Rivian said on Saturday it was evaluating damage at its Normal, Illinois EV plant after a severe storm with winds measured at 85 mph struck Central Illinois on Friday night.
The storm hit ‘Building 2,’ where the Body and General Assembly of its new R2 SUV are located.
The setback comes two days after the first R2 vehicles were photographed parked in the customer delivery area outside the same plant — the location where Rivian hands over cars to customers, and where employees who purchased R2 Launch Edition units are expected to collect their vehicles.
Those pictures, posted on Wednesday by X user ‘EVguyZach’, provided the strongest signal yet that employee deliveries of the mid-size SUV had begun.
Aerial drone footage published by WGLT on Saturday morning showed a partially collapsed wall and roof on a building on the far southeast part of the sprawling complex, an area where multiple new structures were built to support production of the R2.
The damaged section appears to be a receiving area with a row of semitrailer truck stalls, according to the broadcaster’s description of the footage.
“We are currently evaluating the extent of the damage,” Rivian said in a statement to Bloomington-Normal public radio station WGLT, which also confirmed no one was injured.
An interior photo of the same building posted to the r/Rivian subreddit and the Rivian Forums on Saturday morning showed water on the factory floor and exposed structural beams where roof panels had been torn away.
The original photo was posted by a user under the handle “jgilbs,” who captioned the image “Damage from inside building 2.”
Employee accounts
Two users who identified themselves as Rivian employees commented on the Reddit thread on Saturday morning, offering contested accounts of what the damaged building contains.
A user posting under the handle ‘International-Art360’ wrote that they had been inside the facility “not even 24 hours ago” and disputed earlier comments framing the damage as contained to empty warehouse space.
“This is not just ‘warehouse space,'” the user wrote. “While you are correct about no robots this is still a very crucial part of the plant.” The user described the damaged section as “a small corner of the warehouse where they unload the semis,” and said that “directly behind where they were standing is the action.”
The user declined to provide more detail.
A second user posting as ‘JDDoss01’ wrote that the damaged section was “right next to my line” and corroborated the assessment that water was visible on the factory floor in the photo.
Timing Against R2 Production
Rivian began producing saleable R2 units with VIN numbers earlier this month ahead of a customer delivery schedule that starts by the end of spring.
VIN 5 was photographed in Kearney, Nebraska on April 4 while being driven cross-country from Normal to Rivian‘s Irvine, California headquarters.
VIN 23 was spotted near Moab, Utah last week, and VIN 36 was photographed in Catalina Cove paint earlier this week before the Wednesday customer-delivery-area sighting.
Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid confirmed on X in early April that this month would mark the start of R2 employee deliveries.
Rivian emailed all employees on April 2 about the R2 employee delivery programme for Launch Edition vehicles, with both Rivian and Rivian-VW Technologies Group joint venture employees eligible.
The company is targeting 20,000 to 25,000 R2 deliveries in 2026 within a total production target of 62,000 to 67,000 vehicles.
85 Mph Winds
The National Weather Service recorded an 85 mph wind gust in Normal at 9:06 PM CDT via anemometer as a powerful storm line swept east across Central Illinois.
More than three-quarters of McLean County was under a tornado warning at one point, according to McLean County Emergency Management Agency Director Cathy Beck.
“The storm was pretty severe,” Beck said in comments reported by WGLT. “Sirens were being sounded all over the place.”
Beck said there were seven possible tornadoes in McLean County on Friday night.
Two NWS survey crews were in the field on Saturday, NWS meteorologist Alex Erwin told WGLT, but the scope of the damage could delay confirmation of whether any tornadoes touched down.
Power Outages,
Around 23,000 Ameren Illinois and Corn Belt Energy customers lost power immediately after the storm, with McLean County the single hardest-hit county in Illinois.
The outage count had dropped to about 4,400 by noon on Saturday, according to local media outlets.
“Our crews are actively assessing the situation and have identified multiple broken poles across both the distribution and transmission system,” Corn Belt said in a Facebook post. “Due to the extent of the damage, members should prepare for extended outage times as restoration efforts will require significant repairs.”
Normal Fire Department spokesperson Matt Swaney said his agency had responded to dozens of emergency calls by late Friday, with off-duty firefighters called in and mutual aid from Towanda, Carlock, Danvers and Bloomington.
Plant context
Rivian‘s Normal facility is the company’s only operating assembly plant, producing all of its current R1T pickups, R1S SUVs and electric delivery vans for Amazon.
A second plant under construction in Social Circle, Georgia broke ground in September 2025 with a planned 400,000-vehicle annual capacity, but site preparation is still under way and vertical construction has not yet begun.
Rivian delivered 42,247 vehicles globally in 2025, down 18% from 51,579 in 2024. Customer deliveries of the R2 Performance Launch Edition at $57,990 are expected by late June, with reservation holders receiving their “estimated time to order” in June.
