The R2 is actually happening. Omar, a Rivian employee, posted a photo on LinkedIn showing R2 bodies moving through the assembly line in Normal, Illinois, and it’s a genuinely cool thing to see.
Even cooler though, my sources tell me that select Rivian executives took delivery of real production R2s as early as last week and are out there driving them around right now. Not pre-production mules, not engineering validation cars but actual R2s built on the production line.
Executive drives like this are basically Rivian’s final real-world check before customer deliveries kick off. Put some miles on production hardware, shake out any last issues, and make sure everything feels right before the floodgates open which is a good sign that things are tracking.
If you’ve got an R2 reservation, this is the update you’ve been waiting on. The line is running, the cars are real, and Rivian people are already living with them.
The hype is real.
I recall reading/hearing that they were going to be producing about 2k R2s for employees. I do hope that those are not just ‘executive perk’ vehicles, as I’m sure many Rivian factory employees cannot afford the R1s they build. It would be great for them to be able to get R2s.
The service tech today didn’t think they’d have demo R2s until mid to late summer.