These days, it’s not at all uncommon to hear automakers talk about evolving into “mobility companies.” Many of them share a grand, but vague, vision to serve people’s transportation needs in ways that go beyond personal car ownership. The only problem is that these ambitious dreams of making small electric vehicles, scooters, e-bikes and more rarely move past the concept stage into things you can actually buy.

Now, however, EV upstart Rivian says it’s actually doing it. Today, executives announced the launch of Also, a new “electric micromobility company” that spun out of Rivian and aims to release a flagship product by 2026 that isn’t a car, but will help city-dwellers get around in other ways. 

Right out of the gate, Also echoes a common Rivian-ism: “The intent is not to show concepts,” Also president Chris Yu told InsideEVs. “It’s to show a product that you can buy, and deliver a product that you can buy very shortly.”

What that product is, exactly, isn’t clear right now, and Yu isn’t elaborating. But he did indicate that Also will take the Rivian approach—vertically integrated, electrified and software driven—to microcars (aka neighborhood electric vehicles) along with two- and three-wheel vehicles. 

Yu said that Also started as a “skunkworks” program within Rivian itself about three-and-a-half years ago. Recently, company officials decided to make it a standalone company, albeit ones with close ties to Rivian—a “sibling” of sorts, Yu said, that Rivian maintains a “significant” investment in. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe sits on Also’s board, and the startup additionally announced $105 million in Series B funding from Palo Alto venture capital firm Eclipse.

What Also is not, Yu said, is a new car company that makes small EVs slotting in below Rivian’s offerings. “It’s everything south of a homologated car,” Yu said, referring to the local and federal regulations that would define something as a traditional automobile. These lower-speed vehicles are not only smaller, but easier to make across many different regions, and Yu belives they’re positioned to catch on as people seek new ways to get around that aren’t centered around car ownership. 

“Right place, right timing,” said Yu, who has most recently served as VP of Future Programs at Rivian. “Micromobility and small EVs are kind of following cars and technology adoption. But you can imagine a really diverse set of opportunities and use cases down the road, and there’s such a huge opportunity and such a big problem to solve.” 

That problem, he said, starts with navigating dense urban areas without emissions. A good example is Paris, which is restricting access to cars in its city center.

“I think there’s this pent-up demand, even if it may not be explicitly known, to do better than sitting in traffic and battling for car spaces for short trip missions, like going to Trader Joe’s, doing a kid drop-off, etc.,” Yu said. 

According to a 2024 McKinsey report, the micro-mobility space is growing rapidly in the U.S. and beyond. In America alone, the use of shared bicycles, shared e-scooters and other non-car solutions have grown between 8% and 17% annually since 2018. An increasing range of cities are encouraging their use to meet climate goals while a growing cohort of use them to do what cars cannot. 

Thus far, not many car companies have made serious inroads into becoming “mobility providers.” Honda released its suitcase-sized Motocompacto in 2023 and it retails for a reasonable $995, but it’s tiny and range-limited. Toyota comes out with new mobility concepts from time to time, but they rarely see the light of day, especially outside of Japan. And few other automakers have announced plans to leverage their growing battery and software investments outside of cars. 

Using a Rivian-like approach means all of these vehicles will be built on a common, adaptable platform with a shared software ecosystem backing them up.

“There’s this concept of the skateboard” platform, Yu said, referring to the technology that underpins many modern electric cars and trucks. Strip away an EV’s body and you’re typically left with what looks like an overgrown electric skateboard—a framework of batteries and motors that an automaker could use to build vehicles of various brands and body styles. 

“We have a similar idea, but ‘skateboard’ is maybe a little bit loose because the form factors can be so different,” Yu said. “Some are two wheelers, some are three wheelers, some are four wheelers.” 

Yu added that Also’s products will take the “walk-up” playbook from Rivian, meaning the vehicle knows who you are when you approach and customizes itself to your exact settings. And like Rivian, everything Also makes will be done in-house: electric drive motors, software, infotainment systems and more. (The software side of things is totally separate from Rivian’s joint venture with Volkswagen, he said.)

Like Rivian, Also’s products will be sold directly to consumers, not through independent franchises. The goal is to build them at several large contract factories in different regions. 

For now, the company is playing everything else close to the vest. Yu wouldn’t indicate what vehicle would be up first, how many wheels it might have and what it could cost. But they are coming soon, he said. Also’s goal is to unveil its “flagship” product in the U.S. this fall with deliveries afterward. European deliveries will begin in 2026.

“Then it’ll be a pretty rapid-fire sequence of both consumer and commercial vehicle launches and partnerships that will roll out throughout 2026 and into 2027,” Yu said. And for the most part, they will be privately owned, not made for some Also-specific ride-share or e-bike sharing service. 

It’s a big swing for any car company to venture outside its core lane. But Yu said that Also is confident that the rise of electrification and global traffic problems can create an opportunity for this kind of product to resonate in many places. 

“The dominant modes of transportation in places like South America, Southeast Asia, India and other parts of Europe look a lot more like mopeds, scooters, three wheelers, etc.,” Yu said. “And the rate of electrification of all these modes is extraordinarily low. But from a technology and cost structure standpoint, there’s no reason that’s going to stay that way.” 

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