U.S. electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian has laid off roughly 140 employees, or about 1% of its workforce, as part of efforts to streamline operations ahead of the launch of its mid-priced R2 SUV, TechCrunch reported on Thursday, citing multiple affected workers.
The job cuts primarily impacted salaried manufacturing roles and began earlier this week, according to the report. Some of the affected staff were told their positions were being eliminated due to “process inefficiencies.”
Despite the cuts, Rivian said earlier this week its expansion plans remain on track.
Chief Operating Officer Javier Varela said that the company’s Normal, Illinois plant is “firmly on track” to be prepared for production of the R2, which is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2026.
The R2, priced from around $45,000, will be Rivian’s fourth vehicle line, joining the R1S SUV, R1T pickup, and commercial delivery vans built for Amazon.
This marks the third workforce reduction at Rivian in the past 18 months. The company had previously slashed about 10% of its workforce in February 2024, followed by another 1% reduction in April.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Rivian said it had made “the difficult decision to reduce a small number of our salaried manufacturing employees as part of an ongoing effort to improve operational efficiency for R2.”
The company said laid-off employees are being encouraged to apply for other open roles within Rivian.
The automaker, headquartered in Irvine, California, employed 14,861 employees across its North America and Europe locations.
As reported by EV this week, Rivian has delivered approximately 10,000 electric vans to Amazon between December and June. The e-commerce giant now operates over 30,000 Rivian vehicles in the U.S., along with several hundred in Germany.
Earlier this week, Baird forecast that Rivian would fall short of second-quarter delivery expectations, citing an upcoming one-month production shutdown to retool its factory for future models.
