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.

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.

A 20xx VIN from a friend taking delivery this week shows Rivian has built past 2,000 R2 vehicles. Built does not mean delivered though, and here is why.

An R2 test mule was spotted out in British Columbia, one of the first R2 sightings in Canada. A good sign for buyers up north as the US rollout cools off this week.

Configure invites for the R2 are picking up a week after launch. Here is what to know if yours has not landed yet, including the wait for options that are not live and Rivian's two to eight week estimate for builds you can take now.

The R2 does not come with a traditional FM tuner. It leans on iHeartRadio instead, streaming your local stations over the internet for free. For most owners that is a non issue, since FM usage on the R1 was already sitting in the single digits. The real catch is what happens once you drive past the last bar of signal.

Rivian's R2 Performance Launch Edition lease numbers are out, and they land right on top of the Tesla Model Y Performance. Both start at $57,990, with monthly payments within about sixty bucks of each other. Here is the full breakdown against the Model Y and the entry R1S, including where the Tesla still wins and where the residuals actually flip.