[00:01] (intense up beat music)
[00:15] We—I don't know if you like snakes&nbsp; or not—but holy smokes. I am personally not the&nbsp;&nbsp; biggest fan of snakes, but I also don't want&nbsp; to get the tires dirty. If anyone knows what&nbsp;&nbsp; kind of snake this is, he's big. You’ve got&nbsp; to get out of the trail, buddy. Okay, go.
[00:33] professionals. There we go. Adios,&nbsp; dude. All right, back to driving. Up until today, the best-selling car&nbsp; in the world was the Tesla Model Y,&nbsp;&nbsp; followed closely by the Toyota RAV4. It's just&nbsp; a compact SUV style of vehicle that people want.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:50] Today, Rivian is throwing their hat into the ring&nbsp; with the new Rivian R2, which has the footprint of&nbsp;&nbsp; the Model Y but the ability to take adventures off&nbsp; the beaten path. You know, it's got personality. Rivian's R2 has more horsepower than a Ford&nbsp; F-250 Super Duty and faster acceleration than&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:07] a V8 Ford Mustang, all while keeping the&nbsp; ground clearance of a stock Jeep Wrangler.&nbsp;&nbsp; Hills are never quite as steep on camera as&nbsp; they are in real life, but one thing I really&nbsp;&nbsp; like about electric vehicles and off-roading&nbsp; in general is just how quiet it is.
[01:20] (the sound of sweet nothings) It's so&nbsp;cool. It is seriously like a Tesla and a&nbsp; Jeep had a baby; you get the quietness of&nbsp;&nbsp; an electric vehicle with the "off-roadiness"&nbsp; of a Jeep. (Those are the technical terms.)
[01:37] To compete with the best-selling vehicles on&nbsp; the planet and cut about 50% off of the bill&nbsp;&nbsp; of materials, Rivian has swapped the suspension&nbsp; from the active airbags that we see on the R1s&nbsp;&nbsp; to passive springs, passive roll bars, and&nbsp; semi-active dampers. The structural battery&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:52] pack is made up of 768 battery cells. These become&nbsp; the floor of the R2, and all of these serviceable&nbsp;&nbsp; components sit in a little "treehouse" module&nbsp; on top of the battery, right underneath the rear&nbsp;&nbsp; seats for easier long-term serviceability.&nbsp; Not many people talk about Rivian's 8-year,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:08] 120,000-mile drivetrain and battery warranty,&nbsp; but that peace of mind is pretty priceless. I'm impressed by how well they were able to&nbsp; chop the price in half while still keeping&nbsp;&nbsp; all the aura of Rivian intact. Now that&nbsp; we are sufficiently off the beaten path,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:22] let's take a look around the inside of&nbsp; the Rivian R2, because there are three&nbsp;&nbsp; Easter eggs they've included that&nbsp; I'm sure you don't know about yet. We'll get to the front trunk in a second,&nbsp; but I really like that there are tow hooks&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:36] the outdoors. We have the same pull handles&nbsp; that we have on the other Rivian vehicles. it's just the NACS port that Tesla uses,"&nbsp; but nope. Rivian has actually made a maze&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:51] on the inside of the charging port&nbsp; door. The start point is here,&nbsp;&nbsp; and you work your way all the way down to the end&nbsp; point here. You know, if they got to the point of&nbsp;&nbsp; adding Easter eggs to the vehicle, the rest of&nbsp; the details are equally as well thought out.
[03:03] Let's check out the other Easter egg, and&nbsp; it's in the frunk. It is a power-open, but a&nbsp;&nbsp; manual-close. Right here underneath the Rivian&nbsp; logo, there are three lines. If I press that,&nbsp;&nbsp; the whole hood opens up. Inside of here,&nbsp; there's enough storage space for some golf&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:18] clubs or carry-on luggage. But the Easter egg&nbsp; is in here: the windshield wiper fluid lid. It's&nbsp;&nbsp; actually a frog and a skunk. Which since it's a&nbsp; frog and a skunk... Frog. Skunk. Frunk. Anyway,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:34] it's an Easter egg. I will manually close it;&nbsp; it'll latch and then pull it in by itself. The other Easter egg is inside the cab. We&nbsp; still have the flashlight in the door handle,&nbsp;&nbsp; which is just ya know a staple of Rivian's&nbsp; designs. Also, I did not know this,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:48] but Rivian makes a hand warmer/power&nbsp; bank that fits inside of the same sleeve,&nbsp;&nbsp; so you can always have a power bank with&nbsp; you. Also, you can warm your hands in the&nbsp;&nbsp; winter. Anyway, it's very easy to&nbsp; swap out between the two of them.
[04:01] One thing I like about the R2 is that even&nbsp; though it's like half the price of—well,&nbsp;&nbsp; we don't know official pricing yet—but even though&nbsp; it's close to half the price of the original R1s,&nbsp;&nbsp; we still have a blinker stalk as well as two&nbsp; screens. When you're driving down the road,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:15] you're able to see how fast you're&nbsp; going as well as a map in front of&nbsp;&nbsp; I feel like the cameras are almost cheating.&nbsp; And then the other Easter egg—I'll move this&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:27] water—is down here underneath the&nbsp; rubber mat. Underneath the rubber&nbsp;&nbsp; storage space cover is a little diagram of all&nbsp; the accessories you can put in this cubby hole,&nbsp;&nbsp; There are a few things that Rivian changed from&nbsp; their launch event. We still have the dual glove&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:45] boxes for storage space, but the front seats do&nbsp; not recline flat anymore. I'll show you the back&nbsp;&nbsp; here in a second. But up here, we have a button&nbsp; that rolls down all windows at once, as well as&nbsp;&nbsp; another button that rolls down the back glass. I&nbsp; am glad that Rivian left both screens. And one of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:02] the big additions are these giant wheels that&nbsp; Rivian is calling their "Haptic Halo" wheels. The Halo haptic wheels are kind of crazy. Not&nbsp; only are they gigantic—one on either side of&nbsp;&nbsp; the steering wheel—but they are accessible&nbsp; from both the front and the rear. Let's say&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:16] and when the dial reaches the end of the volume&nbsp; meter (in Rivian's case, it stops at 30),&nbsp;&nbsp; the electric motor inside of the Halo wheels&nbsp; will change the haptic feedback so that the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:29] clicking stops and the dial stops rotating.&nbsp; It feels very much like a physical stop. So I'm very interested in how they&nbsp; accomplished it all with just motors&nbsp;&nbsp; changing the temperature or the power of the&nbsp; air vents—without having to reach over and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:46] touch a digital display. It'll also help&nbsp; control the assistive driving features,&nbsp;&nbsp; like the follow distance behind cars, as Rivian&nbsp; rolls out their point-to-point autonomous driving. Before we jump into the back, I do want&nbsp; to show one thing I don't like as much.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:59] Here on the driver's seat, it is just a push&nbsp; button which unlocks the latch over there.&nbsp;&nbsp; The emergency exit is right here next to my&nbsp; water bottle; you can just pull this latch,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:12] which physically lets you out of&nbsp; the vehicle in case of an emergency. And then back here, if we open up this door,&nbsp; this is also a digital electronic latch. For&nbsp;&nbsp; the emergency lock, you have to pop this out&nbsp; and then pull a cord. Which adding complexity&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:26] in an emergency isn't my favorite thing, so I do&nbsp; wish they had physical latches on all four doors. Coming back in here, we have three full-size&nbsp; seats with plenty of legroom. This is my&nbsp;&nbsp; driving position, and there's seriously&nbsp; so much legroom back here. I'm going to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:40] lay the seats down flat. We can roll down the&nbsp; rear window here. Also, back here, we have the&nbsp;&nbsp; raised Rivian lettering and a button right here&nbsp; which opens up the whole back hatch so that you&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:52] can camp out inside. Rivian does sell mattresses&nbsp; that are going to fit back here, as well as room&nbsp;&nbsp; for a spare (not a full-size spare) or just plenty&nbsp; of extra storage space underneath the floor pan.
[07:06] ability to tow. If we take off the aero&nbsp; cover, right there is the tow hitch. We&nbsp;&nbsp; don't know the official tow rating of the R2&nbsp; yet, but since it's half the price of an R1,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:18] the seven-pin adapter, I'm imagining that&nbsp; they've designed it to tow quite a bit. I also like how Rivian incorporated their&nbsp; logo into the side marker lights as well&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:30] as the turn signals. The top still has&nbsp; two attachment points for the roof racks,&nbsp;&nbsp; which fit the rooftop tent or kayaks;&nbsp; it wouldn't be an adventure vehicle&nbsp;&nbsp; without the ability to store stuff on the&nbsp; roof. Also, right here on the windshield,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:42] there's a little Gear Guard face. And right here&nbsp; in the hood—this piece of plastic right here,&nbsp;&nbsp; this vent—is called a cowling. There is&nbsp; a very small "owl in the cowl." Creative.
[07:56] me where they are or what they are. That is for&nbsp; owners to find. Now, I've owned a Tesla Model Y,&nbsp;&nbsp; so it makes me especially qualified to compare the&nbsp; driving experiences between Tesla and Rivian's R2.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:12] I'd have to say that the extra three inches of&nbsp; ground clearance and additional wheel travel make&nbsp;&nbsp; the ride exponentially smoother on Rivian's R2.&nbsp; Speed bumps are about to file for unemployment. I'm impressed that Rivian made a competent&nbsp; adventure vehicle at half the price of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:27] their flagship models. However, one thing I&nbsp; would like to say to Rivian—and recommend,&nbsp;&nbsp; and maybe you can help me out down in&nbsp; the comments—now that we have the R2,&nbsp;&nbsp; maybe we can make an R2T: a truck version of&nbsp; the less expensive adventure vehicle. Let them&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:42] know down in the comments. And thanks a&nbsp; ton for watching. I'll see you around.