Startup electric vehicle maker Rivian, which has received financial backing from Ford Motor Company, Amazon, and a host of other companies, has announced that it has signed a lease for its first New York City-based retail store. The Rivian showroom will be located in Williamsburg, a hip neighborhood in Brooklyn.
The Rivian showroom will be located at 360 Wythe Avenue, close to the Williamsburg Bridge that connects to New York City’s Lower East Side, and will encompass more than 12,000 square feet to show off the automaker’s R1T pickup and R1S SUV. It’s also one of a few planned Rivian showrooms, joining previously-announced locations in Chicago, California, and other areas around the U.S., in addition to 41 planned service centers.
Rivan will operate on a direct-to-customer sales model, similar to Tesla, which means that consumers won’t be able to purchase vehicles from these showrooms. However, the idea is to provide a physical location where interested parties can check out the vehicles up close, or potentially even test drive them, as is the case at Tesla locations, prior to ordering them online.
Deliveries of Rivian’s R1T pickup are slated to begin in June of 2021, while the R1S SUV will follow suit in August. However, the automaker has already sold out of the first batch of Launch Edition vehicles it plans to build in the 2021 model year and faces very limited production capacity. As such, most buyers likely won’t actually take delivery of their shiny new EVs until Q1 of 2022 or later.
In addition to the R1T and R1S, Rivian is also working on developing 100,000 all-electric delivery vans for Amazon, which are expected to be on the road distributing packages sometime next year. Additionally, as Ford Authority exclusively reported last October, Rivian’s partnership with Ford is still “going great,” and FoMoCo will move forward with building a new EV on Rivian’s skateboard platform at some point in the future.
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Comment
Looks like Rivian want to tap into markets where PU trucks are not the norm so there be little competition from traditional truck owners. A problem in that area of NYC, though beautiful, is many homes do not have garages. Street parking is the norm so charging will be an issue and having cords across the sidewalk is not a good idea. I do wish them luck.