If you are an early Rivian R1T reservation holder in Canada, or live in the United States and were hoping to receive your R1S electric SUV soon, it looks like you are in for an extended wait.
R1T deliveries in Canada
Rivian was originally hoping to deliver the R1T in Canada starting in November 2021. With just one week to go in the month, the company has updated early reservation holders with some bad news.
According to an email sent to several customers who placed pre-orders as far back as December 2018, the delivery timeframe for the R1T in Canada has been pushed back almost a full year.
One customer in Alberta has been advised that his delivery window is now between July to September 2022. The email was sent this morning and shared on the Rivian Owners Forum.
Another customer in Toronto also received the email with the same delivery window, while another with an undisclosed location in Canada received a June to September timeframe.
Rivian seems to have confirmed the news by removing an article from their support page that previously said deliveries of the R1T Launch Edition in Canada would begin November 2021.
R1S deliveries in the US
The bad news wasn’t limited to the R1T in Canada. Early R1S reservation holders in the U.S. also received a similar update from the company today.
As recently as November 1 2021, Rivian was still aiming to deliver 15 R1S electric SUVs before the end of the year.
It appears as though they have hit a stumbling block in production, as customers are now being advised they will not be receiving their new cars until at least May 2022.
That is the earliest timeframe seen, as other customers are seeing dates as far back as July 2022.
UPDATE: A RivianForums poll shows the earliest R1S delivery dates as being January or February 2022. However, those dates accounted for just 2 of the 229 votes cast in the poll. The vast majority (131) were for between June and September 2022. Those seeing April to June 2022 deliveries amounted to 64 reservation holders.
News of major delays like this is another blow to the fledgling automaker, which has so far struggled to ramp production of the R1T.
Deliveries of the electric pickup truck have started, but have only been handed over to employees, with no real customers having received one yet.
Part of the problem may be that manufacturing at scale is extremely difficult, something Tesla CEO Elon Musk has frequently said.
In the first month of official production Rivian was building just 1.47 R1T trucks per day.
As of their most recent update on November 1, that has improved to 15.5 units per day, but still well below what is needed to fulfil the nearly 50,000 reservations it has on the books.
