It's official: Rivian has built 100,000 electric vehicles.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe revealed the news on rival CEO Elon Musk's social media platform X. The post shows off one of Rivian's R1S electric SUVs in beautiful Glacier White, furnished with a banner reading "Built with Normal pride" neatly placed across the windshield.
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100k Is Just The Start
Rivian's first 100,000 vehicles may have been a challenge, but that's only the start of what could be explosive future growth. With the lower-cost R2 and R3 platforms on the horizon, the automaker may soon experience its "Model Y moment."
The EV startup began delivering vehicles to customers in September of 2021, meaning it took around 2.5 years to reach the 100,000-unit milestone. Its climb to 100,000 proves that scaling up a new car company can be both difficult and come with exponential growth because more than half of those vehicles—57,232 units—were built in 2023 alone.
Rivian hasn't revealed how many vehicles were built on its consumer-facing R1 platform. In addition to the R1T and R1S, Rivian also manufactures business-to-business EDV and ECV commercial vans, which are sold to fleet customers like Amazon. The automaker tells InsideEVs that it does not differentiate between models for publicly reported production figures.
Amazon has previously committed to purchasing 100,000 EDVs from Rivian. In October 2023, Amazon said that it had around 10,000 of these vehicles on the road and plans to continue its deployment through 2030.
100,000 vehicles is nothing to shake a stick at. That's a huge accomplishment. But it's worth noting that not all of the vehicles that Rivian produced have been delivered to customers. Rivian's quarterly sales figures revealed that of the 96,500 vehicles produced at the end of Q1, approximately 11,600 units (12%) had yet to be delivered.
Rivian's growth is expected to continue. The automaker recently revealed its $45,000 R2 electric SUV which is planned to enter production sometime in 2026. The R2 is anticipated to be Rivian's "Model Y moment," accelerating sales by offering a more affordable entry to its vehicles.
It also has a smaller vehicle in the works. The cute R3 and rowdy, performance-focused R3X were teased at the same time as the R2, touting either a lower entry price (R3) or an enthusiast-focused offering (R3X) to draw in even more customers.
All of this means that Rivian's first 100,000 vehicles may just be the start for the company's explosive growth potential—so as long as it can sustain itself until production of the R2 and R2 officially starts. Should the automaker continue to produce and sell its vehicles in large volumes, the company could be one of the first electric vehicle startups to succeed in the U.S. other than Tesla.
