Rivian surprises with lower prices for its electric pickup and SUV

Rivian has raised significant cash in multiple rounds of investment to bring its electric truck and SUV to market. The EV maker landed a substantial investment by Ford and will build the skateboard platform for an unannounced Ford/Lincoln SUV. Recently, Rivian announced something surprising. That surprise was that the prices of its vehicles will be lower than previously announced.

Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe recently told Reuters that the mid-range R1T electric pickup with the glass sky panel would sell for about $69,000. The sky panel is an interesting roof option that features a panel that can change from blue to clear. That SUV will be able to go about 300 miles on a charge.

Scaringe said that the similar range R1S SUV would sell for about $72,000. The automaker has stated that the vehicle with the largest battery will drive about 400 miles per charge. An EV fitted with its smallest battery pack will go about 230 miles per charge. There are some mysteries about the Rivian vehicles, namely how many have plunked down the $1,000 refundable deposit to get in line for a Rivian vehicle. All Scaringe would say was that the reaction to the EVs has been positive.

He said that the challenge would be that a lot of the pre-order customers won't get their vehicles as fast as they would like because of the long queue. So far, Rivian has raised $3.6 billion with major investments from Ford and Amazon, among others. Amazon has pledged to buy a massive number of electric delivery vehicles from Rivian. The automaker says it is working on rolling out its own charging stations at locations like national parks. The vehicles will charge on exiting electric vehicle charging networks.