‘Baffling!’ blast drivers as Rivian makes U-turn on design promise for new EV – buyers are threatening to cancel orders

HOPEFUL Rivian buyers are threatening to cancel their vehicle orders after an executive confirmed that a feature on the prototype wouldn't make it off the production floor.

The growing EV company is closing in on the release of its mass-market SUVs, the R2 and R3.

So far, Rivian has produced and sold two battery-powered passenger vehicles in the American market.

The R1S is the company's three-row SUV, while the R1T is a full-size pickup truck.

The company has teased prototypes for the smaller, more affordable R2 and R3 SUVs.

At the launch event in March, the company said the mid-size R2 would feature dozens of camping-oriented features.

But in a recent public session in Pasadena, the company's Chief Engineer of Special Projects, Brian Gates, said one of the features showcased at the launch event was nixed from the production models.

"We built these [prototypes] at the factory," Gates said at the event.

"There are a few things that we wanted to put in that aren't production-ready."

Unlike the prototype, Gates confirmed that the R2's front seats won't fold flat, as Rivian's CEO RJ Scaringe showed at the launch event.

The company initially said the fold-flat chairs would allow occupants more space in the full cabin if they used the vehicle for camping.

The R2 has a near-full-roof panoramic window - the seat option would have allowed campers to place larger mattresses in the car to view the night sky.

"The front seats won't fold flat," Gates said at the event.

He also said the back seat will fold at a four-degree angle.

The U.S. Sun contacted Rivian's press team to confirm changes to the production model - the company didn't immediately respond to the request for comment.

But hopeful drivers were upset by the potential seat changes in posts on Threads, the word-focused social media app created by Facebook's parent company, Meta.

"This is one feature I absolutely wanted," one driver said. "This decision is baffling."

Another potential Rivian customer said the switch was "really worth canceling orders."

So far, Rivian has announced that more than 70,000 customers have placed pre-orders for the R2 since the event.

However, the car continues to go through design changes as it gets closer to its 2026 market entry.

R2 models will switch the charging port over to the driver's side to make it easier to plug into charging stations.

The company also said it would swap the ports and at-home chargers to the North American Charging Standard port, or NACS.

Rivian's decision to switch to NACS ports will create compatibility with Tesla's Supercharger network, the largest fleet of fast-charging chargers in the US.