A Half Moon Grey Rivian R2 with LiDAR was spotted testing near Irvine, California. It is a validation build ahead of the LiDAR equipped R2 arriving in late 2026/early 2027.
Rivian quietly updated the R2 reservation page today, and it is a genuinely useful change. Reservation holders with a deposit down can now see a window for when they will be invited to order, based on their configuration and place in the queue. One reservation holder is looking at December 2026 through February 2027 after passing on a launch edition. It is the first time most holders have had a real sense of where they stand.
Wassym just confirmed that Pet Mode is coming to the R2 in the very next over-the-air update. He even posted on X with a picture of his dog, Paddington, chilling in the cabin. This is a big deal because Pet Mode was one of those features the R2 didn’t have at launch. We went through the whole list of missing…
Rivian said back in May that R2 factory pickup at Normal was off the table. An owner just found the option live in the order flow, factory tour and all, and the company has not said a word about the change.
R2 config emails spiked last week without many deliveries to show for it yet. Owners are now telling me Rivian is lining up a big delivery push this week, with dates already on the calendar into early July.
