Why Rivian is keeping the $45,000 base model R2 until ‘late 2027’

Rivian revealed specs and pricing details for its pivotal R2 SUV on Thursday, and the company also finally answered a long-standing question: When will customers be able to purchase the promised $45,000 base model?

The answer is “late 2027,” according to the company’s press materials. And there is a problem. The language Rivian is using now is that the base model R2 will “launch.” around $45,000.” This is a marked change from how the company recently touted that the R2 would “launch.” in $45,000 on her website. (Emphasis mine.)

This is not entirely surprising. As TechCrunch first reported last week, Rivian removed the “starting at $45,000” language from its website in February.

A lot has also changed since Rivian first unveiled the R2 in March 2024. The $7,500 federal tax credit on electric vehicles is gone. Legacy automakers stopped buying regulatory credits from companies like Rivian, effectively ending the flow of what was ostensibly free money flowing into their coffers. President Trump’s chaotic tariffs have increased the cost of components and materials that Rivian uses to manufacture its electric vehicles.

In some ways, Rivian has bigger challenges to deal with.

Sales of its R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV are down in 2025. Rivian is about to start 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 engineer what could be one of the fastest electric vehicle launches in US history with more premium R2 models this year. Rivian expects sales of between 20,000 and 25,000 R2s by the end of 2026. If successful, only Tesla’s Model Y will reach 20,000 sales faster.

Rivian told TechCrunch that it wants to start with the high-performance R2 models “so owners can experience the absolute peak of the new platform first.”

“Debuting with a top-spec variant is common practice in the industry and sets the stage for the entire lineup by showcasing the exceptional capability and acceleration that makes Rivian unmistakable, all while expanding production into our premium and standard configurations thereafter,” 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 true base model will only get about 275 miles. That could be a sign of how Rivian approaches the price of the base model — typically fewer batteries track at a lower cost. The base model’s meager range can also serve a dual purpose by encouraging customers to pay up to a few thousand dollars for a clearly superior range.

Rivian told TechCrunch that the two standard models share the same rear-wheel drive system, but declined to specify whether there were other differences beyond battery capacity that could explain the price difference. She also declined to comment on her selling strategies.

“We made significant internal engineering, development and commercial efforts to reach the target price. We engineered out complexity by moving to a regional electrical architecture, reducing the number of electronic control units, and using our internal drive modules,” the company said in a statement. Rivian said it also applied lessons learned from how to reduce the cost of second-generation R1 vehicles, leveraging better supplier relationships.

This all comes just months after Rivian agreed to pay $250 million to settle a shareholder class action lawsuit centered around how the company suddenly raised prices for its R1 vehicles in 2021.

It also has some slight echoes of the controversy Tesla had a few years ago. Elon Musk and company have spent years promising that the Model 3 would cost $35,000. But Tesla only briefly offered the $35,000 Model 3 “off the list,” and even that plan didn’t last long. Many customers who tried to buy it were pressured into buying higher-end versions of the sedan, all while Musk publicly complained about how difficult it was to deliver on the promise he made.

Another Tesla vehicle was once announced at an attractive price that never materialized: the Cybertruck. Tesla debuted the steel-clad pickup truck in 2019 with a starting price of just $40,000. But it was eventually launched at much higher prices, which, when combined with its widely off-putting design, resulted in very poor sales.

It seems unlikely that the R2 will break as badly as the Cybertruck did for Tesla. After all, it’s a much more accessible vehicle Him too Starting at a much lower price — and all without the political cost of appointing Elon Musk as CEO. But only the next few years will tell whether the base model R2 ends up living a life more like a $35,000 model, a Cybertruck, or something entirely different.