Selling a Rivian that no longer drives

Rivian is a young company with a short model list, so this page is short too: where the company came from, how many complaints owners have filed with federal safety regulators, and what to know when the car is an electric truck or SUV.

A 2009 startup that took a decade to ship

Rivian was founded in June 2009 in Rockledge, Florida, by RJ Scaringe. Today it is based in Irvine, California, and Wikipedia lists its products as electric vehicles and batteries.

The early years were quiet. Wikipedia records a Form D in 2011 reporting $250,000 in debts and warrants, a second in 2012 reporting $1 million, and no filings or announced funding at all from 2013 to 2016. Its cited reports from 2016 and 2017 describe Rivian buying a shuttered Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Illinois, and bringing it back to life.

That plant still builds every Rivian. Rivian announced a $5 billion battery and assembly plant east of Atlanta in December 2021, and Wikipedia expects it to come online in 2028 and add R2 capacity. Until then, all vehicles are made in Normal.

Big outside owners hold large stakes. Wikipedia lists Volkswagen Group at 15.9%, Amazon at 12.28%, Oryx Global at 8.6% and Vanguard at 5.1%.

What NHTSA complaints show for Rivian

Owners have filed 324 complaints with NHTSA about Rivian vehicles, counted as of October 10, 2026. Here is how they split across the three models we have pages for:

A complaint is one owner's report to the agency, and this table is no reliability rating. A count also depends on time on the road. The R1S and R1T both start with the 2022 model year, while the R2 went into customer production on April 22, 2026, with first deliveries on June 9, 2026. With four complaints, the R2 is simply too new to judge from this count. The same holds inside each model: a 2026 or 2027 R1 has had far fewer months on the road for reports to pile up than a 2022.

What every Rivian has in common

Every Rivian in the EPA list is fully electric. There is no engine, no gas tank and no transmission of the old kind to fail. When one stops driving, look first at the high-voltage pack, the drive units, the electronics, or crash damage to the body. Our EV battery guide covers the case where the pack itself is the problem.

Rivian also planned from the start to sell directly to buyers, not through franchised dealers. In March 2021 the Illinois Automobile Dealers Association sued Rivian and Lucid Motors over exactly that plan. For an owner, it means there may be no local Rivian dealer lot to take a broken one in trade.

Getting a dead Rivian picked up

An electric truck that won't power on is heavy and can be hard to move. You don't need to charge it, unplug anything or take parts off first. The whole vehicle leaves on a truck, as it sits.

1. Note which Rivian it is, its year, and the miles on the display.
2. Tell us if the screen wakes up, if the wheels move, and what is broken.
3. Say whether you have the title. Money still owed on it? See selling a car you still owe on.
4. Give the address where it sits now, whether that is home, a parking lot or a collision center.

If it was in a crash, our wrecked car guide has more. When it is gone, handle the plates and the paperwork.

Rather talk to a person? Call (877) 421-6008.

Every Rivian model on this site

Rivian's EPA list runs from the 2022 model year to 2027. Model year 2027 is the newest entry, and later years will appear as the EPA rates them.