We’re less than three weeks away from Rivian’s March where the company will officially unveil its upcoming R2 electric vehicle. While we’ll get all of the details of the vehicle then, we may have actually just gotten our first leak of the vehicle out in the wild.
In a post by New-Enthusiasm-9120 on Reddit, someone grabbed a photo of what appears to be the rumored R2 next to an R1S at a Rivian Adventure Network charging station. The photo isn’t fantastic and you can tell it’s taken from a smartphone with digital zoom doing some work, but the vehicle shown does appear to be smaller than the R1S, has different wheels, and charges from the back instead of the front.
People quickly jumped on the photo and claimed it was actually made with artificial intelligence. While I would normally agree with them — especially after seeing what OpenAI’s new Sora text-to-video model can do — it appears there is more evidence to support this being a legitimate photo.
On a Facebook group for Rivian R1S enthusiasts, Daniel Aland Getting, a member of the group, posted the below photos that shows both the white R2 and the green R1S that are also depicted in the Reddit photo above. It appears that the company may have reserved the top of a parking garage for a photo or video shoot of the new vehicle.
So, unless this is all a mass conspiracy and someone is planting AI-generated photos or built a fake R2 to troll the entire internet, it looks like this might actually be the R2 we’ve been waiting for. The general design of the vehicle in the photos is what we’ve been expecting — Rivian itself confirmed in its recent environmental impact report that the R2 will be a lower-priced midsize vehicle, coming in smaller and more affordable than the R1T and R1S.
We’ll find out for sure on March 7th
The photos from Reddit and Facebook line up pretty closely with the teaser video that Rivian released on Thursday. The shot only shows off the front lights of the vehicle, but it confirms that the R2 will keep the unique lighting design of the R1T and R1S and that seems to be the case in the above photos:
If that’s the design of the R2, I’m happy. While the R1S is awesome, it’s too large of a vehicle for me — someone who would be coming from a Subaru Crosstrek. A mid-size SUV that comes closer to a Subaru Forester is exactly what I’d hope to get from the R2 and that seems to be what Rivian has in mind as well if these photos are legit.
The company is set to kick off its R2 reveal event on March 7th, where it will officially unveil its next-generation electric vehicle. It is expected to start at $40,000 with deliveries set to begin in 2026 if the company can hit the timeline it set for itself — preorders will cost $100 for those who want to make a reservation. The vehicle is also expected to be eligible for the full $7,500 federal tax credit.
While we might now know the design of the R2, I’m sure there will be tons of other things to learn at the company’s event. From the interior to the technology and features, there’s still plenty to find out. We’ll find out everything in less than three weeks!