Rivian is gearing up to begin production and customer deliveries of its R2 SUV, a model central to the company’s outlook and its first vehicle designed for global markets.
The R2 is built on a new platform that will also underpin the smaller R3, slated for 2028.
Both models are expected to materially expand Rivian’s addressable market as the EV maker pushes into lower price segments closer to what the average American consumer pays for a new vehicle.
Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe drove an “early pre-production” R2 during a CNBC mini-documentary aired on Wednesday, part of the company’s buildup ahead of first deliveries.
“R2 is really instrumental for driving the business to positive cash flow and overall profitability,” RJ Scaringe stated.
“If we can have the type of market share that we have on R1 — where it’s the market share leader — with R2, we’d have a real challenge of making enough of them,” he added, saying that is “the hope” for the company.
Rivian has reiterated in recent months that both customer-unit production and deliveries were expected to begin in the first half of the year.
During a tour of its Normal, Illinois, factory last month, Rivian told local outlet WGLT that deliveries of the R2 will begin “by June.”
Speaking with CNBC, the CEO highlighted that “in many ways, this is the most important thing that we’ve developed as a company,” flagging the $45,000 entry-level price range and the 300-mile range of the five-seat SUV.
BoM & Supply Chain
A year ago, RJ Scaringe announced that the bill of materials in R2 was “roughly” half of the R1 models.
“It’s a dramatic reduction in the cost structure to build it,” he told CNBC, as the EV maker aims to “optimize costs through part elimination, part consolidation.”
The CEO said Rivian‘s challenging experience with the R1 launch has taught them to do it differently this time.
“Having gone through a version of that ourselves, where we just had so many challenges when we first launched R1, we built a lot of rigorous systems to make sure all our suppliers and our suppliers’ suppliers are ready to ramp,” he stated.
At the same time, Scaringe knows that there could be some bottlenecks to production.
“You’re only as fast as your slowest source of supply. If a single bolt is coming in at half the volume of the rest of the components, it will slow down production,” he noted. “It’s an area we’ve now built a lot of rigor and capability around.”
To counter that, Rivian has “vertically integrated a tremendous amount of technology,” as it aims to create a “significant structural cost advantage” in a long-term scale.
“We’re going to see that realized over the next 18 months as we ramp R2,” Scaringe said.
Production
The EV maker first announced the R2 platform in 2022, with an initial launch planned for 2025 in the company’s planned Georgia facility.
However, that timeline was pushed back as construction of the Georgia site was delayed due to several zoning-related lawsuits by local citizens.
Production is now expected to begin at its main Normal plant, where the first validation vehicles have just rolled off the line.
In late 2024, Rivian began expanding its Normal factory to accommodate production of the new vehicle.
Changes also included a supplier park adjacent to its facilities, for which construction is expected to be completed this year.
In September, the EV maker shut down the Normal factory “for approximately three weeks starting late in the third quarter of 2025,” as it integrated “key elements of our manufacturing process in preparation for the planned start of R2 production in the first half of 2026.”
On Wednesday, Rivian published a few production videos on X, writing that “it’s great to see R2 coming together as our new manufacturing lines start to hum. Its simplified design makes it easier to build and to do it at scale.”
Hardware
These cost-cutting measures applied to both hardware and software, as both Senior Vice-President of Electrical Hardware Vidya Rajagopalan and Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid pointed out.
“We saved 1.6 miles of wiring going from R1 Gen 1 to R1 Gen 2,” Rajagopalan said, adding that an additional 2.3 miles were saved going from an R1 Gen 2 to an R2.”
To Bensaid, “the entire philosophy is how do we build a product that really takes the entire essence of the Rivian brand, with an architecture that simplifies the hardware, reduces costs, and then moves that complexity to software.”
Comparing a stack of three modules with a single one, Rivian‘s software head said “all this together is now part of this unit,” leading to “savings in three-digit dollars.”
“You multiply that by volume, and this is where you see how this investment is paying off for us,” he added.
Wassym Bensaid is the co-CEO of RV Tech, a joint venture between Volkswagen Group and Rivian, in which they are co-developing an architecture stack to be included in both VW vehicles and Rivian‘s.
The German legacy automaker has invested over $5.8 billion in Rivian as a result of the joint venture.
The upcoming Rivian R2 and VW ID.1 will be the first to include the software stack.
The JV aims to license this software to other OEMs, as part of its belief that the future of cars resides in software rather than complex hardware.
Infotainment
After the CNBC interview was published, several Rivian enthusiasts noted inumerous details of the early-production build.
According to X user ‘RivianUpdates,’ the quick menu in the infotainment has changed in the R2.
“Based on what we’ve seen from R2 prototypes both on camera and in person, the overall layout and experience remain pretty consistent,” he wrote.
While noting that “the rear cargo area and dashboard, for example, are nearly identical to the prototype from 2024 in look,” the user later flagged that “the rear window and venting window buttons in-screen are now absent in 2026.”
In a separate post, ‘RivianUpdates’ flagged that there are “multiple switches at the ceiling of the R2 next to the caution and SOS buttons,” which are new.
“It looks like we are still getting the rear trunk window to roll down and the rear windows to still vent like shown at unveil,” he said, though these were previously expected to be in-screen buttons in the quick menu.
R2 and R3
Upon unveiling the R2 mid-size SUV in March 2024, Rivian also announced the R3 and off-road R3X crossover SUVs — which will be built using the same vehicle platform.
The models are expected to launch in 2028, as they will be manufactured in Georgia.
While reaffirming that the R3 will be built on the same platform as the R2 — “common platform, different top hat” — Scaringe said that both models were designed to “support US and European markets.”
Rivian is expected to launch in Europe with the R2 SUV next year.
On its R1 models, Rivian offers single-, dual-, tri-, and quad-motor configurations.
Despite indicating — and sticking to — a entry-level price of $45,000, the EV maker is expected to begin production with a higher-priced version of the R2.
Scaringe has since said the R2 Launch Edition will be a dual-motor variant.
During its ‘Autonomy & AI Day’ event in December, Rivian revealed the first R2 builds equipped with LiDAR, marking the first time the company confirmed that its vehicles will include the sensor suite.
RJ Scaringe reiterated on Wednesday that the LiDAR version of the R2 will not be released at launch, but “shortly after.”
They’ll be adding a “LiDAR that’ll sit at the top of the windshield, along with an in-house compute platform.”
