Rivian‘s founder and CEO RJ Scaringe stated on Thursday that the R2 mid-size SUV will remain available only in its most expensive configuration until early next year.
As EV reported earlier this week, the delay comes as a string of quality reports complicates the model’s critical production ramp,
The EV maker launched the R2 on March 12, two years after the model’s unveil, with external deliveries starting on June 9.
Sales began with a Performance trim priced at $57,990, bundled with a Launch Package that included the company’s in-house Autonomy+ advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS).
At the time of launch, Rivian said that “deliveries start in Spring 2026, beginning with R2 Performance with Launch Package (starting at $57,990), followed by additional Premium configurations in late 2026 and Standard configurations in 2027.”
Invitations to order started being sent to reservation holders on June 9 — alongside test drives and deliveires — a month and a half after production of saleable units kicked off at its Normal, Illinois plant.
The Irvine-based company then reiterated the timeline — a Dual-Motor R2 Premium would arrive in “late 2026” with a price tag of $53,990, and Standard versions would follow next year.
These included a Long Range variant at $48,490 in early 2027, and the long-promised $44,990 trim in the summer.
On Thursday’s earnings call, however, Rivian‘s founder backed up on the timeline, when asked by TD Cowen analyst Itai Michaeli on “whether you do expect to deliver a material amount of the Premium trims this year.”
“To start, as you said, we have our performance variant, the most expensive variant of R2 that we’ve launched with,” RJ Scaringe explained, then adding that Rivian will “be introducing the Premium and our Standard trims, as we look at early 2027.”
A few minutes earlier in the call, Scaringe had already signaled the timeline when he said the company expected to introduce the “mid-spec and our base or standard spec, as we look at the early part of 2027.”
Contacted by EV early Friday, Rivian did not immediately answer.
The comments clarify that this year’s R2 volume — which Rivian expects to reach 20,000–25,000 units — will consist almost entirely of the $57,990 Performance Launch Edition.
Speaking about the current demand for the model, Scaringe also said that order conversion to the Launch Edition has been “meaningfully higher” than the company expected.
Production Timeline
Rivian began manufacturing saleable R2 units in late April. The company is currently running a single shift at its Normal, Illinois, plant.
“As a reminder, R2 production started with a single shift, and we expect to scale to two shifts by the end of the third quarter,” Scaringe reiterated on the call.
Speaking about the production ramp, the CEO added that “members of our supply chain team are spending time on-site with suppliers as we look towards supporting the ramp in the back half of the year and into next year.”
Chief Operations Officer Javier Varela added that the company does not expect a material volume contribution from the second shift during the third quarter, but expects to see an impact in the fourth quarter.
“That’s what we are doing now, focusing on training of the members in the assembly lines, training the team, the automation, getting the output higher and higher as we ramp,” Varela stated. “Of course, focusing on the supply chain. That is always not a surprise. I’ve lived many launches in my life, [it’s] always the supply chain is a part that requires special attention.”
VIN assignment data tracked by owners showed the R2 production pace surpassing 1,300 units within ten days of the June 9 launch, climbing toward 2,000 a week later, and jumping to 4,100 in the steepest weekly increase.
The pace slowed sharply more recently, with the count moving from roughly 4,100 to just above 5,000 over a two-week span.
Quality Issues
Since deliveries began, the R2 has produced five separate quality reports in 47 days, spanning paint, exterior lighting software, the high-voltage battery, charging hardware, and cabin components.
Each reached the public through owners, reviewers, or forum posts. One buyer received a vehicle with a mismatched front bumper colour, prompting Rivian to cancel the delivery and ship a replacement.
Owners on Rivian Forums separately reported handovers held over a faulty high-voltage battery communications module.
EV exclusively reported this week that the quality lapses are a direct result of layoffs carried out in October 2025.
A person familiar with the matter told EV that the restructuring — which cut more than 600 jobs — dismantled the vehicle operations organisation responsible for pre-delivery inspections.
The entire vehicle operations organisation was removed in that round, including at director level, the person said.
Vehicle operations teams at service centres had by then taken on sole accountability for vehicle quality, pre-delivery inspections, and final delivery standards, a remit that had widened over several years.
Nine days after R2 customer deliveries began, Rivian laid off more than 300 workers from its service and customer organisation — the same function vehicle operations had been folded into eight months earlier.
Guidance and Q2 Results
Rivian reiterated its raised full-year delivery guidance of 65,000 to 70,000 vehicles on Thursday, increased earlier this month upon positive delivery numbers during the second quarter.
CFO Claire McDonough framed the back-half challenge on the call.
“This implies approximately 42,400 to 47,400 deliveries in the second half of the year. We expect deliveries will be weighted towards the fourth quarter as we ramp R2,” she stated.
The company has guided to 20,000 to 25,000 R2 deliveries in 2026, with 5,000 expected in California.
A Cox Automotive estimate published earlier this month implied Rivian delivered roughly 789 R2 units in the second quarter, the model’s first partial period on the market.
McDonough said Rivian expects R2 to achieve positive gross profit as part of its 2026 exit rate.
“We believe it will directly translate into positive automotive gross profit for the business,” the CFO added.
Automotive gross profit is expected to be negatively affected in the third quarter by launch complexity and ramp inefficiencies before scale benefits materialize in the fourth quarter.
Rivian narrowed its adjusted EBITDA loss guidance to a range of $1.8 billion to $2.0 billion, a $50 million improvement at the midpoint, and cut its capital expenditure guidance to $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion, down $250 million at the midpoint.
The company ended the quarter with approximately $5.3 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, and raised approximately $1.3 billion in net proceeds from a follow-on equity offering in July.
