The $5 billion blockbuster deal between Volkswagen Group and Rivian is just a few days old. But it turns out VW Group was using Rivian’s software expertise months before the partnership was announced.
VW Group’s struggling software arm, Cariad, has hired at least 23 of the startup’s top employees over the past few months, a TechCrunch review of LinkedIn data reveals. Cariad’s chief software officer, chief product security officer, two of its vice presidents and two chief engineers have all been hired by Rivian. Almost all of the other hires came from senior software roles at Rivian, many of them this year.
The hires predate any deal between VW and Rivian. The joint venture, which would allow the German giant to use Rivian’s software and electrical architecture, is still being formed. The JV is not expected to be formalized until the fourth quarter – a detail that spokespeople for VW and Rivian stressed.
Still, the wave of new hires illustrates VW’s – and, more specifically, Cariad’s – desire to tap into software talent. And those early hires could prove fruitful as the joint venture comes together.
The hires bolster Cariad’s efforts to build a Silicon Valley outpost in Mountain View called the SDV Hub — an acronym that gives a nod to the so-called software-defined vehicle that every automaker is chasing. The SDV Center is ground zero for Cariad’s next generation software architecture known as “software 2.0”.
In the fall of 2023, Cariad hired Sanjay Lal, who most recently led the development of Rivian’s infotainment software and next-generation software in the vehicle and cloud, to lead the creation of the SDV center. The focus of engineers at the SDV center in California – as well as some Germany-based workers under Lal – is on the 2.0 software architecture that is supposed to be an operating system created for all VW Group brands.
The center’s focus suggests the same employees could be part of the eventual VW-Rivian joint venture. It should be noted that spokespeople for Rivian and VW said the speculation was premature.
“Initially we are focusing together on the smooth start of our joint venture with Rivia and will comment on everything else at a later time,” VW said in an emailed statement.
While Cariad has more than 7,000 employees worldwide, its footprint in North America is much smaller. The SDV center currently has about 230 employees, according to LinkedIn. This means that recent Rivian immigrants now make up about 10% of Cariad’s employee base in the region.
These hires come as Cariad is in the midst of restructuring after years of struggles. Created in 2020, Cariad was supposed to accelerate the development of advanced software and electrical architecture for the Volkswagen Group’s big push into EVs. As Cariad grew in size, its problems increased. Its software platform 1.2, which was being developed for Audi and Porsche cars, was originally scheduled to be completed in 2022. Constant delays and other internal problems led to several executive changes and is considered one of the reasons that VW Group CEO Herbert Diess was dismissed in 2022.
Cariad, now under the leadership of Peter Bosch, has successfully completed the 1.2 software architecture that will be in the upcoming Porsche Macan EV. But it is architecture 2.0 that aims to catapult all the group’s brands into the same realm as Tesla.
Leveraging talent like Rivian before Cariad has been building its North American workforce over the past two years. Before the last few months, most of Cariad’s employees in the region came from elsewhere within the Volkswagen Group, from automotive or software suppliers. Far fewer came from tech companies, like Cariad’s director of software engineering, who spent almost a decade at Google.
VW and Cariad aren’t the only ones looking to startups like Rivian to create talent. Ford’s secret low-cost EV project has drawn workers from Rivian, Tesla, Lucid Motors and even Apple’s now-disbanded Project Titan, as TechCrunch first reported earlier this month.