Is it too soon to know....

[RivianDD]

How solid/realistic the order window is? I put down a deposit a few weeks ago for a launch option and was (pleasantly) surprised to get a text today indicating that my order window is August-September 2026. That's sooner than I was expecting given what I've been reading online. Works perfectly, however, as I have an expiring Tesla lease in November. Just wondering if there have been enough orders and deliveries yet to know how solid that order window is likely to be? Thanks....

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[sparked]

There's been pretty limited R2 deliveries as it's super early. The big volume deliveries for R2 will be in the last few months of the year. So it's anyone's guess how smooth this is going to be.

 

[tgrick]

Rivian knows they have to do the launch not just perfectly but better than expected. I think they will have Gen 3 hardware sooner than we realize. I also think they will wrap up the launch edition sooner than expected and go with the mainstream R2 with LiDAR. It's just a guess. It's a 100% guess but they have been executing as planned and are probably looking forward to making announcements about how well things are going...

 

[Zathras]

Rivian knows they have to do the launch not just perfectly but better than expected. I think they will have Gen 3 hardware sooner than we realize. I also think they will wrap up the launch edition sooner than expected and go with the mainstream R2 with LiDAR. It's just a guess. It's a 100% guess but they have been executing as planned and are probably looking forward to making announcements about how well things are going...

You could be right. So many factors are involved. They don't know for sure how many people will actually order early in their order window for one thing. Others might change their minds. (There's lots of FUD out there trying to dangle competitors' cars in front of impatient R2 reservers.)

Once they add the second shift, they are going to double the number of R2s they thought they were going to make by the end of the year. (This week's announcement of an increase in the number of Rivians overall projected for the second half of the year tells us that.)

And if the engineering team finishes up the LiDAR and Gen 3 hardware faster than thy anticipated (we know for a fact it's out in the wild right now being tested) they might just start throwing them onto all the R2s going out the door. But only they know for sure back there in Normal. And if that's the case, there is a chance some Launch Editions might have Gen3/LiDAR. Why? Because we know there are people who have been told they will be able to order the Launch Edition through February based on current delivery expectations.

If they clear the boards faster than anticipated, we might get to order ours sooner, and that might lead to the Launch Edition ending sooner. But only once everybody who has been told they can order it get a chance to order it. No doubt they will email those at the tail end of the process to notify them they need to get their order in before they're cut off.

 

[Zoidz]

How solid/realistic the order window is?

... So many factors are involved.
...
If they clear the boards faster than anticipated, we might get to order ours sooner, and that might lead to the Launch Edition ending sooner. But only once everybody who has been told they can order it get a chance to order it. No doubt they will email those at the tail end of the process to notify them they need to get their order in before they're cut off.

If the R2 delivery ramp up is similar to the R1 delivery ramp up ( I haven't seen anything to indicate that it will be different) the window you are told now is a well intended guess but that's about it. I expect this to go just like the R1 where your position in the queue does not mean much at all, and orders that were placed days or weeks after the first day will get filled before orders that were placed on the first day. Some people who have a December window now will get theirs sooner, and some people who have a September window now won't get theirs until 2027 - ESPECIALLY if they open an R2 store like they did with the R1.

Don't go into this with high expectations of your delivery window - that way, you won't be highly disappointed if/when this rolls out like R1. But I expect we will see plenty of "I ordered before you, I still didn't get mine yet!" posts.

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