Electric-vehicle maker Rivian began delivery of a cheaper SUV on Tuesday as it aims to take customers from Tesla and others.
The long-anticipated R2, which will eventually be available for less than $45,000, could help boost the market share of the Irvine company better known for vehicles priced around $77,000.
The first R2s to roll off the company’s production line in Normal, Ill., are the performance version, starting at $57,990. Rivian said the R2 Premium will arrive in late 2026 for around $54,000, followed by an R2 Standard version in 2027 priced at $44,990.
“Rivian is really trying to prove its worth,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds. “They’ve gone past that initial stage and are hoping to move on to mass market products.”
The R2 Performance is still an expensive vehicle for many Americans, but it’s a step down from Rivian’s nearly $77,000 R1S. It’s typical for an automaker to launch the most expensive version of a new vehicle first, experts said.
Whether the R2 will be the success Rivian is hoping for won’t become clear until late 2027, once the standard versions are widely available. Chief Executive RJ Scaringe said the company is aiming to compete with not just other EV makers, but also traditional auto companies such as Jeep and Subaru.
“More mainstream people are going to be in on the R2, especially for the lower-priced models,” auto analyst Brian Moody said. “You’re always going to have early adopters, but there’s a lot more customers to go around in the $45,000 to $55,000 range.”
According to Cox Automotive, the average transaction price for a new EV in the U.S. is $55,000, compared with $49,000 for a gas-powered vehicle. Used EV sales have been surging lately because of their value, with an average transaction price of around $36,000.
Though there’s significant hype surrounding the launch of R2, investors have been unimpressed. Rivian shares fell 7% on Tuesday.
There has been a broad cooling of the EV market. Major automakers including Honda and Ford have cut back their EV options as excitement for the vehicles has fallen under the Trump administration. A $7,500 EV tax credit for new vehicles expired in September.
Drury added that an announcement of a new product would generally generate more buzz than the first deliveries of a vehicle that’s already been in the public eye.
“This is simply them delivering on a promise, and the market itself is not what it was when they had first conjured up the vehicle,” Drury said.
Rivian lost $3.6 billion last year and hasn’t been profitable since its founding in 2009. Scaringe said the company will reach profitability on a per-unit production basis with the R2 this year, but estimated that the company won’t turn an overall profit until closer to 2030.
Karl Brauer, an auto industry expert at ISeeCars.com, said the premium and standard versions of the R2 probably will sell in much higher volumes than the performance version.
“It’s in theory an exciting moment, because they’re launching this new version, but it’s the expensive one,” Brauer said. “There’s no indication in my mind that there will be huge, high-volume sales.”
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