- Rivian delivered 12,194 vehicles in Q2, a 14.4% year-over-year gain despite the disappearance of the federal tax credit.
- The company beat its own expectations for sales, fueled by R1 and EDV sales growth and the arrival of the R2.
- It still has a long way to go to become a high-volume automaker, but it's off to a good start.
Rivian deliveries rose 14.4% year-over-year last quarter, the company announced Thursday. The positive news comes right after the launch of the R2, which arrived to rave reviews from most critics, myself included. All of that good news caused Rivian to raise its sales forecast for the year overall, too, suggesting the best is yet to come.
The company delivered 12,194 vehicles in Q2, up from 10,661 cars the year prior. The company had only expected to deliver between 9,000 and 11,000 cars last quarter. Initial deliveries of the R2 surely helped, but the company says it saw quarter-over-quarter increases for the EDV and R1 too.
It's worth noting that these numbers are small potatoes in the grand scheme of the EV market. Tesla sold about 480,126 worldwide last quarter, about 10x more than Rivian sold in all of 2025. The world's largest automaker, Toyota, delivered 673,971 in the U.S. alone, dwarfing Tesla's global number.
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Source: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
But Rivian expects to significantly grow sales volumes this year. After delivering 42,247 EVs last year, the company originally planned to deliver between 62,000 and 67,000. Its second-quarter sales beat raised its hopes, though, with the brand now saying it expects to sell between 65,000 and 70,000 cars. With fewer than 23,000 sales halfway into the year, the company is clearly expecting a massive increase in its sales rate fueled by the R2.
Rivian says it'll have capacity to build up to 155,000 R2s per year at its Normal, Illinois plant, should the demand be strong enough. That's a hefty figure, and doesn't even factor in the increase capacity when the company's Georgia facility comes online.
It's an ambitious game plan for a brand based in a country that has seemingly tempered its expectations for a quick transition to EVs. But the R2 won't rely on America alone. It'll be Rivian's first car sold in Europe, with a smaller form factor that's better suited for export sales than its R1 line. That should help broaden its appeal.
Rivian is building a second plant in Georgia, where it plans to produce more R2s and, eventually, R3s.
Photo by: Rivian
Yet can it really become a Tesla-Model-Y-like success story? Based on my experience with the car, I want to say yes. But with the global market oversupplied with EVs, the tax credit gone, and a slew of new competitors arriving soon, the R2 faces a far tougher market than the Model Y did in 2021. The Model Y also had the sales, service, and brand benefit of Tesla already having scaled Model 3 production back in 2017, when there were no compelling fast-charging EV alternatives anywhere near the price.
Rivian is betting that the R2's compelling styling and adventurous vibe will help it recapture some of the Model Y's sales magic. It's too early to say if it'll be enough to catapult Rivian into volume-automaker territory. But beating your sales estimate and raising your guidance is certainly a good way to kick off your make-or-break product offensive. The future is still uncertain, but for Rivian, it's looking brighter than it was yesterday.
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com
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