Rivian revealed specifications and pricing details for its entry-level R2 SUV on Thursday, and the company finally answered a long-standing question: When will customers be able to buy the promised $45,000 base model?
That answer is “late 2027,” according to the company’s press materials. And there is a catch. The language Rivian is now using is that the base model R2 will “launch around $45,000.” This is a marked change from how the company was recently promoting that the R2 would “launch”. at $45,000″ on her website. (Emphasis mine.)
This isn’t exactly surprising. As TechCrunch first reported last week, Rivian removed the “from $45,000” language from its website in February.
Also, a lot has changed since Rivian first revealed the R2 in March 2024. The $7,500 federal EV tax credit is gone. Legacy automakers stopped buying regulatory credits from companies like Rivian, effectively ending a stream of seemingly free money pouring into its coffers. President Trump’s chaotic tariffs have driven up the cost of the parts and materials Rivian uses to build its electric vehicles.
In some ways, Rivian has bigger challenges to face.
Sales of its R1T truck and R1S SUV are down in 2025. Rivian is set to begin construction on a giant factory in Georgia where it expects to build hundreds of thousands of R2 SUVs (and, eventually, R3 hatchbacks).
The company is also trying to plan what would be one of the fastest electric vehicle launches in US history with the more premium R2 models this year. Rivian predicts sales of between 20,000 and 25,000 R2s by the end of 2026. If successful, only Tesla’s Model Y would have reached 20,000 sales faster.
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Rivian told TechCrunch that it wanted to start with the more expensive R2 performance models “so owners can experience the absolute pinnacle of the new platform first.”
“Debuting with high-end finishes is common industry practice and sets the stage for the entire range, showcasing the exceptional capability and acceleration that make a Rivian unmistakable, while we scale production to our Premium and Standard configurations afterwards,” the company said.
Rivian will offer a “Standard” R2 in the first half of 2027 starting at $48,490, with a range of up to 345 miles. The actual base model will only get about 275 miles. That could be a sign of how Rivian approaches the price of the base model — fewer batteries usually come at a lower cost. The base model’s meager range could also serve a dual purpose, encouraging customers to pay up to a few thousand dollars more for decidedly superior range.
Rivian told TechCrunch that the two Standard models share the same rear-wheel drive, but declined to say if there are any other differences beyond battery capacity that might explain the price difference. He also declined to comment on sales promotion strategies.
“We have made significant internal engineering, development and operations efforts to reach our target price. We built complexity by moving to a zonal electrical architecture, reducing the number of electronic control units and using our internal drive units,” the company said in a statement. Rivian said it also used lessons learned from how it reduced the cost of its second-generation R1 vehicles and leveraged better relationships with suppliers.
All of this comes just months after Rivian agreed to pay $250 million to settle a shareholder class action that centered on how the company suddenly raised prices on its 2021 R1 vehicles.
It also has some slight echoes of the controversy Tesla got into a few years ago. Elon Musk and his company had spent years promising that the Model 3 would cost $35,000. But Tesla only briefly made a $35,000 Model 3 available “off the menu” and even that design it didn’t last long. Many of the customers who tried to buy it were pressured into higher trim versions of the sedan, while Musk publicly complained about how difficult it was to deliver on the promise he had made.
Another Tesla vehicle was once announced with an attractive price that never materialized: the Cybertruck. Tesla first introduced the all-steel pickup in 2019, starting at just $40,000. But it eventually came in at much higher prices which, when mixed with its widely loathed design, led to very poor sales.
It seems unlikely that the R2 will break as badly as the Cybertruck did for Tesla. After all, this is a much more affordable vehicle is also starting at a much lower price — all without the political cost of having Elon Musk as CEO. But only the next few years will tell if the R2’s base model will have a life more akin to the $35,000 Model 3 or Cybertruck, or something else entirely.
