Rivian has officially started volume and saleable production of its R2 midsize SUV at the company’s Normal, Illinois, plant.
The EV maker’s founder and Chief Executive RJ Scaringe is expected to confirm in a live interview on Bloomberg Tech scheduled for 8:10 a.m. PST on Wednesday.
The milestone marks the end of a multi-year development and ramp-up cycle for the R2 — the vehicle Scaringe has consistently described as the model that will transform Rivian into a large-scale, profitable company.
Bloomberg‘s anchor Ed Ludlow promoted the interview on X, writing:Â “Rivian CEO @RJScaringe joins us on Bloomberg Tech today as R2 starts volume, saleable production. 8:10amPST @BloombergTV“
Scaringe has called the R2 the vehicle that will transform Rivian into a large-scale, profitable company.
The R2 marks a pivotal step for the cash-burning EV maker as it seeks to expand beyond its premium R1 lineup into the more affordable, higher-volume segment of the market.
The announcement comes as the company resumed operations in Building 2, the section of the plant dedicated to R2 assembly, following an EF-1 tornado that struck the facility on the night of April 17 with peak wind speeds of 110 mph.
Production Underway
The formal declaration follows weeks of mounting evidence that the production line was already running.
Rivian had started building saleable R2 units with VIN numbers at the Normal plant earlier this month, though it had not officially confirmed the start of production.
A senior manager at the facility said the R2 was “coming to life on the assembly line” in a LinkedIn post in early April.
VIN 5 was spotted at a charging station in Kearney, Nebraska, on April 4 while being driven cross-country from the factory to Rivian‘s Irvine, California, headquarters.
Last week, VIN 23 was seen near Moab, Utah.
VIN 36 was photographed in Catalina Cove paint before appearing in the customer delivery area outside the plant on April 16 — the strongest signal yet that employee handovers had begun.
Employee Deliveries
Rivian‘s first R2 units off the production line have been going to employees, consistent with standard automotive practice.
The EV maker emailed all employees on April 2 about the R2 employee delivery programme for Launch Edition vehicles, with both Rivian and Rivian-VW Technologies Group joint venture employees eligible.
Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid confirmed on X in early April that employee deliveries would begin this month.
Bensaid stated at SXSW last month that employees would hold their vehicles “for a few months” to accumulate mileage and return software experience data to the company, after which external customer deliveries would begin by the “end of spring.”
Customer Deliveries
Customer deliveries of the R2 Performance Launch Edition at $57,990 are expected by late June.
Reservation holders will receive their “estimated time to order” that same month.
Rivian plans to open the public R2 online configurator in May, giving customers the ability to build and price the midsize SUV on the company’s website ahead of first external deliveries.
The internal configurator for Rivian employees is already live, allowing staff placing their launch orders to select trims, colours, and options.
Between April and May, the company is taking the R2 on a tour across seven US cities.
Demo drives are expected to begin at select Rivian Spaces around July.
Production Timeline
Rivian first announced the R2 platform during a May 2022 investor call, when Scaringe said the company was on track to launch it in 2025 at a planned new factory in Georgia.
The Georgia timeline slipped after zoning-related lawsuits delayed construction.
Rivian only broke ground on the $5 billion plant in September 2025. The facility is not expected to begin production until 2028.
In March 2024, Rivian unveiled the R2 alongside the R3 and R3X and confirmed it was moving R2 production to its existing Normal plant — a shift that saved approximately $2.25 billion and pulled the timeline forward to the first half of 2026.
In September 2025, Rivian shut the Normal plant for approximately three weeks to integrate manufacturing changes ahead of R2 start of production.
Hundreds of production-intent builds were already on the road for real-world testing by that time.
Rivian completed its first manufacturing validation builds of the R2 in mid-January.
The company officially launched the R2 at SXSW on March 12, confirming pricing and specifications for the Performance variant that had leaked a day earlier.
Rivian‘s VP and Head of Sales Gary Gaines said after the SXSW launch that the R2’s reception “exceeded” management expectations.
Operation Scaling
Rivian recently promoted Alborz Monzavi to Director of R2 General Assembly at the Normal plant, a role overseeing the final assembly line for the new model.
The company has been scaling its sales, service, charging, and repair infrastructure in preparation for R2 deliveries.
It ended 2025 with 97 service locations, 36 showrooms, and nearly 700 mobile service vehicles.
New facilities are planned or under construction in Perris, California; Orlando, Florida; and Fort Worth, Texas, where Rivian is investing $9.9 million in a 552,000-square-foot parts distribution hub.
The Rivian Adventure Network now operates close to 1,000 stalls across more than 140 stations in the US.
R2 Lineup
The R2 Performance, the first variant to reach customers, comes with a dual-motor all-wheel-drive powertrain producing 656 horsepower and 609 lb-ft of torque, a 0-to-60 mph time of 3.6 seconds, and an EPA-estimated range of up to 330 miles.
The Performance Launch Edition includes lifetime access to Rivian‘s Autonomy+ hands-free driving system, a Rivian Green key fob, the signature Drop Glass rear window feature, and a tow package rated at 4,400 pounds.
After the Launch Edition, Autonomy+ will be available as a $49.99 monthly subscription or a one-time $2,500 purchase.
A Premium trim at $53,990, with 450 horsepower and a 4.6-second 0-to-60 time, is expected in late 2026.
The Standard Long Range arrives in early 2027 at $48,490, and the $45,000 Standard — the price Rivian has promoted since the R2’s original unveiling in March 2024 — is not expected until late 2027.
The R2 Performance at $57,990 sits almost exactly at the $57,490 price of the Tesla Model Y Performance, the vehicle Rivian has explicitly named as its primary target.
A Gen 3 autonomy stack with LiDAR will be fitted to R2 vehicles starting in late 2026. Launch units ship with Gen 2 hardware.
Scaringe said on the Q4 earnings call that hardware retrofits are not planned, meaning early buyers will drive a fundamentally different vehicle from those who purchase later.
Volume Targets
Rivian reaffirmed its full-year delivery guidance of 62,000 to 67,000 vehicles after reporting 10,365 deliveries in Q1 2026 — a quarter that included no R2 units.
The reaffirmed target means Rivian needs to deliver between 51,635 and 56,635 vehicles over the remaining nine months — roughly 1.7 to 1.8 times the Q1 rate.
Management expects R1S, R1T, and commercial van volumes to remain roughly in line with 2025’s 42,247 units, implying 20,000 to 25,000 R2 deliveries this year.
Of those, Rivian expects to sell 5,000 R2 units in California alone, according to an EPA filing.
CFO Claire McDonough said meaningful R2 volume should not be expected until the second half of the year, concentrating the delivery ramp into the final two quarters.
R2 production in Normal will start on one shift before adding a second later in the year.
The plant has capacity for 215,000 vehicles annually, including up to 155,000 R2s.
A third shift is planned for 2027.
The model’s bill of materials is roughly half that of the R1.
Rivian‘s Normal facility is its only operating assembly plant, producing all of its R1T pickups, R1S SUVs, and Amazon delivery vans alongside the new R2.
