Rivian reportedly delays customer deliveries

Friday, 26 November 2021

The Rivian R1T is the first all-electric U.S. pick up to make it into production, but all deliveries so far have been to employees of the company.

While there is much interest in the ‘imminent’ arrival of electric utes in New Zealand, there is still a way to go. Ford has revealed that it will be doing an ‘electrified’ version of the new Ranger (without expanding on whether that will be a hybrid, plug-in hybrid or full EV), while the long-promised arrival of electric utes from the Chinese brands like LDV and Great Wall Motors is yet to actually happen.

Meanwhile, on the U.S-based side of things, the Tesla Cybertruck still remains a distant dream, while the Ford F-150 Lightning is extremely unlikely to ever make it here in an official form, leaving Rivian our most likely hope for a fully-electric pick up anytime soon, as production has actually kicked off.

Like the R1T, deliveries of the R1S have been pushed back a few months from the expected dates.

However, according to a number of sources in the USA, Rivian has sent out an email to customers who have reserved its R1T pick up and R1S SUV firming up the date they will receive their order, but it is now further out than originally expected.

In September, Rivian shared photos of the first production R1T pick ups rolling off the assembly line, making the company the winner of the race to market as the first all-electric pick up truck, beating the Ford F-150 Lightning.

Check out the Rivian R1T as it is put through its paces in real-world testing.

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Rivian Automotive recently had an extremely successful IPO, sending its valuation rocketing beyond Ford and GM, being second only to Tesla.

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* First customer Rivian electric pick up rolls off the line

However, the customers for those first trucks were all Rivian employees and the company has been ramping production of the pick up slowly, and the SUV even slower, having previously said that the R1S SUV would begin production in December, with the first deliveries expected in January 2022.

But now it seems the delivery window for both has been pushed out to March at the earliest, with some customers reporting dates as far out as September.

According to U.S. website Electrek, a poll thread has gone up on the Rivian Forums where customers can share their delivery windows, and it would seem that majority of deliveries are between March and June, with some getting a delivery window of July to September, or even later.

Most of the later delivery windows seem to be more remote customers – those living in Canada or Alaska – which means that the likelihood of us seeing the R1S or R1T here in New Zealand anytime soon even more remote, and almost certainly not in 2022.

While Rivian has unofficially said the R1T will be sold in Australia (and, by extension, most likely New Zealand), and camouflaged versions of both the R1T and R1S have been spotted in the South Island, almost certainly for testing at the Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds (SHPG) at Cardrona, nothing has been officially confirmed yet.

While Rivian has said it will build right-hand drive vehicles, no timeline has been set, with the company simply saying “after we begin deliveries in the United States and Canada, we'll work on expanding to other countries and regions.”

However, the company – flush with cash from a successful US$100 billion-valued IPO – has announced plans for a second U.S. factory, and it eventually wants to open plants in Europe and China as well, which will no doubt help speed up the global expansion.

We will almost certainly see it here one day, but not quite yet.