Rivian said on Sunday that R2 deliveries would begin “soon after” June 9, softening the commitment it made in its May 27 blog post, which bills the date as the day first customer deliveries begin.
The EV maker has not moved the launch, and orders and demo drives still start June 9, but the first customer deliveries are now planned for later this month.
The contrast is between two Rivian statements: a May 27 blog post that remains live and unchanged, and a reply the company posted on X on Sunday.
May 27 Blog Post
Rivian used firm language in its Rivian Stories announcement, which is still headlined “R2 Launches June 9 — Order invites, first customer deliveries and demo drives begin.”
The post’s opening line goes further, declaring that “the first R2 vehicles start arriving in driveways across America” on that day. The framing places deliveries on the launch date itself, alongside the order invitations and the first public demo drives.
The wording has not been edited. As of Sunday, the blog still carries both the headline and the lead promising June 9 deliveries.
Replying on X to a customer who pressed it to give firm delivery dates, Rivian wrote on Sunday that order invitations “are starting to go out this Tuesday, June 9, and deliveries will begin soon after,” before adding that “The wait is almost over.”
At the UBS conference held last Thursday, CFO Claire McDonough said the company is “really excited to tap into that demand and the interest that we’ve seen in [the] market for R2.”
The Fine Print Pointed Later All Along
Rivian‘s own terms sit closer to the weekend message than to the headline.
The launch post’s detail section states that once an order is confirmed, buyers “can plan to take delivery within 2–6 weeks.”
As invitations only begin going out on June 9, the earliest firm orders cannot be placed until that day, pushing most customer deliveries to later in June.
That makes the blog’s headline the outlier. The fine print and the Sunday reply both describe deliveries trailing the launch, while only the headline and lead put them on June 9.
The earliest handovers may still land close to the date.
Rivian said last week that hundreds of employees already took delivery of R2s before the public launch, and a randomly selected group of reservation holders is being brought into the first invitation batches.
No New Date
Rivian has not issued a formal delay or named a later delivery window.
The company repeatedly moved its R1 timelines in 2021 and 2022, shifting first R1T deliveries from June to July and then to September, and later extending some R1S estimates by months, citing pandemic-era supply constraints and the complexity of ramping production.
What June 9 Actually Brings
From June 9, Rivian begins sending order invitations to reservation holders in rolling batches, with a buyer’s reservation timestamp and delivery location the primary factors in timing.
Areas around its Service and Demo Centers will generally be invited sooner, current owners get accelerated timing, and customers with expiring leases can flag that in their accounts.
The same day, R2 vehicles begin arriving at Rivian Spaces for public demo drives, with priority given to reservation holders who have been invited to order.
Rivian R2’s online configurator is already open for buyers to save a preferred build.
The first version available to order is the R2 Performance with Launch Package, which includes Rivian‘s Autonomy+ suite and starts at $57,990. The R2 Premium is due in late 2026 and the $48,490 Standard in late 2027 — 18 months after Scaringe’s promised timeline.
Why the Timing Matters
The company began volume production at its Normal, Illinois, plant in mid-April and plans as many as 25,000 R2 units this year.
Most of its 2026 delivery growth, guided at 62,000 to 67,000 vehicles, rests on the model, and consumer R2 volume is what stands to dilute a first quarter in which Amazon accounted for roughly half of Rivian‘s automotive revenue.
US Sales and R2 Scale
The company’s broader US sales slipped in May even as the SUV ramped behind the scenes, as covered in Rivian US Sales Drop in May Despite ‘Hundreds’ of Internal R2 Deliveries.
Motor Intelligence data captured the R1 models and the Amazon-co-developed commercial vans but not the R2, which was still reaching only employees during the month.
The scale of that build showed up in Rivian R2 Sighting Points to 580-Plus Units Built in First Month, which traced a production unit carrying VIN 581 to around May 20 — implying more than 580 cars assembled, and an average near 20 a day, since saleable output began on April 22.
On the product itself, Rivian R2 Matches Tesla Model Y Efficiency Despite Heavier Build detailed EPA and Department of Energy figures showing the R2 Performance matching the Model Y Performance at 105 MPGe and 32 kWh per 100 miles while traveling 24 miles farther on a charge, despite weighing more than 530 pounds extra and pushing a boxier shape through the air.
