Rivian said the R2’s Premium trim remains on track to become available in late 2026, disputing EV‘s report of a delay — after founder and chief executive RJ Scaringe told three different analysts on Thursday’s earnings call that the model’s additional trims would arrive in early 2027.
“The R2 Premium trim will become available in late 2026, with the R2 Standard trim following in early 2027,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to EV on Friday.
The statement landed hours after EV reported the timeline shift and as the shares fell as much as 7.7%, with the trim timeline overshadowing a second-quarter beat and a wave of price-target increases.
What Scaringe Said, 3 Times and to Whom
The dispute turns on the founder and CEO’s own words and on the questions they answered.
The first came in response to Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney, the opening question of the Q&A, on the R2’s ramp and demand.
Scaringe described reservation-to-order conversion on the $57,990 Launch Edition — “a most expensive version of R2” — as “meaningfully higher than what we expected.”
The founder continued by saying: “Now, of course, with that said, we are looking forward to introducing the other trims, our mid-spec and our base or standard spec, as we look at the early part of 2027.”
The second answered the most direct question of the call.
TD Cowen’s Itay Michaeli asked “whether you do expect to deliver a material amount of the premium trims this year, or will R2 sales predominantly be the performance trim this year.”
Scaringe replied: “To start, as you said, we have our performance variant, the most expensive variant of R2 that we’ve launched with. We’ll be introducing the premium and our standard trims, as we look at early 2027” — returning to the point moments later: “know that those will be coming, as I said, at the early part of 2027.”
The third came in an answer to analyst Dan Levy about the deliberately simplified launch.
After explaining that the Launch Edition’s limited build combinations were “highly intentional to facilitate a smoother and faster ramp,” Scaringe addressed buyers directly: “That doesn’t, of course, mean we’re not going to launch those other variants. For any customers that are waiting for a standard trim or a premium trim, don’t worry. We’re on it. Those will be coming in the early part of 2027.”
The Premium, at $53,990, has been slated for late 2026 since the model’s March launch, when Rivian announced deliveries would begin with the $57,990 Performance “followed by additional Premium configurations in late 2026 and Standard configurations in 2027.”
Two Explanations in Two Emails
EV approached Rivian on Friday morning, before publication of its report, asking whether the second trim had moved from late 2026 to early 2027, and was directed by a company spokesman to the product communications team.
The team’s first response said EV had “misunderstood” the chief executive: “There are no delays in our planned rollout of R2 and future trims.
The R2 Standard trim is still coming early 2027, which is what RJ was referring to,” the email said, adding that the Premium is “coming later this year.”
EV replied with the three transcript passages, two of which name the Premium trim explicitly and the third one where the founder refers to both trims remaining before saying 2027.
The company then issued its attributable statement — and offered a different explanation.
In comments the company marked as background, it said the chief executive’s quotes “reflect the overall timeline for rolling out additional R2 variants at scale, rather than any shift or delay,” and that the planned rollout “remains completely on track.”
The Word Doing the Work
The statement says the Premium “will become available” in late 2026 — a word that could cover the opening of orders, the start of production, or customer deliveries. EV asked Rivian to specify which one should be associated with.
“‘Available’ refers to when customer orders and initial deliveries are scheduled to begin for each respective trim,” the company said in a further response on Friday. “We aren’t sharing more granular milestone dates at this time, but we will share more details closer to each launch window.”
By that definition, initial deliveries of the R2 Premium are scheduled to begin in late 2026 — a timeline that sits directly against a fourth remark from Thursday’s call.
Asked by Needham’s Chris Pierce about reservation holders who have not converted, Scaringe said the company’s guidance reflects those conversion dynamics “but ultimately beginning the delivery of those different trims in 2027.”
Below is the full reply from Scaringe.
“Well, thanks, Chris. Yeah, of course, there’s a long list of reasons that someone may decide not to convert. The biggest is they’re waiting for a different build combination than what we have in the Launch package. That’s by far and away the most common reason for someone to not convert a reservation into an order. As I said, recognizing that conversion rates are higher, that’s been something we’ve had to dynamically really watch super carefully because we’re providing delivery windows to our Launch Edition customers. That requires us to make projections around what the conversion rates will be, ultimately, when you think about working through the backlog of reservations. The way that we’ve tried to provide guidance on this is representative of thinking about those conversions, but ultimately beginning the delivery of those different trims in 2027” — Rivian’s founder stated, according to the Investing.com transcript.
The company’s clarification and the chief executive’s four references to 2027 now describe the same rollout with a quarter between them.
The timeline carries weight beyond one trim.
The cheaper R2 configurations are the vehicle’s path from a $57,990 launch car toward the mass market, and Rivian itself told analysts on Thursday that waiting for a different build is the leading reason reservation holders have not yet converted to orders.
The company has guided to 20,000 to 25,000 R2 deliveries this year, weighted toward a fourth quarter in which its second production shift begins contributing volume.
The Stock Since the Print
The tape tells the arc of the two days. Rivian shares climbed as much as 5.3% in Thursday’s extended session, touching $17.72 after the results, and opened Friday at $17.01 — above Thursday’s $16.83 close — before the reversal set in.
By early afternoon the stock had fallen as low as $15.16, down 9.9% on the day and 14.4% from the post-earnings high, erasing roughly $2.4 billion in market value at the low.
The decline ran against a uniformly friendlier sell side on Friday morning.
TD Cowen’s Itay Michaeli — one of the three analysts whose questions drew the early-2027 answers — raised his price target to $21 from $20 with a Buy rating, Wells Fargo’s Colin Langan lifted his to $16 from $15 at Equal Weight.
Additionally, RBC Capital’s Tom Narayan went to $16 from $14 at Sector Perform, and Morgan Stanley’s Andrew Percoco increased to $14 from $13 while maintaining the Underweight rating.
Cantor Fitzgerald’s Andres Sheppard held his Neutral rating and $19 target, modeling roughly 18,228 third-quarter deliveries.
