Biting Off More Than Rivian Can Chew

The Rivian team’s thinking about product has changed dramatically since it launched the R1T, R1S, and RCV, as Scaringe puts it, “within the same three-month period, and in the middle of COVID, and then into a supply chain crisis. It was impossibly hard, and we were digging ourselves out of all the complexity we inserted instantly.”

That experience has informed the current product cadence, which will see the R2 roll out with limited options and manufacturing complexity through the summer of 2027. “The version of me from seven years ago would have been launching R2, R3, and R3X all at the same time because I love product and want to see them all as fast as possible, but recognizing there’s so much demand for R2, we [decided to] satisfy that very large backlog of demand as we got ourselves operationally ready to launch these other things,” said Scaringe.

For the time being, the R2s will be built at the company’s Normal, Illinois, plant on a line separate from the R1 and RCV. Thus tooled, the facility is capable of producing about 160,000 R2s per year. Groundbreaking has occurred on Rivian’s Stanton Springs, Georgia, plant, where it hopes to build 300,000 R2s and R3s per year. Although the land has been cleared for this plant, vertical construction of the buildings themselves hadn’t started as of April 2026, and current estimates are that the first Georgia-built R2 doesn’t roll off the line until 2028.

R3 on Deck

What’s next then? According to Scaringe, “We think the next thing beyond R2 that will unlock the most market force as actually being R3. Future variants may come, but they would come subsequent to R3.”

Given the status of Rivian Georgia, that puts production of the R3 into 2028 at the earliest, likely as a 2029 model. If Scaringe’s timeline sticks, that also means the other “variants,” of the R2 and R3 are unlikely to hit the streets until 2029 at the earliest.

We’re expecting to see a couple variants—as well as two new products, the Rivian R4 and R5—once the Georgia factory is completed. We don’t yet know what form the R4 or R5 will take; we’ve heard rumblings about a Rivian “Adventure Van” in the past, but we’d be surprised if it ever sees the light of day.

As far as the R2 is concerned, a pickup version is almost certain to happen around the end of the decade. “We have an R1T, so it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to say, ‘What if we had an R2T?’” said Scaringe.

Before that, though, will be the R2 Robotaxi, Rivian and Uber announced a partnership to deploy 10,000 driverless R2s for the ride-hailing service by 2028 in San Francisco and Miami. Uber has also agreed to option 40,000 more R2 Robotaxis in 2030 if the initial trial is successful, with the aim to roll out autonomous Rivians internationally.