Rivian‘s Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid sat inside a pre-production R2 at the SXSW festival in Austin and walked through what he called “a complete new UX framework” while revealing for the first time the sequence and timing of first customer deliveries.
The interview with Out of Spec founder Kyle Conner, published on Tuesday, offered the deepest look yet at the software powering the mid-size SUV that Rivian officially debuted last week with a starting price of $57,990 for the Performance Launch Edition.
Software Overhaul
Bensaid described a ground-up redesign of Rivian‘s operating system that replaces the R1’s horizontal navigation bar with a vertical sidebar, introduces multi-panel layering that allows several controls to display simultaneously, and adds a contextual settings menu with built-in search.
“Think about it as actually a complete new UX framework. A real overhaul,” Bensaid told Conner.
“It might seem simple in terms of the details, but we had to really go into the insides of the operating system to enable that,” he added.
The R2’s steering wheel features software-defined scroll wheels with variable haptic feedback — different detent patterns for volume, temperature, and fan speed.
Bensaid called them “one of the things that I’m really, really excited about,” describing the experience as “that satisfying tactile feedback, that playful haptic experience, really distinct feeling.”
He demonstrated how a single click on the scroll wheel can switch between driving views that previously required navigating three menus deep on the R1.
“Having a framework like this which is software defined — I mean, we got a ton of great feedback yesterday from media and owners,” Bensaid said, adding that future over-the-air updates could allow customers to create their own shortcut mappings.
The settings menu was also mentioned in comparison to the R1 models.
“The number one thing I hate about our UI today is settings,” Bensaid said, before showing a new contextual search that surfaces controls — such as regenerative braking, buried in the driver assistant section — with a single query. “I bet you money today, to go and find that on the R1 UI, you will spend a lot of time.”
R1 Gets the Update Too
Bensaid confirmed that the new software will reach existing R1 owners — both Gen 1 and Gen 2 — in the second half of this year.
“All these great changes that we’re introducing for the R2, they will be part of a big refresh that we will have later this year for the R1 as well,” he said, adding that backward compatibility would hold “as long as the hardware supports it.”
Future of the Interface
Asked about the future direction of in-car software, Bensaid described a shift away from traditional full-screen applications toward what he called “flexible general-purpose UX panels.”
“Imagine in the future, as we have more and more advanced agentic integrations, you can imagine this becoming your calendar if you have an alert, but then it doesn’t occupy the screen all the time. It becomes contextual information,” he said.
“The UI becomes a layering of data that we can go and grab from different applications. We don’t necessarily need to be in that classic mode of having a full integration of a whole application.”
Bensaid is also co-CEO of RV Tech, the $5.8 billion software joint venture between Rivian and Volkswagen Group — meaning the architecture debuting on the R2 will also underpin future vehicles from Audi, Volkswagen, and other VW Group brands.
First Delivery Details
It was near the end of the interview that Bensaid disclosed the most anticipated delivery timeline.
Until now, the company — including CEO RJ Scaringe — had communicated only that first deliveries would begin “later this spring” without clarifying whether that referred to customers or employees, or providing a more specific window.
“We’re in the final — obviously — stretch of the R2 validation, where we had the manufacturing validation builds, and then we’re getting into serious production really soon,” Bensaid stated.
The Software Chief announced that — as the company had done with the R1 models — the first units will be handed over to Rivian employees.
“We’ll start internally with employees who will have the cars for a few months, that will help us to accumulate a ton of miles but then also have that return of experience on the overall software,” the executive said before revealing the timeline for the first external deliveries.
“And then we’re going public with the first lucky customers end of spring.”
The “end of spring” language narrows the delivery window to late May or June — consistent with signals the company has provided through other channels.
Earlier this year, Rivian told local outlet WGLT during a plant tour in Normal, Illinois, that first customer deliveries were “expected by June.”
In a separate communication last week, the company told reservation holders they would see their “estimated time to order” in June.
The fact that employees receive cars “for a few months” before public deliveries at the end of spring implies internal vehicles will start being distributed over the next weeks.
Rivian has also begun contacting reservation holders to confirm their pre-orders for the Performance Launch Edition, though the online configurator has not yet opened.
The company said last week that it “will open in the coming months.”
R2 Lineup
The Performance Launch Edition at $57,990 is the first trim to reach customers, followed by a Premium variant at $53,990 in late 2026 and a Standard Long Range at $48,490 in early 2027.
The entry-level Standard at $45,000 — the most anticipated trim — is not expected until late 2027. Scaringe has pledged to hold that price despite the elimination of the federal $7,500 EV tax credit, but the current timeline places the most affordable version up to 18 months away from first deliveries.
The R2 Chief Engineer has said the model “performed better than we ever expected,” while Rivian’s sales chief said last week that reservation response has “exceeded” management expectations.
Bensaid closed with a personal note. “I have the chance to drive it every weekend. My daughter loves it. She sits in the second row. It’s actually more spacious than the R1. She loves the screen. She’s in love with the screen,” the software chief said.
“And it’s just the right size. If you don’t know the R1, this is actually your perfect car.”
