HOPEFUL Rivian buyers are threatening to cancel their vehicle orders after an executive confirmed that a feature on the prototype would not make it into production.
The growing electric vehicle company is about to launch its R2 and R3 mass-market SUVs.
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So far, Rivian has produced two battery-powered passenger vehicles and sold them on the American market.
The R1S is the company’s SUV with three rows of seats, while the R1T is a full-size pickup truck.
The company has unveiled prototypes for the smaller, cheaper R2 and R3 SUVs.
At the product launch event in March, the company said the mid-sized R2 would have dozens of camping-focused features.
But in a recent public meeting in Pasadena, Brian Gates, the company’s chief engineer for special projects, explained that one of the features presented at the product launch event had been eliminated from production models.
“We built these (prototypes) in the factory,” Gates said at the event.
“There are a few things we wanted to incorporate that aren’t ready for production yet.”
Gates confirmed that the R2’s front seats do not fold flat, unlike the prototype, as Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe demonstrated at the launch event.
The company had initially stated that the flat-folding chairs would provide passengers with more space in the cabin when using the vehicle for camping.
The R2 features a panoramic window that stretches almost across the entire roof – the seating option would have allowed campers to put larger mattresses in the car to view the night sky.
“The front seats do not fold flat,” Gates said at the event.
He also said that the rear seat can be folded down to a four-degree angle.
The US newspaper Sun contacted Rivian’s press team to confirm changes to the production model – the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But prospective drivers expressed anger over the potential seat changes in posts on Threads, the word-focused social media app owned by Facebook parent company Meta.
“This is a feature I really wanted,” said one driver. “This decision is confusing.”
Another potential Rivian customer said the switch was “really worth canceling orders.”
So far, Rivian has announced that more than 70,000 customers have placed pre-orders for the R2 since the event.
However, the car will continue to undergo design changes until its market launch in 2026.
On R2 models, the charging port is moved to the driver’s side to make it easier to connect to charging stations.
The company also announced that it will replace the connectors and home chargers with the North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector.
Rivian’s decision to switch to NACS connectors creates compatibility with Tesla’s Supercharger network, the largest fleet of fast chargers in the United States.
