Roughly half of Rivian‘s R2 customers opted to lease the midsize SUV in the first few days of deliveries, a rate the company said matched internal projections.
The information was revealed by the company’s Vice President of Sales Gary Gaines, speaking with The Wall Street Journal.
Gaines cited the R2’s lower barrier to entry on the leasing side when compared to the R1S.
A lease on the R2 requires a $3,500 down payment, compared with $6,500 for the R1S — a $3,000 difference that narrows the upfront gap between the two vehicles more sharply than the sticker prices alone suggest.
“R2’s a new product, and there’s a significant amount of demand,” Gaines told the media outlet.
However, the comments land against a backdrop of vocal disappointment from reservation holders over R2 lease costs.
When order invitations went out last week, the payment estimator on Rivian‘s configurator showed a 36-month lease on the R2 Performance AWD at $829 per month, assuming the $3,500 down payment, 10,000 annual miles and a credit score of 740 or above.
A 24-month term under the same assumptions pushed the figure to $949.
Social media and Reddit threads filled quickly with reservation holders pointing out that the R2’s monthly cost sits close to — and in some cases above — lease rates on the larger, more expensive R1S and R1T.
Many said they would wait for cheaper trims rather than commit at the current price.
The 50% lease rate also sits above the broader EV market average.
Edmunds data published by the WSJ report showed about 45% of EVs purchased in 2026 so far were leased — down sharply from roughly 69% in 2025, before the federal tax credit expired.
Post-Tax-Credit Leasing Environment
Lease economics across the US EV market shifted materially after the Trump administration ended the $7,500 federal EV tax credit last year under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
During the Biden era, the Inflation Reduction Act applied the credit to nearly any leased EV through a commercial-purchase loophole, allowing automakers’ finance arms to pass the subsidy directly to lessees.
Without that subsidy, automakers lost the primary tool they had used to compress lease costs.
Rivian itself relied heavily on leasing to channel the full $7,500 credit to R1 buyers.
Lower-priced R1 trims that fell under the $80,000 MSRP cap — mainly Dual Standard and Standard+ configurations — qualified for a partial $3,750 purchase credit, because Rivian met one of the IRA’s two battery-sourcing requirements but not the other.
The commercial lease loophole under Section 45W bypassed the MSRP cap, income limits and both battery-sourcing tests entirely, allowing Rivian‘s finance arm to claim the full $7,500 and pass it through as a capitalised cost reduction.
For the higher-trim R1S and R1T builds — Tri-Motor, Quad-Motor and Max battery configurations that pushed well past $80,000 and made up much of the company’s sales mix — leasing was the only route to any federal credit at all. The R2 now enters a market where that lever no longer exists.
Production and Demand
Rivian‘s demand claims carry additional weight given the pace at which R2 production has moved.
A customer this week took delivery of unit No. 985, the highest serial number publicly documented for the model, less than two months after volume production began on April 22 at the Normal, Illinois, plant.
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 — figures sourced from the bank, not Rivian.
The company’s full-year guidance calls for 62,000 to 67,000 total vehicle deliveries, with 20,000 to 25,000 of those R2 units.
Chief Financial Officer Claire McDonough has said meaningful R2 volume should not be expected until the second half of the year, concentrating the ramp into the final two quarters.
VP of Sales Gary Gaines had previously said at SXSW in March that the R2’s reception “exceeded even those expectations,” calling the vehicle one that would make Rivian “accessible to so many more people.”
Broader Rivian sales data underscores the urgency behind the R2 launch.
Motor Intelligence estimates showed the company registered 3,100 vehicles in the US in May, a 15.9% decline from 3,688 units in the same month a year ago.
Rivian has responded with its broadest set of R1 lease reductions since the second-generation models launched in June 2024, cutting the R1S Standard to $799 per month from $899 and applying similar reductions across Dual-Motor, Tri-Motor and Quad-Motor configurations.
A $3,000 lease bonus and 1.99% APR financing on select trims remain active.
R2 Trim Pipeline
Only the R2 Performance with Launch Package at $57,990 is currently available to order. Three additional trims sit behind it in the pipeline.
A dual-motor Premium at $53,990 is expected in late 2026.
A single-motor, rear-wheel-drive Standard Long Range at $48,490 follows in the first half of 2027.
The Standard R2, priced at $44,990 — the base variant Scaringe has called “non-negotiable” — is now targeted for summer 2027.
The timeline was pulled forward from late 2027 to address what Scaringe described as “perception concerns” following online backlash over the original schedule.
Lease terms for the upcoming configurations have not been disclosed.
