like this. So, we’re able to share it with you guys. If you have an accident, what happens is a helmet hits and since you’re moving, there’s a twisting motion that happens on your head and brain. And that twisting motion is what causes traumatic brain injury in the brain because it can’t handle shear forces very well. These outside panels are all on really dense matrix of polycarbonate ball bearings. And it’s all tuned so that if that impact happens, those panels actually roll off, roll off and release from the helmet. And because those panels roll off, your head rolls straight rather than twisting. And that has a dramatic improvement on how much twisting forces get imparted onto your brain. Integrated audio doesn’t plug your ears. It’s smartly tuned to be windshielded, but allows you to hear very clearly the podcast and the Zoom call. It also has noise cancelling microphones on the brow. And those have been tuned so that you can, no joke, take a call at 25 mph wind rushing by and they’ll have no idea that you’re on a bike. So crazy. So that helmet is then connected to the digital touchscreen right here where you’re able to control everything. Okay, first off, the suspension in it is super squishy. And by squishy, I’m talking about 120 mm of travel for both the front and back. This makes such a difference when it comes to absorbing bumps on streets or even trails. And the performance trim is getting an airsprung fork that’s tunable to your preference. It’s really easy to use the portal and the hand controls as well to go between different modes without even really having to look down, take your eyes off the road. This is your volume control right here. So, it’s very easy. You don’t have to look down at this. You can just do it all while you’re driving. With the larger battery, you get 100 m of range and 180 new meters of torque. It’s a class 3 ebike, so your pedal assist is up to 28 mph and your throttle, where legal is good for 20 mph. You also have hydraulic disc brakes and regen braking that extends range by 25%. And it’s different than other ebikes I’ve been on where you have that torque sensor and you can kind of feel as it adjusts. This is so smooth. Like that’s what really stands out to me is just how smooth the ride in general feels. It’s also really comfortable. I love actually being able to sit on a bike that fits me. I’m on the smaller side and I’m petite and sometimes I get onto bikes and I just they feel giant on me. So, this is really comfortable. But the big question is with all this tech that we have inside of these vehicles, how much are they going to cost? Is it going to be the same as like driving a car? Because, you know, with Rivian, a lot of that tech is going inside of these. So, they’re going to be coming in three different variants. Right away, we have the launch one coming out, which is basically the same as the performance, and that one is going to be $4,500. And then there’s also going to be a standard one that’s going to be coming out that will be $4,000. So, this is not going to be your cheaper, more affordable ebike by any means, but it has so much more in it that you are getting a lot. And when you think about all that’s inside of it, that price really starts to make sense and actually seems affordable in a lot of ways. Again, these prices are for the bikes. We don’t have a price yet for the quad. We don’t have a price yet for the helmet. And those are things that I’m dying to find out how much those ones will cost. Now, I like it here where it’s transparent in terms of the design, but then I also see it on the bikes where it’s more of an opaque setting. Will this option be available? No. That’s a great question actually. So, we built this uh machined polycarbonate clear version so you could see all the fun things on the inside. our battery management system, our USB charging, our E in. But one of the important characteristics of a battery is they get warm when you use them. So, we need to be able to like heat sync them somehow so the performance lasts longer. So, all of the batteries that we’re shipping are aluminum enclosures. So, when you drop them, they’re super durable, but it also lets you ride further, faster, longer cuz we’re able to draw the heat out of the cell, spread it through the enclosure, and then wick it off to the air. One of the coolest things about this company is how approachable they are. They look at this. He has his kids here with him. I absolutely love that. You guys know that I bring my kids wherever I go if I can. And I feel like they’re going to be jealous seeing that all these kids here riding around on the bikes. I mean, that’s just not fair. And there’s a quad and there’s a consumer quad and a commercial quad. So, the quad is actually How do you see the quad integrated into our everyday lives? Also, as a company is going to be developing a bunch of products. So, one of them is the quad we showed today. There’s going to be other things, but the hope is that we create a whole bunch of options or choices for customers that want to be in something that’s exciting and fun and enjoyable. Uh, and of course, it’s electric, but isn’t the same size as a car. So, you know, we think of also as doing all the things that are subcar you using these right now with in the Rubian factory are using the quad currently in the factory. No, but you could. You’ve been in factories a lot. So, there’s always like tricycles and quad, you know, quadricycle bikes that move around. and say, “Yeah, we could.” And do I spy arrow wheels? I think I just know something about the commercial quad that nobody else noticed. Check it out. It has a backup camera. Which one is your favorite right now? That’s been Yes, you can. Depends on what use case. The quad is going to be really fun to do things with like taking the kids to get ice cream or going down to, you know, going out to the grocery store with them and everybody’s just piling in the back. But these are really fun just for cruising. You guys know Chris, you’re getting an ice cream from the back of a quad right now. And it has it grows flowers. That’s how natural and environmental friendly it is. It looks like the actual like bike that we rode uh will be in on the market very soon, like 3 to 6 months. Felt lightweight riding it. Uh and that’s really important to me as like someone who mountain bikes, road bikes. $4,500 is also pretty in line with what I’ve seen. And then just to be able to have something that’s so well thought through. I’m glad that someone’s really thinking through bringing out basically the automotive experience out of the Tesla Rivian that really thinks through everything like phone key and putting it in a bike. Any Amazon drivers out there, let me know if your boss said, “Hey, we’re moving away from cars. We’re moving away from it and we’re getting you a bicycle. You’re going to start delivering all your packages on a bicycle.” What would your reaction be? Let me know in the comments down below. It’s not just a regular bicycle. It’s a quad. All right, guys. I hope you enjoyed this video. And if you’ve actually watched to the end, then you probably enjoyed our content. So, it would help us out a lot if you did subscribe. And we’ll catch you next time.
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