Rivian cuts dozens on manufacturing crew forward of R2 launch

Rivian has laid off round 140 staff, or roughly 1% of its workforce, because it prepares for the launch of its extra reasonably priced R2 SUV in 2026, TechCrunch has discovered.

The cuts have been largely made to Rivian’s manufacturing crew and have been ongoing since Wednesday, in line with a number of former staff who have been granted anonymity to talk about the layoffs. Some staff have been advised that the corporate was eliminating roles that created “course of inefficiencies.”

Rivian confirmed the cuts in an e-mail to TechCrunch. “We’ve got made the troublesome choice to scale back a small variety of our salaried manufacturing staff as a part of an ongoing effort to enhance operational effectivity for R2,” a spokesperson wrote. The corporate mentioned affected staff are being inspired to use to different open positions inside the corporate.

Rivian started the yr with greater than 14,800 staff in North America and Europe, in line with its annual submitting with the Securities and Change Fee. The corporate has made a number of cuts over the previous couple of years, together with a ten% discount in early 2024, and one other layoff of round 1% of workers in April 2024.