Rivian Appears to Be Offering R2 Factory Pickup at Normal After All

Back in May, Rivian made it pretty clear: factory pickup for the R2 wasn’t happening. But it looks like that might have quietly changed. Someone recently tried picking the Normal, Illinois plant as their pickup spot while placing an order, and surprisingly, it worked. Not only that, but a factory tour was thrown in too.

Rivian actually said this straight-up in a post on May 27: Someone asked if they could get their vehicle faster by going to the factory, and Rivian basically said, “We love that you’re excited to see where the magic happens, but nope, no factory pickup.” Instead, they’d ship your R2 to your nearest delivery center, where you’d get a personal walkthrough when you picked it up.

So, that seemed pretty clear. No factory pickup. End of story, right?

Well, not quite. Yesterday, a user on the r/RivianR2 subreddit (shoutout to u/seeksparadox) decided to try picking the Normal factory as their pickup spot just to see what would happen. Instead of getting an error or being told to pick a local delivery center, the system actually let them select factory pickup, and even offered a plant tour.

The tour is what really makes this interesting. Rivian had stopped doing factory tours for a while during the R2 line expansion, so the fact that this is showing up again probably means things at the plant are far enough along that they are ready to let people back in for a look around.

If you’re waiting on an R2 and your delivery keeps getting pushed back, this could be a new way in. If you’re up for a road trip to central Illinois, you might be able to get your car sooner and get to see where it was built before you drive it home. Honestly, that’s the kind of thing a lot of fans would pay extra to do.

Of course, there’s always a catch. Rivian hasn’t said anything about this yet, so it’s unclear if this is an official change or just a glitch that slipped through early. Their May statement still says the opposite of what you’re seeing in the order flow right now. So this new option could disappear any day, or it could become the standard once more reservations start coming in. Who knows?

If this sticks around, it’s a pretty smart move. People willing to drive all the way to the factory are exactly the kind of owners who will share every second of the experience and get their friends excited too. Whether Rivian meant to do this or it just kind of happened by accident, it’s a win. So if you’ve got an R2 on the way and a free weekend, it might be worth plugging the Normal address into your order page just to see what happens.