According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Rivian is cutting another 600 workers. This marks the company’s third layoff of the year and affects approximately four percent of its total workforce. Rivian had previously made two smaller rounds of cuts, letting go of around 100 to 150 workers in September and a similar number in June from its commercial and manufacturing teams, respectively. The company has declined to comment on which teams are affected by this new round of layoffs.
These workforce reductions come as Rivian prepares for the critical launch of its mass-market model, the R2 SUV, in 2026. The company plans to manufacture as many as 150,000 of these electric vehicles per year at its factory in Normal, Illinois. Rivian has also recently broken ground on a new factory outside of Atlanta, where it intends to build more R2 vehicles and other variants.
Until the R2 model hits the road, Rivian is struggling to maintain the sales pace of its current vehicle lineup. The company’s own best-case estimate for total delivery figures at the end of 2025 would represent a sixteen percent drop from its sales last year.