WOLFSBURG/IRVINE (dpa-AFX) - Volkswagen is getting help with electric cars from Tesla challenger Rivian - and is investing billions in the process. Europe's largest carmaker wants to spend up to five billion dollars and jointly develop technology for future vehicles. For Rivian, this is a very welcome cash injection: the company is still in the red and is currently struggling with declining interest in electric cars in the USA. Rivian shares, which have been flagging recently, jumped by almost 50 percent in after-hours US trading.

The cooperation is quite narrowly defined: Software, control computers and network architecture. A key point: Volkswagen will switch to Rivian's technology and software for new cars in the second half of the decade. The car giant could thus save a lot of money compared to developing the technology in-house. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe emphasized in a conference call on Tuesday that other areas such as batteries or drive technology were not part of the partnership.

To enable manufacturers to offer more and more new functions, more and more control units and longer cable harnesses have been accumulating in cars for years. With the advance of electric cars, a competition for new vehicle architectures also got underway. The trends: less complexity and a focus on software. Tesla was a pioneer - a computer on wheels.

Rivian's architecture: zone model instead of too many small computers

Right from the start, Rivian developed its own architecture in which the car electronics are divided into several zones with their own computers. In the first generation of the Rivian platform, 17 of these control units were still necessary, said Scaringe. Now, for the second generation, the number has been reduced to seven.

VW has been struggling for years with problems in its in-house software development for electric cars, which has already delayed model launches. Scaringe put his finger in the wound on Tuesday. In recent years, it has been recognized that established manufacturers have difficulties with their own software.

He sees the reason for this in the way the car manufacturers' business has run for decades: A lot of technology was bought in from various suppliers, "as a result you had a lot of small computers that were tied to very specific functions". If you come from this world, you find it difficult to develop an architecture based on the zone principle, in which one control unit takes over functions across several areas. Rivian arranged these ECUs (Electronic Control Units) distributed throughout the vehicle in order to shorten the distance for data transmission.

Expert: A bargain for VW

Rivian is one of the few manufacturers to have such a zone architecture in series production - and therefore valuable for VW, commented Pedro Pacheco, automotive analyst at market research firm Garter, on the deal. Considering how much money Volkswagen has already invested in the development of its own platform, the billions for Rivian are "a real bargain" for the German company. The deal also sends a signal that things that were once developed in-house could now come from another manufacturer. At the same time, Pacheco raised the question of what manufacturers do with their own car software teams when they buy in so much.

The plan of Rivian and VW envisages a joint venture in which development is to be carried out for both manufacturers. The billions are to flow to Rivian bit by bit. First VW buys convertible bonds for one billion dollars. If the joint development laboratory comes to fruition, VW will pay a further billion, buy shares in two tranches for one billion each in 2025 and 2026 and provide a further billion as a loan.

Volkswagen has recently encountered more and more difficulties with its offensive course towards electromobility. Demand is weak in Europe and competition with low-cost domestic manufacturers is tough in China. In the USA, the Group wants to gain significant market share with electric cars and had already announced high investments to this end.

1.45 billion dollar loss with 13,600 deliveries

Rivian delivered almost 13,600 electric cars in the last quarter, making a turnover of 1.2 billion dollars and a loss of 1.45 billion dollars. The company is active in two popular vehicle categories in the USA: large SUVs and pickups. Rivian also builds electric delivery vans for Amazon, which can now also be seen in Europe. The world's largest online retailer is also an investor.

The mood among Tesla's challengers, who were hoping for an ever faster pace of electric car sales, is subdued. In the USA in particular, many buyers currently prefer to opt for hybrid models, and Tesla's growth has also recently slowed. The company Fisker had to file for insolvency. Its SUV model Ocean came onto the market with delays and annoyed some buyers and testers with software problems./so/DP/zb