Jump to content
News
Reviews
Discussons
Activity
Create New...
Close

  • 🚗 Your People Are Here. Get In.

    The internet is full of car content. This is the community.

    Cheers & Gears has been bringing enthusiasts together since 2001. Join the conversation, show off your garage, and find your people.

  • Drew Dowdell
    Drew Dowdell

    By Drew Dowdell •

    Ford Invests $500M in Rivian to Gain Platform Access

      ...but what will Ford build on that platform?...

    Ford announced today that it would be investing $500 million in Electric Vehicle startup Rivian.  The move will gain Ford access to Rivian's flexible skateboard platform.  Ford will co-develop the vehicle with Rivian and will join the already planned Ford F-150 EV and a Mustang inspired crossover EV.  Ford will provide Rivian with industrial expertise and resources.

    Rivian will remain an independent company and the investment is subject to regulatory approvals.

    Rivian has shown concept versions of the Rivian R1T, an electric pickup and Rivian R1S SUV at the Los Angeles Auto Show. It plans to put these vehicle into production at its plant in Normal Illinois.

    Ford's investment comes just two months after Rivian landed $700m in investment commitments from Amazon and others.  The talks between Rivian and General Motors have apparently collapsed. 

    Go to articles

    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments

    G. David Felt

    This is awesome, but also troubling as I really would love to know why GM cannot seem to come to agreements where Ford could.

    If Ford ends up using the Rivian skateboard for a full size SUV / Pickup, who knows, I could be back in a Ford in the near Future.

    Excited by this!!! :metal:

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    G. David Felt
    8 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

    GM is further along with their own platform. Maybe they didn't see the value in adding another platform from another company.

    I get that they have BEV and maybe some other full size version of BEV, but they have not shown anything yet and my gut tells me Rivian was much farther along in their skateboard than GM so I am thinking they could be value still to learn.

    End result as long as GM gets a full size truck and SUV EV out is what I care about and that it is competitive.

    Exciting times for the auto industry.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    Robert Hall

    'may you live in interesting times'.   It really is going to be interesting to see what the auto industry looks like in terms of product mix and powertrains in 5 years, 10 years, 15 years...

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    G. David Felt
    55 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

    GM steps out and Ford steps in. What a conundrum for Dfelt. 

    Nope, non exists as long as someone else delivers full size trucks and SUVs to meet the needs of Shreks like me.

    My money is the same green as anyone else. Just build what I want and like! :P 

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    surreal1272
    4 hours ago, dfelt said:

    Must be that high maintenance ICE auto you drive since electrics do not chirp! :P 

    The crickets are his only friends since that’s all he seems to hear lol. Why else bother with yet more trolling remarks?

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    riviera74

    So Ford is investing in Rivian.  Good.  Maybe Ford can finally tame the silliness that is the F-Series Super Duty with that HUGE Diesel engine and replace it with a superior platform.  I am sick and tired of some truck owners insisting on all this "rolling coal" crap on any of our roads.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    G. David Felt
    50 minutes ago, riviera74 said:

    So Ford is investing in Rivian.  Good.  Maybe Ford can finally tame the silliness that is the F-Series Super Duty with that HUGE Diesel engine and replace it with a superior platform.  I am sick and tired of some truck owners insisting on all this "rolling coal" crap on any of our roads.

    Agreed, considering that Tesla has shown not only their Semi Concept, but a real Tesla X pulling a Boeing plane that is 265,000 pounds of weight, Electric as a HD model would do wonders for Construction sites in the inner city where quiet is appreciated early in the morning when they start work.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    Drew Dowdell
    12 hours ago, dfelt said:

    Agreed, considering that Tesla has shown not only their Semi Concept, but a real Tesla X pulling a Boeing plane that is 265,000 pounds of weight, Electric as a HD model would do wonders for Construction sites in the inner city where quiet is appreciated early in the morning when they start work.

     

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites


    Join the conversation

    You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
    Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

    Guest
    Add a comment...

    ×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

      Only 75 emoji are allowed.

    ×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

    ×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

    ×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

    ×



  • Support Independent Automotive Journalism

    25 years of honest automotive coverage — because someone has to do it.

    Cheers & Gears has never been filtered by manufacturer relationships or driven by algorithm. Just real people, real opinions, and a genuine love of cars. Subscribers keep the lights on and get an ad-light experience starting at $2.25/month.*

    View subscription options

    *A small number of ads feature member-exclusive coupon deals and will still appear.

  • Similar Content

  • Posts

    • Drew Dowdell
      CMS Canonical App for IPS V5

      By Drew Dowdell · Posted

      View File CMS Canonical App for IPS V5 Fixes a common SEO problem for sites using CMS articles with linked forum discussions. When a forum topic is associated with a Pages article for comment storage, search engines see two URLs with similar content, diluting your rankings. This app automatically sets the canonical URL on the forum topic to point back to the Pages article, consolidating SEO authority where it belongs. Configure which CMS databases should have canonical handling enabled from the ACP — everything else is automatic. Works with multiple databases and requires no template edits or manual intervention. This app could become redundant in future if IPS fixes this issue.  Submitter Drew Dowdell Submitted 04/13/2026 Category Files  
    • Drew Dowdell
      News Sitemap for IPS5

      By Drew Dowdell · Posted

      View File News Sitemap for IPS5 Automatically generates a Google News compliant XML sitemap from your CMS articles. Recent articles (published within the last 48 hours) are pulled from your chosen CMS databases and output as a standards-compliant sitemap at yoursite.com/newssitemap.xml, ready to submit to Google Search Console. Choose which CMS databases to include and set your publication name from the ACP. The sitemap respects Google's 1,000-article limit, includes proper publication dates, and is sorted newest-first; no cron jobs or manual steps required. NOTE: Per Google News sitemap specifications, only articles published within the last 48 hours are included. If no articles are published within that window, Google Search Console may report sitemap errors — this is expected behavior and not an issue with the application. Submitter Drew Dowdell Submitted 04/13/2026 Category Files  
    • Drew Dowdell
      Bounce Detector for IPS V5

      By Drew Dowdell · Posted

      Bounce Detector for IPS V5 View File For IPS V5: Automatically processes email bounce notifications and spam complaints from Amazon SES and Sendgrid, keeping your member list deliverable without manual effort. When a hard bounce or spam complaint is received via webhook, the member's email delivery is disabled and their account is flagged as validating — preventing future sends until an admin intervenes. Soft bounces are tracked and escalate to a hard block after repeated failures. Admins can review all blocked members, filter by status or domain, and manually re-enable delivery with a single click. Includes a one-time migration tool to import existing bounce data from the legacy Mail Bouncer plugin. Submitter Drew Dowdell Submitted 04/15/2026 Category Files  
    • Drew Dowdell
      Birthday Greeter for IPS V5

      By Drew Dowdell · Posted

      Birthday Greeter for IPS V5 View File Sends personalized birthday greetings to your members automatically on their birthday. Supports three delivery methods — email, private message, and forum topic — each independently configurable with rich text messages and template tags for the member's name, age, and site name. A configurable send time, timezone, and buffer window prevent duplicate sends if your task scheduler runs more than once. Members can be excluded by group, age range, or inactivity period, keeping greetings relevant and your sending volume under control. This App can be useful when combined with the Bounce Detector app to keep your e-mail lists clean of stale addresses. When combined with Bounce Detector, a yearly birthday message can check if the e-mail address of the user is valid.  Bounce Detector Submitter Drew Dowdell Submitted 04/15/2026 Category Files  
    • Drew Dowdell
      Wasabi S3 Workbench

      By Drew Dowdell · Posted

      Wasabi S3 Workbench View File A service status and storage management companion for communities using Wasabi S3 object storage. Adds live status monitoring for Wasabi S3 directly to your ACP dashboard, pulling from Wasabi's status API on a scheduled basis so you know about outages before your members do.  Requires IPS v5 Submitter Drew Dowdell Submitted 04/15/2026 Category Files  

  • Who's Online (See full list)

    • There are no registered users currently online

  • My Clubs

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

I've whitelisted
Continue without support

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search