Rivian delays some pickup, SUV deliveries

Rivian Automotive Inc. is delaying deliveries of electric pickup truck and SUVs equipped with Max battery packs to 2023, CEO RJ Scaringe said in a letter to customers on Tuesday.

Scaringe said the majority of Rivian's roughly 71,000 preorders for the R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV in the United States and Canada were for a version of the vehicles with a smaller battery pack option providing 314 miles of range on one charge.

"In order to serve the largest number of preorder holders, we will be prioritizing building the Adventure Package with Large pack battery during the next year," Scaringe said in the mail posted by a Rivian customer on the social media platform Reddit.

Rivian shares closed down 3.9 percent at $102.87.

After the electric vehicle maker reported its first quarterly results as a listed firm earlier this month, Scaringe had outlined production challenges citing global supply-chain constraints, the COVID-19 pandemic, a tight labor market and short-term issues around building electric battery modules.

Rivian has delivered 386 of the 652 vehicles it has built, including its pickup and SUV.

The bigger battery pack, called the Max pack, is expected to provide 400 miles of range on a single charge. Only 20 percent of the preorders were for the Max pack.

Rivian said that in early 2022 it will introduce a feature for customers on their Rivian accounts that will display their current delivery timing estimate.