Where were you before joining Rivian?
I spent 20+ years at Volvo in Sweden, most recently as Vice President Volvo Cars Safety Centre. It was an incredible experience, and one that molded me into the engineer I am today.
What does the R1T winning the IIHS 2023 Top Safety Pick+ award mean for customers?
IIHS conducts very thorough and rigorous testing. They put all new vehicles through the same methodology, so it makes it easier for customers to understand and compare different vehicles. It sets a benchmark when considering safety.
IIHS also continuously moves safety standards forward. This year, they made their side impact test even tougher, using a heavier sled and increasing the speed to more accurately represent the impact from a modern SUV. Our vehicles have been engineered with this higher tolerance in mind, which was key in the R1T earning the 2023 Top Safety Pick+ award.
What does this award say about Rivian’s commitment to safety?
Rivian was founded in the vision of Forever, to build the kind of future our kids and our kids’ kids deserve. Sustainability to the planet includes taking care of the people on the planet right now as well. Being safe during your adventures in life. For us, safety starts from the very beginning, from the first sketch. We work closely with our Design team as they concept. In many ways we are envisioning a future and designing safety systems around it. We use special pre-visualization modeling to test new ideas and crash worthiness before we move to real world validation.
How else does the team approach safety?
Our focus on safety includes more than traditional vehicle safety. Our electrical architecture design and software stack is guided by Functional Safety, designing in the ISO standard from the start, and the Rivian reliability team is continuously monitoring vehicle health data. Thanks to our connected vehicle architecture we have deep levels of data on our current models, including sensors measuring the state of health of many of the components. We are always analyzing our hardware and software systems for constant improvement.
Learn more about the R1T's 2023 IIHS Top Safety Pick+ award here.