Rivian’s 2025 Layoffs Behind R2 Delivery Faults, Source Says

[Mos Eisley]

Here's the link
FWIW

The breakdown in pre-delivery inspection quality now surfacing on Rivian‘s R2 is a direct result of the restructuring that dismantled the teams built to catch those faults, a person familiar with the matter told EV on Tuesday.

The October 2025 layoffs and the reorganisation accompanying them removed the operational safeguard that existed to stop defective vehicles reaching customers, the person said.

The entire vehicle operations organisation was removed in that round, including at director level, the person said.

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[Mellowyellow]

Well let’s be honest they weren’t doing a super duper job before anyway

 

[macb00kemdanno]

Isn’t this the same site that sparked a rumor about a Lucid bankruptcy filing a few weeks ago, which caused its stock to be halted on the exchange?

 

[emroch]

As always, consider the source. Who would be motivated to go to the press with this story? An upset former employee perhaps?
I know nothing about the reputation of this particular outlet or reporter, but any time I see finger pointing I assume there is probably an axe being ground.

 

[SANZC02]

My only fault with that is none of the deliveries for production R2 were being built in 2025. More likely if there was an impact it would be the June 2026 round of layoffs that is not even mentioned in that article.

My guess is sour grapes from one of the 2025 layoffs victims. They had over 8 months to establish the R2 quality inspection teams between that layoff and actual customer deliveries.

One data point, my R2 built 6/22/26 was super clean. I have no complaints, and even more important my wife, who is way pickier than I am, gave it her seal of approval.

 

[Jeremy3292]

Meh. Nothing burger of a story to me. Layoffs happen all the time in corporate America, been there done that myself. Everyone said when Tesla laid off supposedly the entire supercharging team it was the end of superchargers. Here we are not long later and all is normal. Rivian laid off employees and they’ll figure it out. R2 wouldn’t have been flawless even if these supposed employees responsible were still there. This article screams of someone disgruntled thinking they aren’t replaceable. They’ll learn in life everyone is replaceable in corporate America. It’s just a job, it’s just a paycheck, it’s not your family. Carry on!

 

[Mos Eisley]

As always, consider the source. Who would be motivated to go to the press with this story? An upset former employee perhaps?
I know nothing about the reputation of this particular outlet or reporter, but any time I see finger pointing I assume there is probably an axe being ground.

agreed on all points. This blogger is connected in the industry but sure, could readily be a disgruntled employee.

 

[NY_Rob]

Doesn't make sense that Rivian would just completely gut the entire QC division and replace it with no one? It's kind of like saying "we're going to get rid of the paint robots" with no plans to replace them with anything? Not buying it....

 

[Jeremy3292]

Doesn't make sense that Rivian would just completely gut the entire QC division and replace it with no one? It's kind of like saying "we're going to get rid of the paint robots" with no plans to replace them with anything? Not buying it....

Likely because the article is misleading at best. Remember when Tesla supposedly laid off their entire charging team? Seems like that turned out just fine and was wildly overstated.

 

[kanundrum]

That site takes everyone data runs it thru some bullshit AI engine and reposts it (it took my EPA data 1 minute after I posted).

 

[Mos Eisley]

That site takes everyone data runs it thru some bullshit AI engine and reposts it (it took my EPA data 1 minute after I posted).

And they also never link out to anybody else so it's very difficult to find/check citations.

 

[Millbarge]

As always, consider the source. Who would be motivated to go to the press with this story? An upset former employee perhaps?
I know nothing about the reputation of this particular outlet or reporter, but any time I see finger pointing I assume there is probably an axe being ground.

A current employee who's over worked and believes QC took a hit? Could be anything

 

[Dark-Fx]

As always, consider the source. Who would be motivated to go to the press with this story? An upset former employee perhaps?
I know nothing about the reputation of this particular outlet or reporter, but any time I see finger pointing I assume there is probably an axe being ground.

If we believe Rivian was having quality issues, and ended up axing the entire department, my belief is that there was some kind of a systemic culture issue that developed, and even the highest up folks in the department weren't willing to do enough about it.

I think the same thing happened with Tesla's supercharging team (but I don't want to get into the "what" of their issue)

 

[Josh X]

Isn’t this the same site that sparked a rumor about a Lucid bankruptcy filing a few weeks ago, which caused its stock to be halted on the exchange?

The one that Lucid then came out and publicly denied and said was filing a cease and desist against the site? Yes, yes it is. Screenshot below is from Nick Twork who is the Head of Communications for Lucid.

EDIT: Just realized that article sites MY reddit post as one of the sources of problems lol.

 

[Rivian R2D2]

Great job team!

As long as they don’t hit ten or so recalls like the Tesla CT has we should be ok.

Don’t build them like they used to.

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