Rivian riding the hype around Bezos going to space
Electric car startup Rivian has landed a true PR coup. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his crew drove the Rivian R1S e-SUV to the launch pad on Tuesday before their trip into space. But the choice of car is not entirely surprising.
Amazon is one of the largest investors in the electric carmaker, with a $700 million stake and has also ordered 100,000 e-delivery vehicles from the US startup as reported.
Bezos hitched a ride in Rivian’s e-SUV to the launch pad in Texas to catch his flight into sub orbit atop a Blue Origin rocket on Tuesday morning together with his brother Mark, Wally Funk, and teenager Oliver Daemen.
The Amazon founder is not the only one finding himself dreaming of space – note, Bezos is at least using hydrogen (of unknown origin) to fuel his travels. Elon Musk, too has been on a mission to fly rockets for many years through his SpaceX venture and the Tesla boss found similar synergies recently. In 2020, he offered the Model X to NASA to ferry astronauts to their respective shuttles on the way to the International Space Station ISS. The Teslas replaced the shiny Astro van NASA had used for decades.
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