Rivian's battery-powered R1T adventure truck, which was originally slated to drop later in 2020, won't hit the road until sometime next year due to coronavirus.

The highly hyped electric vehicle startup confirmed to Heart Of Illinois ABC that its production facility in Normal, Illinois, has been shut down since last month. Now, with a statewide stay-at-home order in place, the deadline has been pushed back even further. Although production is still expected to kick off in the final months of 2020, customers will not be receiving their pickups until the turn of the calendar year, as confirmed by the Chicago Tribune.

Rivian released a statement to those with existing pre-orders on April 1 saying, "While we expect some level of delay, we are working to minimize the disruption to our launch schedule and as we better understand the extent of the impact, you will be the first to know."

As such, the automaker's R1S sport utility vehicles are also on hold.

Large-scale partnerships with Ford Motor Company and Amazon solidified Rivian's role as a serious player in the EV realm, one that's infamously filled with flaky startups. Its promises of extremely capable electric adventure vehicles have been enough to intrigue the industry for the past two years, and backing from established firms in the industry reinforces these claims.

R1T pricing is expected to start under the initially planned $69,000 figure, and that's for the 105-kilowatt-hour model with around 230 miles of driving range. The Rivian truck can be optioned up to a 180-kWh variant offering 400 miles of range, jam-packed with innovative features such as the torque-vectoring Tank Turn. Factor in the model's rugged-yet-sleek construction and Rivian has one of the most hotly anticipated off-roaders heading for market once this craziness comes to an end.

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h/t: InsideEVs