Rivian has quietly discontinued the Dual Standard version of its flagship R1T and R1S on Tuesday, in a website update first reported by Rivian owner and content creator Chris Hilbert.
Hilbert flagged that the entry-level trim was pulled from Rivian‘s offers and financing page minutes before the rest of the site was updated to match.
The financing text that had listed “new 2026 R1 Dual Standard, Dual or Tri vehicles” earlier in June now reads only “new 2026 R1 Dual or Tri,” with the cheapest configuration scrubbed from the eligibility list.
The main “Meet the R1S lineup” page changed in step, and now opens with the pricier Dual on the Large battery pack at $83,990, followed by the Tri and Quad models, with no Dual Standard card shown at all.
The Cheapest Rivian, Retired
The Dual Standard had been the most affordable way into a new Rivian R1, built around the company’s smaller Standard battery, which used lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, chemistry.
Before the change, the R1S Dual Standard started at $76,990 with an EPA-estimated range of about 270 miles, while the R1T Dual Standard started at $72,990.
With the cheapest trim gone, the floor for a new R1S rises to the $83,990 Dual on the Large pack, which carries an estimated 329 miles of range, with the R1T following the same pattern.
That move lifts the entry price for a new R1 by roughly $7,000 and widens the gap to the more affordable R2, the smaller SUV Rivian is preparing to launch at a starting price of around $45,000.
Until the removal, the Dual Standard had carried some of the lineup’s most accessible deals, including an advertised lease of about $899 a month over 36 months with $8,794 due at signing, alongside 1.99% APR financing over 60 months.
Higher trims had at times come with sharper terms, including 0.99% APR on the Dual with Performance Upgrade, but the Dual Standard held the lowest sticker price in the range.
Why Rivian Pulled It
On the technical side, the LFP-based Standard pack had drawn persistent complaints over range accuracy.
Beginning in late 2025, owners reported that affected vehicles would show meaningful charge remaining, sometimes 10% to 20%, yet lose power unexpectedly or display unreliable range predictions.
Rivian acknowledged the problem and pushed software updates, advising drivers to charge to 100% regularly to help the system recalibrate, but the issues continued for some cars.
Affected owners pressed the company on social media and in owner forums through the spring, and the recurring complaints sat awkwardly against a trim that was already marked for retirement.
Rather than keep supporting a configuration that kept generating support tickets, the company appears to have chosen to retire it.
As the lowest-priced and likely lowest-margin R1 variant, the Dual Standard sat close to the newly launched R2 on price.
The discontinuation allows the EV maker to sharpen the separation between the premium R1 family and the mass-market R2, and steers buyers toward higher-margin trims.
A Note on the LFP Trade-Off
LFP packs are generally cheaper to build, more thermally stable, longer-lasting over many cycles, and tolerant of daily charging to 100% without the degradation that worries owners of nickel-based packs.
Their weakness is energy density, which means less range for a given size and weight, and in Rivian‘s base Dual implementation, the calibration troubles outweighed those advantages.
Higher R1 trims continue to use the larger nickel-based Large and Max packs, which were not affected.
The chemistry has nonetheless kept spreading across cheaper electric cars worldwide, with BYD building much of its lineup around LFP and Tesla using it in standard-range models, a sign its economics still hold even where Rivian stepped back.
Signaled in March
Tuesday’s website change was not the first sign.
Rivian had emailed customers in early March under the heading “Dual Standard is ending,” saying it would refine the R1 lineup later in 2026 and sunset the Dual Standard trims on both the R1S and R1T.
The company leaned on limited-time lease and clearance deals to move remaining inventory at the time, with some promotions cutting monthly payments to around $749.
By June, those offers had normalised, before the configuration was stripped from the most visible customer-facing pages this week.
Some lease examples elsewhere on the site may still reference Dual Standard pricing temporarily, reflecting remaining stock, but the dedicated offers and lineup pages now exclude it.
The company is on track to deliver more than 1,100 R2 units in the second quarter and expects second-half deliveries to nearly double on the new SUV and Amazon delivery vans.
