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Rivian Automotive has redesigned its all-electric R1 pickup and SUV models to improve range, performance and computing power using Nvidia chips.
Rivian said it has changed more than half the hardware components for the second-generation products ahead of anticipated R2 models.
Rivian said pricing for the second-generation R1S SUV will increase $1,000 from current models to start at $75,900, with top-end trimotor models starting around $106,000. 
Starting pricing for the R1T will remain the same at $69,900 but top $100,000 for trimotor. 

2025 Rivian R1S

Rivian Automotive has redesigned its all-electric R1 pickup and SUV models to improve range, performance and computing power with the help of Nvidia chips, the company said Thursday.
While the 2025 model-year vehicles do not outwardly look too different than the current models, Rivian said it has changed more than half the hardware components for the second-generation products and reengineered their batteries and electrical architectures, also known as the brains of a vehicle.

“We continue to evolve our flagship R1 vehicles, offering quality and performance without compromise. Our revamped R1S and R1T push the technical boundaries further, creating our most capable products to date,” Rivian CEO and founder RJ Scaringe said in a statement.
Amid the most notable changes to the new vehicles is their computing power, which Rivian says delivers 10 times more performance than the previous system.
The new system uses dual Nvidia DRIVE Orin processors to help power the “Autonomy Compute Module,” which includes driver-assistant features. Rivian said a “premium version” of the system also will be available with a broader set of capabilities such as hands-free driving “for periods of time.” Rivian said drivers will still need to pay attention to the road at all times.

2025 Rivian R1S 

The updates to its current products come as the automaker attempts to increase sales of the flagship models ahead of launching less-expensive “R2” models, which are expected to start at about $45,000 when they begin shipping during the first half of 2026.
The lower-priced vehicles are crucial to Rivian’s expansion as sales of its current models have slowed amid a sluggish industrywide sales pace for electric vehicles. The company has cut headcount, reduced operational costs and retooled its plant in Illinois to be more efficient in an effort to lower capital spending. It also paused construction of a new plant in Georgia, saving $2.25 billion.

Rivian’s stock has been under pressure, as the automaker continues to burn through cash and report significant losses. Rivian reported a loss of $1.45 billion during the first quarter of this year.
Its shares are down roughly 50% year to date.
Deliveries for the 2025 R1S and R1T will start immediately, Rivian said.
The California-based company will continue to offer three motor configurations — dual, tri and quad — as well as Standard, Large and Max battery packs, with top ranges of between 270 miles, 330 miles and 420 miles, respectively.

2025 Rivian R1T and R1S

Rivian said pricing for the second-generation R1S SUV will increase $1,000 from current models to start at $75,900, with top-end trimotor models starting around $106,000. Starting pricing for the R1T will remain the same at $69,900 but top $100,000 for trimotor. The company did not announce specific pricing for the top-end quad-motor vehicles.
The updated battery packs will continue to use a “2170 cylindrical cell,” but the pack enclosure now utilizes large high-pressure die castings to simplify manufacturing and reduce mass.
The tri- and quad-motor vehicles include new Rivian-made drive units. The top-end quad-motor will now deliver up to 1,025 horsepower and 1,198 pound-foot of torque when using Launch Mode and 0 mph to 60 mph acceleration in 2.5 seconds. That is up from 835 horsepower and 908 pound-foot of torque.
Rivian said the vehicles also feature more luxurious, updated interiors as well as a fully redesigned software interface. Charging times have also improved, with all vehicles capable of adding up to 140 miles of range in about 20 minutes.
Correction: The Rivian Max battery pack achieves up to 420 miles. The Large battery pack achieves up to 330 miles. A previous version of the article misstated the ranges.

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Boeing’s Starliner capsule made a delayed docking with the International Space Station on Thursday.
There are now two U.S.-built crew spacecraft docked with the ISS for the first time, as Boeing’s capsule joined SpaceX’s Dragon at the space station.
NASA delayed an initial attempt as five of the 28 thrusters that help control Starliner’s movement in space were not operating, but four were recovered to clear a second docking attempt.

Boeing’s Starliner capsule is seen while approaching the International Space Station with two NASA astronauts on board on June 6, 2024.

Fixing the propulsion problem

NASA flight controllers called off a previously scheduled approach to resolve issues with Starliner’s propulsion system. Starliner has 28 jets, known as its reaction control system, or RCS, engines, that help the spacecraft make small movements in orbit.
The crew on Starliner, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, were told by NASA capsule communicator, or CAPCOM, Neal Nagata, that the 12:15 p.m. docking attempt had to be called off to resolve the spacecraft’s propulsion issue. CAPCOM Nagata noted that the ISS has a zero fault tolerance for a spacecraft control problem.

The agency and Boeing had to troubleshoot five of the RCS jets that were not operating. Four of Starliner’s malfunctioning jets were recovered after Wilmore and Williams worked with flight controllers to test fire the thrusters.
CAPCOM Nagata had the astronauts hold the spacecraft beyond the “keep out sphere,” an invisible boundary around the ISS that serves as a safety measure, while diagnosing the problematic thrusters.

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PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf have been in “active discussions,” meeting three times a week recently, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The two entities announced a proposed deal a year ago but have yet to ink an agreement in a tumultuous process that has sparked criticism from players, consumers and lawmakers.
The discussions appear to have ramped up recently, as the sides have exchanged term sheets and the financial part of the deal has mostly been agreed upon, the person added.

A PGA TOUR logo is seen after play was suspended due to severe storms during the third round of THE PLAYERS Championship held at THE PLAYERS Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass on May 14, 2011 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
Streeter Lecka | Getty Images

The PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf have been in active discussions, according to a person familiar with the matter, one year after the two entities stunned the world and announced on CNBC that they had agreed in principle to join forces.
The talks between the tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which backs LIV Golf, are “extremely active,” the person said.

The newly created seven-person PGA Tour transaction committee — which includes professional golfers Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, as well as Fenway Sports Group Founder John Henry — and PIF representatives have been meeting in person and remotely every Monday, Wednesday and Friday over the past month, the person added.
The group will meet in person in New York on Friday, except for McIlroy, who will join remotely.
A PGA Tour representative declined to comment. Representatives for LIV and PIF didn’t respond.
When PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan and Saudi PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan announced the proposed combination on CNBC last June, it surprised many after a bitter legal feud between the two competing leagues.
The proposed deal deadline, originally set for Dec. 31, 2023, was extended. The tour has also since agreed to let U.S. investors enter the mix.

The deal hasn’t been finalized. But the sides have exchanged term sheets, and they have mostly agreed upon the financial part of the agreement, the person familiar said, with the Saudis and the consortium of investors agreeing to kick in another $1.5 billion each to the tour. The deal will reportedly be structured like their deal with the Strategic Sports Group, or SSG, a consortium of investors. The sides are now focusing on product-related decisions involving players, schedules, tournaments and media rights, the person added.
The discussions don’t mean a deal is imminent, but the pace of the process has picked up as Al-Rumayyan sometimes attends the weekly meetings, the person said.
The New York Times’ DealBook earlier reported on the discussions.
Over the course of the year, the tour has tried to become more appealing to players and prevent defectors from rivaling LIV by rewarding them for their loyalty to the organization. The tour increased prize money at tournaments and created PGA Tour Enterprises, a new commercial venture that will dole out over $1.5 billion in equity to players.
“By making PGA TOUR members owners of their league, we strengthen the collective investment of our players in the success of the PGA TOUR,” Monahan said at the time.
In late January, the tour announced new capital from a group of high-profile investors led by Fenway Sports Group. The SSG is injecting $1.5 billion into the tour and has committed another $1.5 billion if a deal with the Saudis reaches completion.
In May, the tour’s Jimmy Dunne, who was considered one of the architects of the deal, abruptly resigned from his position, expressing his frustration with the lack of progress.
A source said that when Dunne was not included on the enterprise board, he became frustrated and felt like he was no longer needed.
Before the leagues said they would join forces last June, PIF had been luring PGA Tour golfers, including star Phil Mickelson, to LIV with deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Since then, the drawn-out and tumultuous deal process has sparked backlash from players, consumers and American lawmakers — who have also probed and questioned PGA Tour executives. If the merger is completed, it could dramatically change the landscape of professional golf.
After LIV lured players from the Tour with big-money deals, Monahan had said the tour looked at golf “on a global basis” and determined that the merger would benefit the sport.
Many critics have accused LIV, which was launched in 2022, of “sportswashing,” or spreading influence through sports to draw attention away from Saudi human rights violations.
After clear lines were drawn, players expressed frustration about the proposed deal, leading the tour to increase financial incentives for golfers. More

SpaceX launched a fourth test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday.
Assuming the spaceflight goes according to plan, Starship would travel halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX launched a fourth test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday, as the company looks to push development of the mammoth vehicle past new milestones.
Elon Musk’s company launched Starship at about 8:50 a.m. ET from its Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas.

A few minutes after launch, the rocket’s booster successfully splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, a new milestone for its development. This was the first time SpaceX returned the booster in one piece – a controlled return of the booster is key to the company’s long term goal of being able to launch and land Starship regularly, a practice it’s made routine with its Falcon 9 rockets.
Assuming the spaceflight goes according to plan, Starship would travel halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX’s next-generation Starship spacecraft, atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket, lifts off on its third launch from the company’s Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. March 14, 2024. 
Cheney Orr | Reuters

SpaceX has flown the full Starship rocket system on three spaceflight tests previously, with launches in April 2023, November and March. Each of the test flights have achieved more milestones than the last, but each result destroyed the rocket before the flight’s end.
The company’s rocket flew the furthest in its third test flight, allowing SpaceX to test new capabilities including opening and closing the payload door once in space – which would be how the rocket deploys payloads such as a satellites on future missions – and transferring fuel during the flight in a NASA demonstration.

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The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth. The rocket is also critical to NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the moon. SpaceX won a multibillion-dollar contract from the agency to use Starship as a crewed lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis moon program.

SpaceX heavily emphasizes an approach of building “on what we’ve learned from previous flights” in its approach to develop Starship. The company says its strategy focuses on “recursive improvement” to the rocket, where even test flights with fiery outcomes represent progress toward its goal of a fully reusable rocket that can deliver people to the moon and Mars.
Musk last year said he expected the company to spend about $2 billion on Starship development in 2023.

Goals for fourth flight

SpaceX’s next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket is prepared for a third launch from the company’s Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. March 13, 2024. 
Joe Skipper | Reuters

There are no people on board this Starship spaceflight. The company’s leadership has previously emphasized that SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before the rocket launches with any crew.
SpaceX will be looking to surpass the third test flight’s milestones. The company wrote in an update on its website that the fourth flight “turns our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy.”
“The primary objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieving a controlled entry of Starship,” SpaceX wrote.
The company says it’s completed a number of software and hardware changes to Starship, aimed at increasing the rocket’s reliability.

The rocket

Starship is both the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. Fully stacked on the Super Heavy booster, Starship stands 397 feet tall and is about 30 feet in diameter.
The Super Heavy booster, which stands 232 feet tall, is what begins the rocket’s journey to space. At its base are 33 Raptor engines, which together produce 16.7 million pounds of thrust – about double the 8.8 million pounds of thrust of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, which launched for the first time in 2022.
Starship itself, at 165 feet tall, has six Raptor engines – three for use while in the Earth’s atmosphere and three for operating in the vacuum of space.
The rocket is powered by liquid oxygen and liquid methane. The full system requires more than 10 million pounds of propellant for launch. More

America is not just the land of red-blooded capitalism. It has an esoteric tradition of capitalist altruism, too. Take Trader Joe’s, an own-label grocery chain like M&S in Britain. It somehow retains a local-community feel, like an indoor farmers’ market with good prices and wonderful staff, despite having 549 stores. Whole Foods Market, a 530-store Mecca for well-heeled health nuts and epicureans, has a similar vibe. Or at least it did until 2017, when it was sold to Amazon for $13.7bn. Its co-founder, John Mackey, has recently published a book full of joie de vivre about his 42 years at its helm. “The Whole Story: Adventures in Love, Life and Capitalism” comes a few years after an even quirkier memoir by the founder of Trader Joe’s, the late Joe Coulombe. They are strikingly different characters who approached retailing in unusual ways. Each offers good lessons in entrepreneurship.Mr Mackey’s book starts with him as a college dropout having an LSD-fuelled epiphany: “I was IT. And it was me, and I was there. And it was ALL.” Don’t be put off. Whether or not would-be entrepreneurs should drop acid for inspiration, in his case it worked. The Texan’s quest for self-discovery leads to a new philosophy of natural-food retailing that conquers America. Coulombe’s book, “Becoming Trader Joe”, has no New Ageiness, even though his chain started in California in 1967. As a lesson in how to beat the big guys in business, it does exactly what it says on the tin. His first anecdote is about the merits of relabelling Peruvian tuna as pilchards to avoid import quotas and cut prices. More

Rare is the chief executive who extols the virtues of a lie-in. Tim Cook, boss of Apple, maker of the iPhone, wakes between 4am and 5am. So does Bob Iger, his counterpart at Disney, a media giant. According to one survey, two-thirds of the chief executives of large American companies are up by 6 o’clock; for average Americans the share is less than one in three. For those aspiring to corporate greatness, the message seems clear: you snooze, you lose.Your guest Bartleby harbours no such ambitions. But he has, in the past, experimented with early starts, and can confirm that their benefits go beyond the smug sense of satisfaction that comes from arriving at your desk before your editor. Inboxes can be cleared and tricky problems mulled over before the onslaught of emails and meetings begins, leaving you feeling well prepared for the day ahead. More

CHINA’S HUNGER for homemade chips is insatiable. In May it was revealed that the government had launched the third iteration of its “Big Fund”, an investment vehicle designed to shore up the domestic semiconductor industry. The $48bn cash infusion is aimed at expanding the manufacture of microprocessors. Its generosity roughly matches similar packages from America ($53bn) and the EU ($49bn), both of which are also trying to encourage the expansion of local chipmaking.Chinese chipmakers are in a tough spot. In October 2022 America’s government restricted the export to China of advanced chips and chipmaking gear made using American intellectual property—which is to say virtually all such devices. This makes it near-impossible for Chinese firms to produce leading-edge microprocessors, the kind whose transistors measure a few nanometres (billionths of a metre) across and which power the latest artificial-intelligence models. But it does not stop them cranking out less advanced chips, with transistor sizes measured in tens of nanometres, of the sort that are needed in everything from televisions and thermostats to refrigerators and cars. More

Chart: The EconomistHow much is Elon Musk, the mercurial multibillionaire, worth to Tesla, the carmaker he runs? In 2018 the company’s board put in place a plan to award Mr Musk shares over ten years worth $46bn, at their current price, provided the business cleared a series of hurdles. In January a Delaware judge struck down the package, calling it “unfathomable”, after a shareholder sued to have it rescinded. The company has asked its investors to reaffirm their support for the award ahead of an annual general meeting on June 13th. Mr Musk’s monster pay package is worth nearly 300 times what America’s best-paid chief executive, Hock Tan of Broadcom, a chipmaker, made last year. It is also equivalent to 8% of Tesla’s current market value—which is down by roughly a fifth over the past year.■ More