RIVN Stock Reverses Gains After Hours As Investors Consider Impact Of R2 Launch On Profitability

• The ramp of R2 delivery will be “back-half weighted,” according to Rivian CFO Claire McDonough. 
• The CFO also highlighted that the new vehicle launch will negatively impact the company’s automotive gross profit in Q2 and Q3 before benefiting in Q4. 
• Deliveries of the new vehicle, aimed at expanding Rivian’s total addressable market, are expected to commence in the “coming weeks,” the company said.

Shares of Rivian Automotive (RIVN) fell 5% after hours, reversing all gains, as investors weighed the impact of the company’s upcoming R2 SUV on its automotive gross profit.

RIVN Q1 Print

The company reported a Q1 loss of $0.33, lower than an estimated loss of $0.60. The company’s revenue for the three months through the end of March came in at $1.38 billion, up from the $1.24 billion reported in the corresponding quarter of 2025, and above the $1.37 billion expected by Wall Street.

The company noted that higher capital expenditures during the quarter pushed free cash flow deeper into the red, to negative $1.075 billion, compared with negative $526 million in the same quarter of 2025.

Full-Year Guidance

Adjusted core loss for the full year is now expected to be between $1.80 and 2.10 billion, lower at the midpoint than an analyst estimate of a loss of $2 billion.

Capital expenditures, meanwhile, are slated to rise from $1.7 billion in 2025 to be in the range of $1.95 billion to $2.05 billion in 2026.

R2 Roadmap

Rivian said on Thursday that it commenced production of the R2 SUV last week at its facility in Normal, Illinois. Deliveries of the new vehicle, aimed at expanding Rivian’s total addressable market, are expected to commence in the “coming weeks,” the company said.

For the whole of 2026, Rivian now expects to deliver 62,000-67,000 vehicles, up from the 42,247 vehicles delivered in 2025. However, the ramp of R2 delivery will be “back-half weighted,” according to Rivian CFO Claire McDonough.

Regarding the progress with R2, McDonough said, “As discussed previously, R2 production is starting with a single shift operation, and we expect to scale to 2 shifts by the end of 2026 as we ramp towards our North Star target of profitably delivering 4,000 vehicles per week in Normal.”

The CFO highlighted that the new vehicle launch will negatively impact the company’s automotive gross profit in Q2 and Q3 before benefiting in Q4 as the company ramps production and deliveries.

The CFO further dismissed the impact of a recent tornado at the Normal factory, noting that it will not have an impact on the company’s full-year delivery guidance.

Rivian-Uber Partnership  

Rivian and Uber announced a major strategic partnership in March 2026 aimed at accelerating the deployment of Rivian’s R2-based autonomous vehicles as part of Uber’s robotaxi network.

Under the deal, Uber is committing up to $1.25 billion in equity investments tied to milestones: $300 million expected in the current quarter, an additional $250 million later upon successful deployment of vehicles with safety drivers in San Francisco and Miami, and the remaining $700 million as Rivian scales to fully driverless operations in multiple cities by 2028 and 25 cities by 2031.

Rivian is now looking to deploy vehicles in both San Francisco and Miami with a safety driver later this year, before transitioning to fully autonomous service in 2028, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said.

How Did RIVN Retail Traders React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around RIVN jumped from ‘neutral’ to ‘extremely bullish’ territory over the past 24 hours, while message volume rose from ‘normal’ to ‘extremely high’ levels.

RIVN stock has gained 20% over the past 12 months.  

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