Electric car manufacturer Rivian will be delaying its long-awaited electric pickup truck once again until September based on an email sent by the company’s CEO RJ Scaringe.
Delivery of the Rivian pickup trucks was originally planned to start as far back as 2020 but then it changed those plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then made it known that the delivery of the R1T pickup and the R1S SUV will be delivered by 2021 instead. Then it said it will reschedule the delivery to July and now September.
“We know you can’t wait to get behind the wheel of your vehicle,” Scaringe wrote in the email. “Earlier this summer, we announced that deliveries would begin in July; however, the timing for the first deliveries of the R1T has shifted to September, with the R1S shortly thereafter in the fall. I wanted to be sure you heard this from me directly.”
Scaringe said the “cascading impacts of the pandemic have had a compounding effect greater than anyone anticipated.”
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“Everything from facility construction, to equipment installation, to vehicle component supply (especially semiconductors) has been impacted by the pandemic,” he wrote. Scaringe also said that trying to launch the pickup truck, SUV, and a delivery van being developed with Amazon while also building out a manufacturing facility in Illinois has been difficult, calling it a “complex orchestra of coordinated and interlinked activities where small issues can translate into ramp delays.”
Scaringe also copped to poor communication with reservation holders. “I have spoken with a number of you and know we need to do a better job at communicating specifics around deliveries. Our Guides will continue reaching out to schedule deliveries and will be there for any questions throughout the process,” he wrote. He promised to give more updates in the coming weeks.
The Amazon and Ford-backed EV automaker was founded back in 2009 but not as popular as its competitor Tesla until 2018 when it debuted the R1T and R1S during the LA Auto Show. It has since raised as much as US$8 billion from both Amazon, Ford, and other top institutional investors.
The company is also planning on going public which will help it raise more cash as its workforce has now grown to over 7,000 employees according to the email sent by the company’s CEO Scaringe.