Rivian To Discontinue Certain Customization Options From Mid-September

EV maker Rivian Automotive Inc RIVN is discontinuing several customization options for its vehicles starting mid-September in a bid to expedite production and deliveries.

What Happened: The discontinued options include both colors and items, a company spokesperson told Benzinga.

The color combination options being discontinued are:

• Red Canyon exterior/Forest Edge Interior
• Rivian Blue exterior/Forest Edge Interior

Rivian is discontinuing its compass yellow exterior option and also the choice of Black Mountain and Ocean Coast all-vegan leather interiors.

Amongst items, the 20" All-Terrain Bright wheels will no longer be available.

Solution For Those Awaiting Deliveries: However, all customers who are already expecting their vehicle deliveries this year and want the compass yellow paint job, the vegan leather interiors, or the bright wheels can confirm that they want the same before mid-September to receive it, the spokesperson said.

While the wait time for a Rivian R1T is 16 weeks or less as of today, the deliveries for new reservations of R1S are expected to start in 2024.

Other Moves: Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe addressed the issue of the company’s order backlog and customer complaints of long wait times in the company’s second-quarter earnings call last month. The CEO then revealed that more R1S were produced in the second quarter as compared to the R1T and that the pattern would continue for the next quarter or two. The CEO said that production will be segmented as 70% R1S and the remaining 30% R1T to address the issue. This marks a change from the former trend, where R1T accounted for a majority of the production of the EV company.

For 2023, the company expects to produce 52,000 total units.

Check out more of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.

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