Eliminating emissions from fossil fuel-burning cars, trucks, and SUVs is imperative to tackling the climate crisis.
One complementary solution is ditching large vehicles altogether—at least for the short trips that make up most people’s day-to-day travel.
That’s the premise behind Also, a micromobility startup that recently emerged from stealth with the backing of EV maker Rivian and $105 million in Series B funding from VC firm Eclipse.
Also’s ties with Rivian run deep. Rivian CEO and founder RJ Scaringe is one of Also’s co-founders, along with Chris Yu, who served as Rivian’s VP of future programs for over three years. Jiten Behl, a partner at Eclipse, is also a Rivian alum. The startup emerged from a skunkworks team at Rivian and is now taking that IP and venturing out on its own. Rivian holds a minority stake in Also.
“Where we started off was this joint observation/vision that the world, and particularly in the US at that point, was ready to do better than sitting in traffic, battling for parking spaces, etc., for the supermajority of trips that we all take in cars that are really short,” Yu told Tech Brew. “But the problem is there was nothing, and still isn’t anything, that existed that was a compelling user experience in the smaller-than-a-car EV space.
“So we set out to apply what I think has made Rivian really successful to date,” he added, “which is a vertically integrated, technology platform-centric approach, combined with strong design, user insights, toward a platform that is catered toward…a host of different form factor small EVs that are all smaller than a car.”
Preparing for launch: Also plans to start delivering its flagship product to consumers in the US and Europe next year, and later to launch in Asia and South America.
The startup is staying mum for now on what, exactly, that flagship product will be (previous reports suggest that Rivian at one time was developing an e-bike). But Yu said the idea is to use Also’s tech platform to develop a range of small electric products—he mentioned two-wheelers and golf cart-sized vehicles, for example—for different regions and both retail and commercial customers.
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“We decided on a form factor that we believe will have immediate market relevance and market penetration within the US and Europe—meaning it’s representative of a very popular mode and form factor,” Yu said.
Behl previously told Tech Brew that during his time at Rivian, there was interest in developing micromobility solutions because company leaders recognized that the vast majority of driving trips in the US are quite short. At the same time, city populations are on the rise, adding to existing pollution and congestion issues.
“In the US alone, the majority of vehicle trips are under six miles and only 6.9% are longer than 30 miles,” according to Also. “This reality underscores the need for high-impact alternatives that can reduce congestion, improve accessibility, and lower environmental harm.”
Collab opportunities: Given Also’s close ties to Rivian, how much might we expect to see tie-ins between the brands? Yu told us that the two companies “share maybe a very high-level intent, which is to create products that are best in their respective categories, period, regardless if they’re electric or not.”
Also’s version of that will likely be different from Rivian’s. But he sees opportunities for collaboration.
“We’re really excited about this one because Rivian has wonderful scale and infrastructure with their retail spaces, service networks, etc.,” Yu said. “And we see a wonderful opportunity to partner and leverage some subset of that infrastructure to create awareness across both brands.”