Rivian‘s R2 production ramp gained a fresh data point on Monday, after an enthusiast photographed a unit carrying VIN 904 — the highest publicly logged serial yet for the midsize SUV.
Tim Miller, posting on X, said he saw the vehicle, finished in the new Half Moon Grey colour, after taking a demo drive.
“Saw vin 904 on a half moon grey R2 after my demo drive today,” Miller wrote, adding, “Production is ramping!”
The window label in his photo reads 7PD2EAAB5VN000904, with the trailing 000904 marking the production serial and the code matching the format of an earlier dual-motor all-wheel-drive R2 built at Rivian‘s plant in Normal, Illinois.
The VIN Trail
Without official volume figures, the R2 ramp has been tracked almost entirely through VIN sightings, and VIN 904 extends a climb that began within days of the external customer deliveries starting.
Rivian officially started volume, saleable R2 production on April 22.
The earliest saleable unit spotted, VIN 5, surfaced at a charging station in Kearney, Nebraska, in early April, en route from Normal to the company’s Irvine, California, headquarters.
VIN 23 followed days later on off-road trails near Moab, Utah, driven by employees putting test miles on company-owned units.
VIN 36 then appeared at the Normal plant’s customer-delivery zone, and VIN 100 was logged by early May.
At an April plant event with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, attendees saw windshield numbers above 500, which the company indicated corresponded to VINs.
By around May 20, a unit carrying VIN 581 — its full label 7PD2EAAB7VN000581 — pointed to more than 580 cars built in the first month.
VIN 904 now lifts that tally toward 900, broadly in line with enthusiast trackers’ estimate that well over 1,000 R2s have been built and configured.
The jump from VIN 581 in late May to VIN 904 by mid-June implies output has kept up a steady clip, though the gaps between sightings make any precise daily rate unreliable.
A caveat runs through all of it. VIN numbers are not confirmed cumulative counts, may not map cleanly to build dates, and the sightings come from owners and trackers rather than Rivian itself.
A Demo-Drive Sighting
That VIN 904 turned up after a demo drive is itself a marker of the rollout’s stage.
Rivian opened public R2 demo drives last week at its Spaces across the US, the same day it began sending order invitations to reservation holders.
The Half Moon Grey finish is one of three new exterior colours introduced for the R2, alongside Catalina Cove and Esker Silver.
Production Context
Rivian completed its first manufacturing validation builds in mid-January, then began saleable output on April 22, with employee deliveries starting the same day.
An EF-1 tornado had struck the south end of the Normal plant five days earlier, on April 17, though Chief Executive RJ Scaringe said vehicles still came off the line that morning and the ramp plan was unchanged.
The company said this month that hundreds of employees had already taken delivery and were logging miles nationwide.
The Normal plant runs a single shift, with a second planned for late 2026 and a third in 2027.
That facility has capacity for 215,000 vehicles a year, including up to 155,000 R2s.
Rivian is targeting 20,000 to 25,000 R2 deliveries in 2026 within total guidance of 62,000 to 67,000 vehicles, with 5,000 R2s expected in California alone, according to an EPA filing.
Meeting that range depends heavily on the second-half ramp, since most of the year’s growth rests on the R2.
Analysts expect the curve to be steep.
BNP Paribas has modelled fewer than 400 R2 deliveries in the second quarter, around 7,000 in the third and roughly 15,000 in the fourth, concentrating the volume into the back half of the year.
Rivian delivered 10,365 vehicles in the first quarter — all R1s and commercial vans — and will need to nearly double its quarterly pace to reach guidance.
The model’s behind-the-scenes climb did not show up in May registrations. Rivian‘s broader US sales slipped that month because Motor Intelligence’s data captured the R1 line and commercial vans but not the R2, which was still reaching only employees.
The Lineup
The first R2 to reach customers is the Performance with Launch Package at $57,990, which bundles the Autonomy+ driver-assistance suite.
The dual-motor all-wheel-drive setup produces 656 horsepower and 609 lb-ft of torque, with a 0-to-60 mph time of 3.6 seconds and an EPA-estimated range of up to 330 miles.
The R2 Premium, at $53,990, is due in late 2026, while a Standard Long Range at $48,490 — billed as the range leader at 345 miles — is expected in early 2027.
The entry Standard at about $45,000, the price Rivian has promoted since the R2’s 2024 reveal, is not due until late 2027, placing the cheapest version more than a year out.
Scaringe has described the R2 as the vehicle that will turn the company into a large-scale, profitable manufacturer, and VIN 904 — whatever its precise place in the sequence — is one more sign the line keeps moving.
