Electric-vehicle maker Rivian began delivery of a cheaper SUV on Tuesday as it aims to take customers from Tesla and others.

The long-anticipated R2, which will eventually be available for less than $45,000, could help boost the market share of the Irvine company better known for vehicles priced around $77,000.

The first R2s to roll off the company’s production line in Normal, Ill., are the performance version, starting at $57,990. Rivian said the R2 Premium will arrive in late 2026 for around $54,000, followed by an R2 Standard version in 2027 priced at $44,990.

“Rivian is really trying to prove its worth,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds. “They’ve gone past that initial stage and are hoping to move on to mass market products.”

The R2 Performance is still an expensive vehicle for many Americans, but it’s a step down from Rivian’s nearly $77,000 R1S. It’s typical for an automaker to launch the most expensive version of a new vehicle first, experts said.

Whether the R2 will be the success Rivian is hoping for won’t become clear until late 2027, once the standard versions are widely available. Chief Executive RJ Scaringe said the company is aiming to compete with not just other EV makers, but also traditional auto companies such as Jeep and Subaru.

“More mainstream people are going to be in on the R2, especially for the lower-priced models,” auto analyst Brian Moody said. “You’re always going to have early adopters, but there’s a lot more customers to go around in the $45,000 to $55,000 range.”

According to Cox Automotive, the average transaction price for a new EV in the U.S. is $55,000, compared with $49,000 for a gas-powered vehicle. Used EV sales have been surging lately because of their value, with an average transaction price of around $36,000.

Though there’s significant hype surrounding the launch of R2, investors have been unimpressed. Rivian shares fell 7% on Tuesday.

There has been a broad cooling of the EV market. Major automakers including Honda and Ford have cut back their EV options as excitement for the vehicles has fallen under the Trump administration. A $7,500 EV tax credit for new vehicles expired in September.

Drury added that an announcement of a new product would generally generate more buzz than the first deliveries of a vehicle that’s already been in the public eye.

“This is simply them delivering on a promise, and the market itself is not what it was when they had first conjured up the vehicle,” Drury said.

Rivian lost $3.6 billion last year and hasn’t been profitable since its founding in 2009. Scaringe said the company will reach profitability on a per-unit production basis with the R2 this year, but estimated that the company won’t turn an overall profit until closer to 2030.

Karl Brauer, an auto industry expert at ISeeCars.com, said the premium and standard versions of the R2 probably will sell in much higher volumes than the performance version.

“It’s in theory an exciting moment, because they’re launching this new version, but it’s the expensive one,” Brauer said. “There’s no indication in my mind that there will be huge, high-volume sales.”

A month away from its closure, onetime gambling oasis Primm, Nev., located along the state border with Southern California, has a new lease on life.

The Primm family, owners of the land that includes three casino resorts and other businesses along the 15 Freeway, announced Tuesday a partnership intended to save the struggling state-line strip and hundreds of jobs.

The deal allows Las Vegas-based Terrible’s, owned by the Herbst family and perhaps most famous for a string of gas stations and convenience stores, to operate the properties.

“What we saw with them is the same energy that we had in rebuilding Primm,” said Cory Clemetson, describing the new deal with Terrible’s in an interview with The Times. Clemetson is president of Primm South Real Estate Co. and a grandson of Primm founder Ernie Primm, who made a name for himself in Southern California in the 1930s and ’40s with his Gardena card rooms.

“Primm has long been one of Nevada’s most recognizable destinations,” said Tim Herbst, president of Terrible’s, in a statement. “This partnership reflects our commitment to preserving that legacy while creating new opportunities for growth, investment, and tourism for decades to come.”

Terrible’s takes over for Affinity Gaming, owned by private equity company Z Capital Partners, in the full-circle world of southern Nevada gaming. In 2010, Herbst Gaming declared bankruptcy and saw Primm taken over by Z Capital Partners.

An email to representatives for Affinity Gaming was not immediately returned.

The process for the return of Terrible’s to Primm kick-started May 5, when Affinity confirmed the closure of Primm Valley Casino Resorts.

Affinity’s subsidiary, Primadonna Co. LLC, sent termination notices to more than 300 employees effective July 4.

The closure was devastating, Clemetson said.

“It felt like a gut punch,” he said. “I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me that they would announce something like that for the Fourth of July. Laying off in excess of 300 Nevadans who are mostly paycheck to paycheck with nowhere to go didn’t sit well with my family.”

Primm Valley was the last of three resorts built between 1977 and 1994 at the site that remained in full operation.

Buffalo Bill’s, the largest of the three resorts, closed 24-7 operations in July 2025, after Whiskey Pete’s, the original casino, shuttered in December 2024.

Affinity Gaming declined multiple requests from The Times to speak about Primm’s struggles.

In a letter presented at a Clark County Board of Commissioners meeting, Erin Barnett, Affinity’s vice president and general counsel, wrote in October 2024 that “traffic at the state line has proved to be heavily weighted towards weekend activity and is insufficient to support three full-time casino properties.”

Scott Butera, Affinity’s chief executive and president, offered a few comments about the closure at the May 21 Nevada Gaming Commission meeting.

“As a tenant with a difficult lease and an expensive property and increased competition every day in California … it just became a very difficult thing,” he said, “and we’ve been losing money for years there.”

Clemetson said that Affinity asked for help over the years, such as potential rent reductions, but that the Primm family was unaware of Affinity’s finances.

As for the future, Clemetson said Terrible’s was in the process of reacquiring a gaming license for Primm, which he hoped would happen in the next three weeks.

He also said it was the goal of the Herbst and Primm families to try to keep all workers who received a termination notice employed.

Clemetson said he was excited about Primm’s future under Terrible’s and chalked up its bankruptcy in 2010 to the Great Recession.

“They suffered a similar fate of many big brands like MGM and Caesar’s,” Clemetson said.

“They’re very well thought of in Nevada and they’re a very successful family who’s done well,” he added.

Speaking of Primm’s chances of regaining its former glory, Clemetson reached back into his own past as a young sports agent for players on the L.A. Galaxy soccer team.

“I can’t tell you how many people told me I was dumb to get involved representing soccer players because soccer would never make it here,” he said. “Now, Major League Soccer has a few franchises over a billion dollars.”

As for Tim Herbst and his family, “we believe Primm’s best days are still ahead.”

A strike that had the potential to disrupt the U.S. World Cup opener at SoFi Stadium has been averted, with United Here Local 11 and Legends Global, the stadium’s food-service operator, agreeing Tuesday to a tentative deal.

The nearly 2,000 workers represented by the union, which includes dishwashers, concession workers, bartenders and servers, voted last week to authorize a strike with 96% of those voting supporting the decision to walk off the job. Workers were demanding salary increases, protection against subcontracting and job loss through automation, and were refusing to comply with FIFA’s request to collect sensitive private information such as nationality and home addresses.

Details of the new contract were not released but the union had demanded “substantial increases” in pay to more than $30 an hour while Legends proposed wage freezes for some workers and a 25-cent hourly increase for cooks and dishwashers.

“We got major economic gains and significant protections around subcontracting automation,” Kurt Petersen, the union’s co-president, said. “I don’t know the soccer analogy, but it’s a grand slam of a contract.”

Legends was also happy with the deal.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Unite Here Local 11 and look forward to delivering an outstanding hospitality experience for fans at the FIFA World Cup matches,” the company said in a statement.

Petersen said the final sticking points included a prohibition preventing any accrediting agency, including Legends, from sharing workers’ personal information and the right for union members to walk off the job without prejudice if they feel threatened by the presence of Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at the stadium.

“That was the last piece that fell into place [Monday] afternoon, which, you know, is a unique, unprecedented provision,” he said. “Because when you have a contract, you can’t strike. We carved out this exception.”

FIFA, global soccer’s governing body and the organizer of the World Cup, said it needed the information as part of its background-check procedure. But the union feared the sensitive date would be shared with immigration authorities.

Union members have been working without a contract for a year and Petersen said workers would have picketed the stadium ahead of Friday’s tournament opener between the U.S. and Paraguay. SoFi Stadium will play host to seven other World Cup games, including the U.S. group-play finale with Turkey on June 25.

“The privacy concerns, and then the ability to strike. It’s about being able to work in peace, right? Being able at least to have some protections,” Petersen said.

FIFA has declined to comment on the contract talks, saying they are “between Legends Global and Unite Here Local 11.” But its insistence on collecting personal information was a major stumbling block to a deal.

FIFA said it was partnering with the governments of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the three countries in which the 39-day tournament will be played, “to enhance safety and security of all workers, staff, team members, vendors, journalists, volunteers, and spectators by mitigating potential insider threats. … Such name checks do not constitute pre-employment checks.”

Petersen said the contract runs through April 2028, expiring about 2 ½ months before the 2028 Olympics comes to SoFi Stadium.