Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge
Rivian is telling customers that it won’t be building R1T pickup trucks with the “Max pack” battery option until 2023, as it’ll be prioritizing ones with the standard “large” battery pack for production throughout next year (via Electrek).
In an email attributed to CEO RJ Scaringe, the company says it will work on orders for the higher-trim “Adventure Package” trucks with the regular battery first, and that the lower-end “Explorer Package” and bigger battery will come later.When the company debuted its truck in 2018, the 400-mile estimated range afforded by the 180kWh Max pack was a big selling point. The “large” battery pack that comes standard with the trucks gets an EPA estimated range of 314 miles, but for the adventurous, off-road crowd Rivian markets to, every additional mile counts.
According to the email, about 20 percent of the preorders are for vehicles with the $10,000 Max pack option. Given the 71,000 preorders cited by the letter, that’s around 14,200 vehicles affected by the delay. It’s not the first time the company has had to push back its timeline — the original plan was to start shipping its electric trucks and SUVs in 2020, but the R1T didn’t start arriving until September 2021.
The company has plans to build a second production facility (which should come with more battery manufacturing capacity), but doesn’t expect to start producing vehicles there until 2024. The Verge - link - Mitchell Clark - link - more like this - link
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