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 workforce and have been ongoing since Wednesday, based on a number of former staff who have been granted anonymity to discuss 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 have now made the troublesome determination 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 stated affected staff are being inspired to use to different open positions inside the corporate.
Rivian started the 12 months with greater than 14,800 employees in North America and Europe, based on its annual submitting with the Securities and Alternate Fee. The corporate has made a number of cuts over the previous couple of years, together with a 10% reduction in early 2024, and another layoff of around 1% of staff in April 2024.