American-Made Electrification, With RJ Scaringe of Rivian

05/13/25 • 56 min

Before Teslas started popping off the line in 2011, few EVs were on roads. Recently, the terrain has become far more crowded. Teslas aren’t sharing the road just with major automotive companies that make their own EVs, but with smaller operators that are gaining ground as well. Christine reminded me of a new company called Slate, led by Chris Barman, who, like Diana, clocks in at 5 feet, 2 inches. But unlike Diana, Barman is a car industry veteran—and one to watch.

And then there’s Rivian, the Irvine, California, electric vehicle maker that’s ascended in America’s consciousness—particularly in the wake of Tesla owner Elon Musk’s efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency to dismantle the federal government. Amid the Tesla takedown—which is seeing some Tesla owners reportedly trading them in for Rivians—the latter car company is having a moment.

Still, electric vehicles are expensive. And the lack of an affordable option for consumers has been the key barrier to the proliferation of EVs. “The biggest limiting factor today is lack of choice,” R.J. Scaringe, Rivian’s founder and CEO, told Diana on the latest episode of From the Ground Up.

But that’s starting to change. Scaringe says his electric car company is gearing up for the launch of not just one but two new EV models, the R2 and the R3. (And yes, dependably, Diana made an R2D2 joke.) He also mentioned the about-face among suppliers. Rather than being laughed out of meetings—which he says actually happened early on with investors—Scaringe, today, says he’s able to negotiate better terms with suppliers. And with that, Scaringe says he’s able to bring the R2 to market with a price tag of $45,000. The R3 should be even less expensive.

The jury is still out about how tariffs will affect Rivian and its broader industry. For the time being, at least, the sun appears to be shining on at least one EV carmaker.

Additional research and information:To read more Inc. coverage about Rivian:Is Rivian Going Big on AI? A New Board Member Suggests Ambitious Plans Rivian-Backed Startup Raises $105M to Launch Affordable Micro Vehicles Rivian to Introduce Hands-Free Driving System This Year Visit Rivian Automotive

The jury is still out about how tariffs will affect Rivian and its broader industry. For the time being, at least, the sun appears to be shining on at least one EV carmaker.

Previous Episode

The Best Cookie Story, With Connie McDonald and Pam Weekes of Levain Bakery

Connie McDonald and Pam Weekes of Levain Bakery were pioneers in the cookie industry. And their journey from owning a neighborhood bakery into running a nationally revered brand would take 30 years. The first inflection point came in 1997, when Amanda Hesser wrote in The New York Times that Levain made "the largest, most divine chocolate chip cookies in Manhattan." Following that, their business grew rapidly, with lines forming around the corner from their original location. In 1998, they launched a website to capitalize on their newfound success, and over the next decade, the mail-order business for Levain cookies grew by 1,600 percent. By the early 2000s, investors began to show interest as well.

Inc. executive editor Diana Ransom recently sat down with Weekes and McDonald to discuss their friendship, their business relationship, their early venture into e-commerce, brand and store expansion, and—perhaps most important—why their cookies weigh in at a hefty six ounces.

Additional research and information:

To read more Inc. coverage about Levain Bakery:Why Levain Bakery’s Co-Founders Let Their Company Rise Slowly

How Top Entrepreneurs Pick Perfect Store Locations The female founders behind Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, Levain Bakery, and Glowbar share their playbooks for retail expansion.Visit Levain Bakery

Next Episode

Not Another Preachy Trade Story, With Paul Rice, Founder of Fair Trade USA

Flashback to the 1990s: Beanie Babies are all the rage, everyone’s doing the Macarena, and, chances are, you have at least one fanny pack. Al Gore is a prominent voice spreading awareness of the looming disaster of climate change, and consumer sentiment is shifting in favor of wanting to help save the planet. Stores such as Whole Foods are starting to experience exponential growth, introducing to climate-conscious customers organic foods and ethically sourced products. Fair Trade is becoming both a rallying cry and a stamp.

Paul Rice is the founder of Fair Trade USA, which he launched as a nonprofit in 1998. It became a certification body for products that meet a set of sustainability and human rights qualifications in how they work with international suppliers on everything from coffee beans to fish to cotton.

But what’s changed since the ’90s is that customers are increasingly voting with their dollars. And companies have taken notice. That’s according to one founder who’s been at the heart of persuading companies to purchase sustainable products from abroad for decades.

“The data is clear in terms of consumer preferences, especially Gen-Z and Millennials, and their expectation is that brands will not harm,” Paul Rice tells co-host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin on this week’s From the Ground Up podcast. “I mean, no one wants to think that there’s sweatshop labor in their clothes or child labor in their chocolate.”

Rice would know. He created the Fair Trade Certified label and ran his nonprofit of the same name out of Oakland, California, for 26 years. He stepped down from his chief executive role in September of last year.

What he’s done since, he tells Christine, is think a lot about his organization’s legacy, work, and future. In April, he published the distillation of those thoughts in his first book, Every Purchase Matters: How Fair Trade Farmers, Companies, and Consumers Are Changing the World. In it, he explains how the 11 years he spent building a network of farms in Nicaragua inspired him to create Fair Trade USA to apply change on a bigger scale financially, by helping large international companies incorporate it into their supply chains.

“What we’ve seen over the last 20 years is real growth in this market and a chance for us to encourage companies to do more through our purchasing decisions,” he says.

There are few fiscal reasons not to, especially if brands are thinking long-term, Rice says. “I think smart entrepreneurs today are incorporating this thinking from the very beginning into how they develop their product lines and how they develop their supply chains,” he says. “And there are tons of resources. This is not hard anymore.”

Back to the question of tariffs, Christine asked Paul about the Trump administration’s rapidly shifting tariffs—and what they mean on the ground not just in the United States, but on farms and at suppliers around the world that engage in international and fair trade. It’s not good.

“Tariffs are bad for sustainability because if you’re a Mexican farm owner or a Mexican factory owner, and you now have a huge tariff placed on you, you’re going to have to cut costs to try and make your product more viable in the U.S. market,” Rice says. “What’s going to be on the chopping block, probably that new worker housing dorm that you are going to build or those energy-saving investments that you’re going to make. So sustainability investments are going to be impacted by the whole tariff issue.”

Additional research and information:

To read Inc.’s coverage on Paul Rice:Fair Trade Founder Paul Rice on What U.S. Businesses Lose in a Trump Trade War

Read Paul Rice’s Book: Every Purchase Matters

How Fair Trade Farmers, Companies, and Consumers Are Changing the World