Rivian spinoff Also wants to reinvent the wheel — but first, it has to ship

• Transportation
• Autonomous Cars

Also President Chris Yu opens up about surviving the AI server component crunch, rewriting UL battery standards, and why the company’s modular e-bike is just the first step.

by Andrew J. HawkinsNov 3, 2026, 12:00 PM UTC

• Transportation
• Autonomous Cars

Also President Chris Yu opens up about surviving the AI server component crunch, rewriting UL battery standards, and why the company’s modular e-bike is just the first step.

by Andrew J. HawkinsNov 3, 2026, 12:00 PM UTC Andrew J. Hawkins is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.

When Rivian quietly spun off its micromobility brand, Also, a lot of observers wondered if the luxury EV maker had bitten off more than it can chew. Chris Yu insists that’s not the case.

Yu, a Stanford aeronautics PhD and former CTO at Specialized, runs the startup as an independent business that counts Rivian as a minority shareholder. Under his lead, Also rolled out the TM-B — a quirky, modular e-bike with a raft of unique features, including a swappable top frame, USB-C chargeable battery, a built-in screen, a series hybrid pedal-by-wire system, and proprietary “Dream Ride” software. There’s also the TM-Q, an electric four-wheeler aimed at commercial deliveries.

But it hasn’t been completely smooth sailing. After dealing with supply chain headaches, confusing regulations, and some communication stumbles, Also is finally shipping its early Launch Edition bikes to customers while also getting ready to roll out the standard and performance versions. Meanwhile, customers have been letting the company have it on Reddit over the delayed deliveries, and the few people who have received their bikes have already experienced some minor software problems.

The Verge met up with Yu to chat about scaling production, surviving parts shortages, dealing with the mess of US e-bike laws, and why the company is betting big on autonomous delivery.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What is the current status of the bike and production ramp?

On the bike, the main thing is the production ramp. It’s one thing to create a product as a traditional OE where you work with several Tier 1 suppliers, get them to deliver on time, and assemble it. With us, we’ve built and designed everything down to individual components and ICs. Over the last year, every imaginable supply chain learning has come across.

We’ve been in the trenches competing with AI server demands for components like ICs, compute, memory, and raw PCBA [printed circuit board assembly] materials. Our inverter board is designed entirely in-house for high performance, and the thermals require a sophisticated board material. It turns out AI server farms have similar thermal requirements, triggering a global shortage, so we had to requalify and resource. But all that is behind us, and we are really starting to flow to customers and ramp up. A huge draw to come to Also was shipping a product that people will enjoy and use on the road every day, and reaching that milestone now has been huge for the team.

How many bikes have you delivered so far? Are you still in the Founder’s Edition phase?

That’s right. We’re quickly ramping up. We have a substantial number out there now, and you can see a lot of volume and traffic online of people taking their first rides. Deliveries are quickly increasing along the classic manufacturing ramp where you start steadily and then add volume.

In hindsight, was targeting a spring launch too optimistic?

At the time, based on everything we knew, spring was very much on plan. But as with Rivian on the automotive side or us earlier this year, a lot of unknown unknowns happened. Certainly I didn’t foresee the intense urgency around AI server hardware, nor the fact that those supply chains are so shared with light electric vehicles.

Was there direct overlap between Also’s supply chain and Rivian’s?

I look at it as a three-way Venn diagram between us — vertically integrated small EVs — and Rivian — full-size automotive EVs — and broader AI hardware like robotics and servers. There is a healthy overlap right in the middle, alongside direct overlap between us and Rivian. Where we overlap with Rivian there is a clear benefit, but it wasn’t easy for Rivian either.

[Rivian CEO] RJ [Scaringe] and I talk all the time. Half the time we’re discussing how to handle a specific part or supply chain constraint. You either fight for the part and lean on suppliers, find an alternative supplier with the identical component, or — as both we and Rivian have had to do — completely redesign and requalify the system around a replacement part.

Can you get specific on what components had to be redesigned or requalified?

It sounds relatively boring on paper, but it’s critical. One example was IC components like high-performance capacitors. Swapping them requires the work of going through full validation testing to make sure the alternative hits our durability and lifespan standards, because those components dictate the reliability of PCBAs.

Another was raw PCBA board material. Only certain base materials meet our flammability, thermal cycle, and structural rigidity requirements. When supplies ran short, we had to qualify third and fourth alternatives. There is no parallelization of verification testing — components must spend weeks inside thermal chambers and on shock and vibration rigs to prove they can handle real-world conditions.

In a letter to customers, [head of product] Saul Leiken mentioned there were regulatory hurdles around power output as well. What happened with UL certification?

It wasn’t so much an impediment as proof of how nascent the regulatory space is relative to what we’re building. Our battery combines several uncommon attributes: exceptionally high power density, an automotive-style software-defined battery management system with two-way flow for regenerative braking, USB-C 3.1 charging at up to 240 watts, and a removable pack.

Those things combined don’t exist in standard e-bike battery guidelines. Certification bodies like UL write standards assuming a typical e-bike pack without USB data connections or such high bidirectional power throughput. When we presented our architecture, we identified undefined areas in the certification rules. Rather than treating it as a gray area and self-certifying, we partnered directly with UL to develop a clarification standard tailored to this type of battery architecture. We went back and forth, completed unit testing on both sides, agreed on the protocol, and we are now fully UL certified.

Do you anticipate a