Quietly, the good ship Rivian is getting more wind in it sails. The fledgling EV maker has released its production figures for the first quarter of the year, and they are, if not outstanding, at least encouraging. Between January 1 and March 31, 2022, Rivian built 2,553 electric vehicles at its Normal, Illinois plant.
Of those, 1,227 have been delivered. We can confirm that at least two of them are in California, as evidenced by the photos we took there.
What we don't know is precisely how many R1T pickup trucks and R1S SUVs were produced. The R1T was the first to launch on the market, so we’ll assume most of the Rivians out there are pickups. At the same time, that production figure provided by the company could also include some of the delivery vans it is contracted to deliver to Amazon.
Browse cars for sale available near you
In all of 2021 (meaning, between September 1 and the end of the year), the company assembled 1,015 vehicles. Comparing Q4 to the following Q1, we’re therefore seeing a notable progression. That said, Rivian is far from its stated goal of producing 25,000 vehicles in 2022. Let's just say the pace will have to pick up over the next nine months if the automaker wants to get to that figure.
Rivian continues to say it is on the right track. We'll know more about that when the second-quarter numbers come out.
The company has a lot of reasons to want to make its target, of course, because it is sitting on some 80,000 reservations. By 2023, the manufacturer's plans call for annual production of 150,000 models. This will be necessary to satisfy customer demand. The plan further down the road is to increase production to 200,000 and then to 400,000 once a second plant is operational.
For those who have reserved a model, short-term patience is in order, but there is reason for hope in the longer term.
