Rivian has restarted factory tours at its Normal, Illinois, plant, giving customers who choose factory pickup a guided walkthrough of the assembly line where their vehicle was built.
Screenshots shared by a launch-day reservation holder on Sunday show a “Factory Pickup” delivery method now live in customer accounts — the first confirmation that the programme, quietly discontinued in early 2025, has returned alongside R2 deliveries.
“Enjoy a tour of our plant in Normal, Illinois and see how electric adventure vehicles are made,” the delivery page, available to those with an account, reads.
“We’ll bring out your vehicle and walk you through its features and accessories. You’ll get a full onboarding experience with a guided drive to help you get acquainted with your vehicle.”
For trade-ins, Rivian asks customers to bring the outgoing vehicle to the factory.
“We’ll answer any questions you might have and get your paperwork squared away before you drive off,” the page adds.
Factory pickup is free, while home delivery carries a $1,500 fee, which Rivian notes may be taxable depending on the state.
Operating hours for the Normal factory are listed as Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
A reservation holder who placed a day-one order with his father described the discovery as a surprise.
“Back when my dad and I placed the order we had hoped we could do a Factory Tour in Normal, but all the news at the time was that they stopped doing tours so we had no expectations,” he wrote. “Lo and behold today while starting the Purchase process it gave us the option to do a Factory Tour while picking up in Normal!”
Rivian has not made a public announcement about the programme’s return.
Factory Tours
Rivian has offered and withdrawn factory access several times since production began at Normal in 2021.
An August 2021 company blog post described 90-minute tours for early preorder holders that included “stops in stamping, body assembly, paint, general assembly and trim lines, as well as detailed demonstrations of the Rivian skateboard platform and battery pack.”
Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe walked through the facility in an official June 2022 video, explaining how Rivian produced vehicles at scale from stamping through end of line.
Through 2023, tours ran on an appointment basis for customers collecting vehicles at the plant.
One R1T owner who took factory delivery in April 2023 wrote that the tour “was prearranged in conjunction with our delivery.”
Another described a similar experience in January 2023, adding that the tour guide “said they were planning to have public tours.”
Appointment-based visits continued into 2024. Last year, however, Rivian customer service began turning requests away.
“I would be more than happy to assist you with this but unfortunately Rivian does not perform plant tours anymore,” a representative told a customer in January 2025, according to a post on RivianForums.
Another owner reflected that tours had run through 2024 “as long as you made an appointment, alas they have stopped.”
In May 2025, both content creators Kyle Conner and Chris Hilbert visited the Normal plant.
Kyle Conner, from Out of Spec Reviews, was invited for a full in-depth factory tour video in May 2025.
X user and Rivian owner Chris Hilbert did a factory delivery that same month, and described the experience as a “factory catwalk tour.”
However, it remains unclear if factory tours have reopened to the public in early 2025.
VIN Assignments Surpass 2,000
Rivian‘s R2 production ramp has accelerated sharply since customer orders opened on June 9.
Customer deliveries began with the $57,990 R2 Performance trim, with the Launch Package — the only version currently available to order.
A Premium trim at $53,990 is expected in late 2026, with a Standard Long Range at $48,490 arriving in the first half of 2027 and the $45,000 base variant following in late 2027.
VIN assignments for the debut model have surpassed 2,000, climbing from 1,300 to 2,000 in around a week, according to data shared by owners on the RivianForums and social media.
On Sunday, X user ‘mhanley1202’ reported that he would take delivery of a Rivian R2 with “a VIN in the 2100s” on Tuesday — the highest confirmed serial number to date.
On the same date, Rivian notified a new wave of order-holders that their vehicles had entered pre-production, the step immediately before a VIN is attributed.
“We are getting your vehicle ready for production,” the email reads. “When your R2 is assigned a vehicle identification number (VIN), you’ll be able to complete the purchasing experience and schedule your delivery.”
Earlier last week, the company guaranteed that all US-based R2 reservation holders would see an ordering window in their account by June 30 — the close of the second quarter.
An ordering window gives reservation holders an estimate of when to expect an order invitation, the step that unlocks the configurator and converts a reservation into a firm order.
R1 owners have received priority in the R2 invite sequence, alongside reservation timestamp, proximity to service centres and expiring leases.
A community dataset on the RivianForums found that 48% of R2 reservation holders already own an R1.
About half of early R2 buyers chose to lease in the opening days, Rivian has said.
R2 Ramp Anchors Full-Year Guidance
Rivian is on track to deliver more than 1,100 R2 units in the second quarter, based on VIN data and delivery timelines reported by early buyers.
VIN plate observations from earlier in June showed manufacture dates in May 2026 across a range spanning approximately VIN 383 to 713, indicating Rivian had pre-built inventory at Normal before the order invite rollout began.
Rivian officially started volume, saleable R2 production on April 22 at Normal, where the midsize SUV is assembled alongside the R1T and R1S.
Management has guided for 62,000 to 67,000 total vehicle deliveries in 2026, expecting R1 and commercial van volumes to hold roughly in line with 2025’s 42,247 units — implying 20,000 to 25,000 R2 deliveries in the model’s first year.
Rivian will report second-quarter production and delivery figures in the first few days of July, ahead of full quarterly results in August.
