Ford Partner VW Will Use Rivian R2 Platform For All Future EVs

It’s been a few years since Ford and Volkswagen entered into a landmark partnership agreement that has since resulted in quite a few new products using shared resources between the two companies. That includes the Explorer and Capri EV crossovers on sale in Europe, which are underpinned by VW’s MEB platform, along with certain vans and even a pickup. However, VW also announced that it was forming a joint-venture with Rivian back in 2024, one that aims to develop next-generation EV platforms – but in the meantime, the Germany company will utilize Rivian’s existing electrical architecture and software platform in its own future EVs, which includes the platform underpinning the new R2.

In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s chief software officer and co-head of the Rivian-VW joint venture, revealed that the company is working to help VW expand its EV offerings at a rapid pace, a strategy that involves utilizing quite a few of its components. “R2 is the platform that will underpin actually all future EV products at VW,” Bensaid said. Currently, the R2 is scheduled to enter production in the first portion of 2026, and features a platform that takes learnings from the R1S and R1T, yet expands upon them in a big way.

“So it’s really that modular, scalable technology stack that we will take into VW brands, and we will do it in a way where we will still allow each of the brands to express their own identity,” he added. “Each brand will have their own UI, look and feel. Each brand will have their own suspension tuning … but underneath the guts of the vehicle will be optimized based on the same technology and software architecture.”

Rivian has been in talks with other automakers with an eye toward selling this same sort of technology, though interestingly, its deal with Ford fell through years ago, so it’s unclear how this partnership with VW will impact The Blue Oval in the long run. While Ford CEO Jim Farley previously stated that the company wanted to develop its own platforms, which is why that partnership fell apart, Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe also pointed to challenges in regard to making goods from more than one company work together harmoniously, too.