Rivian's Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid is back for his third Reddit AMA this Thursday, May 21st, and this one is focused specifically on the R2 software platform. He'll be live from the Palo Alto office between 11:30am and 3pm PST.
R2 production officially started in April, Q1 came in ahead of estimates with a third straight quarter of positive gross profit, deliveries grew 20 percent year over year, and Volkswagen raised its stake to 15.9 percent. RIVN is down 31 percent on the year anyway. The gap between what Rivian is doing and what the market is pricing in has rarely been this wide.
Rivian's AI-defined vehicle framing sounded like marketing theater when Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid first dropped it on stage at Autonomy and AI Day back in December. Five months later, with Rivian Assistant actually shipping and a wider AI strategy coming into focus across voice, autonomy, and the Volkswagen joint venture, it's a lot harder to write off as buzzword theater.
Big week. The R2 configurator went live with pricing and colors confirmed, accessories pricing dropped, Forest Green showed up in the wild at the Palo Alto Block Party, Rivian Assistant rolled out in 2026.15, and customer deliveries are basically days away.
Rivian rolled out the full R2 accessory lineup alongside the configurator going live, with pricing now available for everything from the NACS Wall Charger to All-Weather Mats and Cargo Crossbars. Most of it is priced in line with the R1 side, but there is one compatibility detail R1 owners will want to know about before launch.
