RIVIAN COMMUNICATES TO CUSTOMERS THAT R1S DELIVERIES WILL BE DELAYED

With production of the Rivian R1T finally, firmly underway, and the company’s initial public offering bringing in buckets of cash, the automaker’s next task is to begin getting the R1S SUV into the hands of customers. According to a production schedule provided by Rivian, the R1S is supposed to enter production at the company’s Normal, Illinois plant in December 2021, with deliveries planned to commence in January 2022. Unfortunately, it now seems deliveries of the R1S have been delayed.

Reading through the latest chatter on the Rivian Owners Forum, it seems the startup automaker has begun notifying reservation holders that the start of R1S deliveries has been pushed back to March or April 2022 at the earliest.

The company is still having trouble scaling up vehicle assembly, as SEC documents disclose the company is producing and delivering approximately two R1T pickup trucks per day during the month of October. An abysmal figure for a company worth more than Ford Motor Company, the American automaker with the largest North American manufacturing footprint.

There are thousands of reservation holders for both the R1T and R1S, so it’s possible that not all of them will be affected by the delay. Some have even seen their delivery windows pushed back as far as September of next year.

Another thing to keep in mind: all of these pre-orders are for the R1S Launch Edition, meaning those interested in regular versions of the R1S are likely waiting until 2023 at best. There are a few posts on the Owners Forum from angry reservation holders who have either canceled their orders outright or are at least strongly considering it.

It’s unclear if the R1S has even entered the pre-production phase. Emails to owners make no mention of the production start date, not even the original December 2021 date. It’s fair to assume if the company is still having trouble getting R1T production spooled up, the last thing it needs is to deal with the further complexity added by attempting to integrate a second vehicle into the production workflow.