Rivian’s founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said buyers are still choosing the R2’s most expensive configuration at a higher rate than the company assumed, and that the stronger mix is not changing when cheaper versions arrive.
“That conversion has been higher for those, this early batch, than what we expected, which is a really good sign,” Scaringe said at Morgan Stanley’s Laguna Conference on Tuesday, asked whether the pattern reported on the second-quarter call had changed as more people drove the vehicle. “Folks that maybe thought they were going to buy a $50,000 version of R2 said, fine, I’ll take the $57,000 or $58,000 version.”
He gave no conversion rate and no order count.
A buyer who expected to spend $50,000 and takes the Launch Edition instead is paying about $8,000 more, though not for the same car.
The Launch Edition includes lifetime Autonomy+, which otherwise costs $2,500 or $49.99 a month, along with a tow package and a limited colour set.
On the same call in July, Scaringe said the main reason reservation holders were not converting was that they were waiting for a different build.
Asked directly whether the demand for the Launch Edition changes the timing of lower-cost variants, he said: “There’s obviously tweaks to exactly when the different variants come in that we’re making. But broadly speaking, it’s about the same.”
Rivian has guided to between 20,000 and 25,000 R2 deliveries this year, and the Premium is not due until late 2026. On that timing, almost all of this year’s R2 volume is the Launch Edition.
The Timeline
That timing was already contested.
On the July 30 earnings call, Scaringe told three analysts, including Itay Michaeli, who asked directly whether the Premium would arrive this year, that the R2’s additional trims would arrive in early 2027. EV reported the founder’s answers.
Rivian disputed it the following day, telling EV in a statement: “The R2 Premium trim will become available in late 2026, with the R2 Standard trim following in early 2027.”
The stock fell as much as 7.7% on the Friday after the beat, with trim timing among the points in the tape.
Tuesday’s “tweaks” is the first comment on the schedule since that exchange. It is neither a delay nor a pull-forward.
The Price Ladder
Scaringe set out the range Rivian expects to offer within twelve months. “We’ll have a starting price of $45,000 all the way up to the maximum price, which is just over $57,000,” he said, with a Premium trim “in the mid-50s” and standard trims “in the 40s.” The portfolio “will support an ASP that probably sits somewhere in the middle.”
Rivian’s published ladder has four rungs. Performance with the Launch Package at $57,990, on sale now. Premium at $53,990, due late 2026. Standard Long Range at $48,490, due in the first half of 2027.
And an additional Standard starting around $45,000 in late 2027, per Rivian’s March 12 pricing release.
Only the Launch Edition is on sale, from $57,990, or about $59,485 with the $1,495 destination charge. The $45,000 figure is the starting price Rivian announced when it unveiled the R2 in March 2024.
Every R2 sold so far is the Launch Edition, which sits above the midpoint of the $45,000 to $57,000 range he sketched, about $51,500.
Rivian does not publish an R2-only delivery figure.
Cox Automotive data implied about 789 reached American buyers through June, in the model’s first weeks on sale, against full-year guidance of 20,000 to 25,000.
Scaringe told the same conference that the ramp is being throttled by suppliers rather than by the plant.
Launched With One Trim
Scaringe said the approach was a deliberate reversal of the R1 launch. “The way we launched R1 is we launched out of the gate with a lot of different build combinations,” he said. “It was a very complex way to launch. We introduced massive complexity into the build process and our supply chains from the beginning.”
The R2 launched with “one trim, which we called our launch edition,” and “very limited paint and color options,” to “simplify the initial ramp-up.”
That constraint is easing on colour before it eases on trim. Borealis, the last of eight announced R2 exterior colours, opened to selected reservation holders this week as a paid option on the Launch Edition.
Forest Green and Coastal Cloud Signature opened to a selected group in August and reached all buyers on September 9.
Chip Newcom, Rivian’s VP of Investor Relations, told Goldman Sachs’s Communacopia conference on September 8 that each new option has brought increased interest from reservation holders, citing the Coastal Cloud interior.
Who Is Buying
Scaringe said the R2 is drawing buyers from outside the electric vehicle market.
He named the Toyota RAV4 and 4Runner, Ford Bronco, Honda CR-V and Audi Q5 as vehicles buyers are coming from, and said the midsize SUV and crossover segment is “the most popular segment in the United States.”
“A lot of the folks that have been activated by R2, this is their first time considering an electric vehicle,” he said. “In many cases, the test drive is the first time someone has driven an EV.”
Test drives have “more than doubled where we were before,” he said, declining to give a figure. Rivian reported more than 57,000 demo drives in the second quarter, a company record.
He was asked what share of the reservation book already owns an R1 and what share has never owned an electric vehicle. He gave neither.
The analyst framed the shift plainly, saying the debate had moved from whether people will buy the R2 to whether Rivian can build it. Scaringe did not disagree.
