Rivian disclosed its first-quarter earnings on Thursday, with the EV maker reaffirming full-year delivery guidance of 62,000 to 67,000 vehicles and signaling a sharp back-loading of volume into the second half as the R2 SUV begins ramping.

Until earlier this month, Rivian only manufactured the R1 debut models and the electric delivery van — co-developed with Amazon — at its Normal facility.

Employee deliveries of the R2 model have begun and customer vehicles are expected “in the coming weeks.”

Production began with one shift, with the company saying that a second shift would be added later in the year.

On Wednesday, an employee hinted that Rivian is already preparing to integrate the night shift.

Rivian chief operations officer Javier Varela wrote on LinkedIn on Thursday that R2 customer deliveries “are expected in the coming weeks.”

During the earnings call that followed the report, founder and chief executive officer RJ Scaringe said the R2 ramp remains on track and that the company is committed to its 2026 delivery target despite a Q2 contribution that begins from a standing start.

Rivian chief financial officer Claire McDonough confirmed on the earnings call that second-quarter deliveries are expected between 9,000 and 11,000 vehicles, in line with the first-quarter pace and below the run rate the company will need to achieve in the back half of the year.

“As you reiterated, as you think about the composition of the 62,000-67,000 deliveries, we anticipate R1 combined with the commercial vans to be roughly flat relative to our 2025 delivery results,” McDonough said in response to a question from Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Andres Sheppard.

“Then the remainder being comprised of the introduction and ramp of R2, which as implied by the 9,000-11,000 of Q2 deliveries, suggests more of a back half weighted ramp associated with R2, which is implied within our outlook and guidance,” she added.

The first quarter’s 10,365 deliveries fell at the upper end of the Q2 guidance range, suggesting essentially flat quarter-over-quarter performance through the first half of the year.

Combining the first quarter’s 10,365 deliveries with the Q2 midpoint of 10,000 implies a first-half total of roughly 20,365 vehicles.

That leaves Rivian needing to deliver between 41,635 and 46,635 vehicles in the second half of 2026 to meet its full-year target.

Splitting that equally across the third and fourth quarters works out to between approximately 20,800 and 23,300 deliveries per quarter — roughly double the Q1 rate, and well above the 2025 quarterly average of approximately 10,560 vehicles.

The exact range shifts slightly depending on whether Q2 lands at the low or high end of the guidance: at the low end of full-year guidance and high end of Q2, Rivian would need 40,635 H2 deliveries; at the high end of full-year guidance and low end of Q2, it would need 47,635.

The math underscores how heavily Rivian‘s 2026 plan is leveraged to R2 ramp execution.

With R1 and commercial van volumes expected to remain roughly in line with 2025’s 42,247 units, the second-half growth must come almost entirely from new R2 deliveries.

That pencils out to between 20,000 and 25,000 R2 deliveries in 2026 from a standing start.

The R2 is the vehicle that Scaringe has consistently described as the model that will transform Rivian into a large-scale, profitable company.

The model is the first production vehicle the Irvine-based EV maker has built that targets the mass-market, priced significantly below its premium R1 lineup.

Volume and saleable production of the midsize SUV began on April 22 at the company’s Normal, Illinois plant, just five days after an EF-1 tornado struck the facility and ripped the roof off a section of Building 2 — the 1.1 million-square-foot expansion dedicated to R2 operations.

No employees were injured.

While Scaringe told Bloomberg that the tornado forced the company to adjust how materials are brought into the factory, Rivian is “not making any changes to the plan.”

The Normal plant has annual production capacity of 215,000 vehicles, including up to 155,000 R2s.

The first trim rolling off the line is the R2 Performance Launch Edition at $57,990, excluding a $1,495 destination charge.

It is equipped with a dual-motor all-wheel-drive powertrain producing 656 horsepower and 609 lb-ft of torque, a 0-to-60 mph time of 3.6 seconds, and an EPA-estimated range of up to 330 miles.

The Launch Package includes lifetime access to Rivian‘s Autonomy+ hands-free driving system and a tow package rated at 4,400 pounds.

A Premium trim at $53,990, with 450 horsepower and a 4.6-second 0-to-60 time, is expected in late 2026.

The Standard Long Range arrives in early 2027 at $48,490, and the $45,000 Standard — the price Rivian has promoted since the R2’s original unveiling in March 2024 — is not expected until late 2027.

The R2 Performance at $57,990 sits almost exactly at the $57,490 price of the Tesla Model Y Performance, the vehicle Rivian has explicitly named as its primary competitor.

Rivian plans to open the public R2 online configurator in May, with reservation holders set to receive their estimated time to order in June.

Demo drives at select Rivian Spaces are expected to begin around July.

The company produced 10,236 vehicles in the first quarter, slightly below its 10,365 deliveries for the period.

Beyond the consumer R2, Rivian is building a second revenue path around its in-house autonomous driving programme.

In March, Uber agreed to invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian to deploy up to 50,000 fully autonomous R2 robotaxis across 25 cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe by 2031.

Commercial deployment is targeted for 2028, starting in San Francisco and Miami.

However, the deal came alongside a disclosure that Rivian no longer expects to reach adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2027 — abandoning a target it had maintained since its first Investor Day in June 2024.

The company’s Georgia factory, which broke ground in September 2025, is not expected to begin operations until 2028 and will eventually support expanded R2 and future R3 production.