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Note: This article will pick up from part one–How Rivian will help Volkswagen: Golf EV (Op-Ed).
Rivian and Volkswagen’s $5.8 billion joint venture will tackle Golf EV production first. However, its most significant achievement will probably be getting VW’s flagship electric car (EV) from Project Trinity into production.
In 2021, Volkswagen boosted its budget for Project Trinity, eager to get its new electric vehicles into production. Under the budget, the German automaker planned to electrify its existing European production plants.
At the time, Project Trinity wasn’t a single EV but rather Volkswagen’s idea for a new electric vehicle lineup.
“The future-oriented investments, which will be primarily in e-mobility and digitalization, will account for the largest proportion of total investments of EUR 159 billion for the first time, at 56 percent or EUR 89 billion. Volkswagen expects that by 2026, one in four vehicles sold will have a battery-electric drive system,” VW said three years ago.
By 2022, Volkswagen Group’s Supervisory Board passed a resolution for the company’s ~$2 billion Trinity factory. It essentially greenly the construction of Volkswagen’s new manufacturing facility in Wolfsburg Warmenau, the company’s headquarters.
VW planned to produce an all-electric sports sedan called Trinity in its new $2B factory. Trinity was expected to roll off the assembly by 2026. The German automaker planned to use Tesla-style megacasts to produce Trinity. It also aimed to achieve 20%-30% automation at the factory.
A month after sharing the factory’s automation goals, an internal letter to employees hinted that VW was reconsidering the buildout of its new Trinity EV production facility. At the time, Herbert Diess—who pushed VW’s EV transition—left the company.
Volkswagen Trinity with Rivian Tech
Since 2022, Volkswagen’s Trinity factory has been stalled. But Rivian’s joint venture with Volkswagen will breathe new life into the project.
“Whenever we see opportunities to accelerate development and get into a space faster, partnerships are a good way of accelerating,” noted Thomas Schaefer, the CEO of Volkswagen Passenger Cars.
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