Rivian R2 Configurator Is Live but You Cannot Build the Cheap One Yet

The R2 configurator finally went live, and the headline most people are taking away is that you can finally build one. That part is true, you can go spec one out right now and see real pricing instead of reveal-stage guesses. What is less obvious until you start clicking through it is that the R2 you can build today is not the R2 a lot of us have been picturing for almost two years.

Nobody is actually ordering yet. Rivian has not sent out the invitations for customers to configure for real, and deliveries have not started either. So the configurator is live to explore and price out, not to check out. And the only trim it lets you build right now is the Performance, which starts at $57,990.

Spec it the way a lot of people are realistically going to want it and you are closer to $60,745. Go fully loaded and it tops out at $61,990.

The Standard at $48,490 and the Premium at $53,990 are listed with prices and range numbers, but you cannot build either one yet. And here is the part that stuck out to me. The roughly $45,000 R2 we all got sold on at the reveal is not showing up in the configurator at all right now. The cheapest number on the page is $48,490, which is close, but it is not the $45k figure that made the R2 feel like a genuinely different kind of Rivian.

So the attainable Rivian exists. It just exists in the future tense.

I want to be fair, because the Launch Package softens the Performance number more than the sticker suggests. Early Performance orders get lifetime Autonomy+, the tow package, the Launch key fob, and access to Launch Green paint, which adds up to around $3,700 in stuff thrown in. The Autonomy+ piece alone is a $2,500 value and it is the one that actually moves the needle for me, because adding it later on a Standard or Premium comes out of your own pocket.

But that is sort of the point. The R2 was supposed to be the one that broke Rivian out of the $70k-and-up world the R1 lives in. The original pitch was a roughly $45,000 SUV. The first number you actually run into now is around thirteen grand north of that, and the truly affordable versions are a short wait rather than something you can spec today.

Then there is the color situation, which is its own small reality check. Esker Silver is the only paint you can get at no cost. Everything else runs $1,000 to $2,000, and the two colors you might want won’t be available for a while. Forest Green slips to late 2026 and Borealis does not show up until 2027, and Borealis is Performance only anyway. So the cheapest way to get an R2 in a color you like still pads the price by a grand or two.

Here is where it gets a little awkward for Rivian. At $57,990 the Performance lands on the exact same number as the Tesla Model Y Performance AWD, dollar for dollar. Those are very different vehicles built for very different people, and I think the R2 wins on character every time. But the whole reason the R2 mattered was that it was not supposed to be shopping in that bracket at all. It was supposed to be a tier under it.

The good news is the wait should be short. Standard and Premium are not buildable today and the config invitations have not gone out, but everything points to all of it opening up soon. That is when the R2 story everyone has been telling actually kicks in. The volume car. The one that finally gets a Rivian into a normal driveway at something close to a normal price. That part does not really begin until those two trims are something you can spec, and until that $45k number actually reappears. What is live right now is the expensive front door of a car that got sold to all of us on being the affordable one. The affordable part is real and it is close. It just is not the thing in front of us yet.