for quite a while, and for the most part we thought we had a pretty good handle on what we could expect. We knew that Rivian needed a smaller, more affordable model that could be the volume vehicle that the startup automaker needs on the road to profitability. For the most part, that's exactly what Rivian revealed when.
"We're really simplifying how we think about the battery pack. So, it's a pack to use a much larger diameter cell. So, it's a 4695 instead of a 2170. It's structural. The top of the pack is the floor of the vehicle. The closure systems in the vehicle are much simpler than what we had in R1." We won't blame anyone who gets red flags from that decision, however. One of Rivian's major obstacles to profitability is the production capacity of its plant in Normal. In 2023, the plant produced just over 57,200 vehicles with approximately 50,100 of them being delivered. That's between three vehicles , and now a fourth vehicle that already has over 68,000 reservations is being added to the mix.
"R1 was designed through addition. It was our premium flagship. We got to say 'yes' to a lot of things. With R2, to get the price point down, what do we need to say 'no' to? There's a lot of features in R1 and we didn't want R2 to lose the essence of the Rivian brand.