The Premium model follows in late 2026 at $53,990. Same 87.9-kilo-watt-hour battery, same 330-mile range, but with 450 hp, 537 pound-foot of torque, and a 4.6-second zero-to-60 time. Still dual-motor AWD. Then the Standard Long Range model lands in early 2027 at $48,490 with a single-motor rear-wheel drive, 350 hp, and zero-to-60 in 5.9 seconds. Rivian estimates up to 345 miles on a single charge, which indeed makes it the farthest in the lineup, but only by 15 miles.

That all-important Standard model with the attractive $45,000 price ($10,000 less than a base Volvo EX40, and $5,000 less than Tesla Model Y Premium AWD) comes last, in late 2027, with a drop in range to about 275 miles. All four trims have a native North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector with access to Tesla's Supercharger network and a claimed 10-to-80-percent charge time of 29 minutes.

But here's the trouble: The initial R2s will not be technically as good as the models coming six months later or so. Why? Rivian's new, fancy RAP1 processor, a custom 5-nanometer chip delivering 1,600 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) that powers its coming Gen 3 autonomy, won't ship on R2 models until late 2026. The EVs also won't have lidar initially. So this crucially means early R2 adopters get Gen 2 hardware, not Gen 3. L2+ autonomy, not L3.

Now, Rivian is at pains to underline here that the Gen 2 Performance R2 will supposedly be capable of point-to-point driving later this year—but would you want that or rather wait a few months for the Level 3 Gen 3s packing “the most powerful combination of sensors and inference compute in consumer vehicles in North America,” according to Rivian's senior vice president of electrical hardware? I know what I'd do. I also know what Rivian wants you to do: Ignore this bothersome fact and just hand over the much-needed cash, please. Those sales targets aren't going to hi...