Imitating Tesla? Rivian Automotive raises prices and launches affordable electric vehicles.

Rivian Automotive, a startup in the electric vehicle industry, has launched two new SUV models in the hope of boosting its sales performance.

One of the mid-size SUVs is named R2, with a starting price of around $45,000, and is planned to be launched for sale in the first half of 2026. This new vehicle resembles a smaller version of Rivian Automotive's existing $75,000 R1S SUV. Rivian also showcased a smaller and lower-priced R3 SUV, as well as its sport version R3X. However, the company's CEO RJ Scaringe did not disclose the specific launch time for the R3.

In the context of a cooling electric vehicle market, Rivian Automotive can only rely on aggressive pricing to stimulate sales growth.

Not only Rivian Automotive, but also the leading electric vehicle giant in the U.S., Tesla, is following a similar strategy. There have been reports that Tesla plans to launch a new low-priced model, similar to a mini Tesla, and is building a production capacity plan of up to 4 million vehicles per year.

Electric vehicle startups like Rivian Automotive have been losing a significant amount of cash. Due to the lack of economies of scale, the company even incurs losses for every vehicle sold. The company reported a net loss of as high as $5.4 billion last year and announced last month that it would cut 10% of its workforce to cope with "severe macroeconomic conditions."

On Thursday, Rivian Automotive also announced the suspension of the construction of a factory in Georgia, with a total investment of $5 billion, dedicated to producing new models like the R2, in order to reduce the substantial cash outlay required for launching new models. Overall, Rivian Automotive is betting on the future growth of electric vehicle consumption by introducing a more diverse range of new vehicle models to the market. However, given the current financial constraints, whether the company can hold on until that point remains an unknown variable.