I Drove the Rivian R2 – Everything You Need to Know Before You Buy

[00:03] inside of the Rivian R2. I am here at the media launch for it and one of the about this media launch is I don't think I've ever attended a press launch like this where as many people that are at the launch are actually interested in

[00:18] we're testing. So many people here are like, "I'm thinking about getting one. I and then that's kind of my deciding factor." And there are a lot of us doing that and I think for good reason because there's a lot to be excited about for

[00:32] this vehicle. So we have a ton to cover in this video. We're going to start off with the basics. We're going to get into why I am particularly interested in this vehicle. There's a lot of things that it does that I really like for my use case.

[00:44] experience. We're going to talk about Apple CarPlay, which it doesn't have. I don't think it's a big deal, but we will get into my concerns with this car and some of the engineering details about the vehicle of which there are plenty.

[00:59] with the basics. There are three trim levels. You've got standard, you've got premium and you've got performance. I'll put on screen so you can see the differences in price and power and 0 to 60, that sort of thing. Basically, what

[01:13] I'm in now is the performance 656 horsepower, 0 to 60 around 3.6 seconds horsepower, 0 to 60 around 3.6 seconds and 330 miles EPA rated range. Now depending on what you pick amongst the selection, most are all-wheel drive, but

[01:26] you can get the standard with rear-wheel drive and your range from the entire trim levels, all the different variants, goes from 307 at the low end to 345 at the high end. So all of them over 300 miles of EPA rated range. All right, so

[01:39] as far as power range, it's got those covered. It's got the basics done. Why am I particularly interested in the Rivian R2? And there's several standout features to me that I'm really excited about. One, I own a dog and because I

[01:54] riding in the back seats. Well, I don't really love that because sometimes I and it's dirty, it's messy, so you have the cover, but then you have to take the cover on and off, blah blah blah. Now, you can put your dog in the back of the

[02:06] vehicle, right? And sometimes I do that and, you know, the thing is he doesn't head out the window. Well, now I can just push this button right there and boom, that whole rear window goes all the way down. So, I'm stoked about this

[02:20] the back and then I don't have to worry about my rear seats getting all messy that sort of thing. I can just leave it all in the back with the dog back there stoked. And actually, you can drive at surprisingly high speeds with this and

[02:34] not hear any like wind buffeting or anything at all. It's very common here, second. The only noise you probably hear is the AC. And nothing from that I'm doing 45, so

[02:46] yeah, pretty impressive. Another reason, and maybe this sounds silly, but look, Americans, like no other country I know of, they know how to hydrate. And because we know how to hydrate, we carry around large water bottles with us. And

[02:59] you can buy in America do not come with cup holders large enough to hold these enormous water bottles. So, I brought one of my biggest, one of my largest water bottles with me on this trip and guess what? Not only can I fit it in the

[03:13] rear door. So, there are four slots in this vehicle, most vehicles that is zero, four slots in this vehicle that I can securely hold that water bottle and they have these nice little clever hinges for the front doors here, so you

[03:27] can store even oversized water bottles. They're quite cool. One of the things my press car and it's like, "Can I fit in a Nalgene?" And yes, you can fit a Nalgene another thing that I'm stoked about is that I love skiing

[03:42] to bring skis with you. That's one of the requirements. Now, this does have a lovely, you know, you can put the stuff on the roof if if want. But, thing about can get your skis gnarly, that's one thing. Another thing is it can kill the

[03:55] distances, you don't really want to have a bunch of stuff on the roof, right? It's nice if you can store it inside. Well, not to brag, but I occasionally have some friends, all right? And so, if I go skiing with some friends, well,

[04:08] that means I want to store their gear and those people in this car. So, you can actually fold down just the center there. Instead of a 60/40 split, it's a 40/20/40 split. And so, you can have just the center down everyone has great

[04:21] spacious seats, and you can fit, you know, up to a like 6-ft ski back here uh can fit the gear between the seats, and if you don't want to use the roof rack. And they have a great roof rack system.

[04:34] So, again, if you're not going crazy far distances, that's a great option, also. But, plenty of cars only do that 60/40 split. So, you cram people if you do end this one, you've got plenty of space. You can sit on the sides. All right,

[04:47] next feature I'm stoked on with this thing, storage space. There is storage space not only for water bottles, but there's all kinds of storage space. There are two glove compartments, one of which has a USB-C charger. And guess

[04:59] touchscreen to open them. There's not a latch, it's just push in, and they drop. but there's not like a handle that you pull on. Uh excellent storage space Rivian R1. And so, they they outdid themselves, and now you get two

[05:14] soft-lined glove block glove block glove block. You know what I'm saying. It's a glove box. You also have like a tissue like they have a specifically designed tissue box. I think that's awesome. Uh you've got this large storage here, and

[05:28] I believe it's magnetic cuz it kind of has like this like Yeah, it I I believe There is storage all over this thing. There's storage under the rear cargo. Uh flat, uh and so, then you've got a huge cargo space back there. And there's the

[05:44] rear where you You fit, and they do offer a spare tire, props Rivian. And then also, you have the large frunk. So, as far as storage space, plenty of that. the next thing I wanted to talk about. So, frunks are awesome. And here's the

[05:58] they will have these weird statements where they're like, "People don't need Whatever, this is crazy. First of all, more storage is always a good thing. you know, it's not like you smash a window and you can get into the frunk.

[06:12] going to take a little bit more effort. So, with the frunk, you have secure storage. You can also put smelly stuff in there. I like rock climbing. You climbing shoes in there, which smell terrible always.

[06:24] That's not just me, right? And then also, you know, going to the ocean, your car, it's covered in sand or whatever, just put it in there. Who cares? You don't have to think about it. It's so much easier of a space to clean,

[06:36] So, you don't have to smell whatever's in there. It's it's brilliant. Frunks are brilliant. Any any manufacturer that says, you know, nonsense about not they're just making stuff up to try It's PR spin, all right? Don't don't listen

[06:49] have with this. So, of course, you can get out of the vehicle and leave the climate control settings on. That's a huge perk of EVs. And so, because you can, you know, the car is off, but the climate control's on, you can keep your

[07:02] right? Well, they're also introducing pet cam, so you can actually have a little camera in here, and you can view your pet and just make sure, you know, everything's going well. I know some people are going to have like security

[07:14] concerns about this, and I think that's you know, rightfully. But, you know, so cameras in the interior. So, at least there's a useful function that we are have been times where I'm like, "Oh, I'd love to check in and see that my dog's

[07:28] long, chill out, it's fine. All right, sixth thing that that makes me quite excited about this Rivian R2, ground clearance. And this is something, you know, for a good reason, many EVs do not offer because, of course, with ground

[07:42] clearance comes a drag penalty, right? But this has 9.6 camping, I like going backpacking, I like going to hiking trails. Some of these trails you need clearance to get to. You know, it's it's not really a

[07:55] matter of like, oh, can my car make it or not, as a sedan like based on is it Often it's just a case of does it have enough ground clearance? So having clearance in this, I mean, I don't know any EV like this of this size, this

[08:09] style that has this much ground clearance. So it means accessibility in getting places, which I absolutely love. Also, deep snow. I I occasionally am know, hey, this has plenty of ground clearance should I encounter it. All

[08:22] right, number eight is the rear cargo outlet. So you've got a full, you know, outlet. So you've got a full, you know, 120-V outlet in the back, good for 1,900 Heck yes, and then they also have an exterior mount that you can plug into

[08:34] the NACS port, and you can also run things off of that. I believe that is slightly higher, like 2.3 kW max on that. Anyways, you've got these 20-A outlets. So amazing. I have had times

[08:48] oh, I'll use it to run a saw, a miter saw, and I was chopping some wood with it, you know, just to pretend that I'm manly. And when I was doing that, I had rather than the outlet in the Maverick, because the Maverick outlet is only like

[09:02] 400 W or something. So having a full power outlet in the bed is awesome, can run whatever you want to run, a refrigerator, a microwave, a toaster oven. Bring whatever you want to bring camping and and run it off the back

[09:16] number nine why I'm pumped about this thing is ultra-wideband. So this uses ultra-wideband to detect your phone key, if your phone has ultra-wideband, so like newer iPhones for example, they all have ultra-wideband. And you have really

[09:30] precise location with that. So it knows who is sitting in this seat versus who is sitting in that seat, and so it can detect who is here, and select their just switch very easily hitting a button on the screen if you get the wrong

[09:43] profile, but because it has very precise location, it should be able to get the profiles correct. My wife and I all drive, you know, all of our cars cars, I have cars. We just use whatever we want. And in that case, it's nice for

[09:57] driver's side door, because of ultra-wide band, should be able to actually accurately pick that profile. We will see. All right, so those are the these are a lot of the features that I think for my use case, many of these

[10:11] want out of the vehicle. But it just in general, like I I love having an EV as a maintenance standpoint, you don't think about oil changes. I love that. From a, standpoint, you don't have to think about filling it up with gas. If you

[10:26] charge at home, having an EV is just amazing, because you just plug it in, and it's full every time you leave the house. And then, also, I think the thing underestimate if you haven't ever driven an EV is that you always have power

[10:40] right there. Like, you can always just punch it and go. And that is not the In most vehicles, you have to shift gears. Like, yeah, if you always rev your car, then you're always ready. But

[10:55] no one actually normally drives like that. With EVs, you're immediately that enables you to drive in a different style that you just can't with combustion vehicle, you have to predict in advance when am I going to

[11:08] accelerate? With these, it can be instantaneous. Ooh, I need to accelerate so let's talk about what this has been like to drive. What is the driving experience like? And ultimately, it has been very pleasant. I think one of the

[11:21] things that stands out the most on driving it, it it is very quiet. And actually technical reasons why you experience it being so quiet. Of course, they did a great job with NVH, but also there are different driving modes,

[11:35] right? And if you are in conserve mode or all-purpose mode, which are both on-road driving modes, it is biasing towards the rear. So, there's a front axle disconnect, and as long as you're not applying, you know, full power, high

[11:48] power, requesting a ton of torque, it's only going to be driving using that rear axle. And so, because of that, you don't have this front motor making any noise, right? All the motor noise is coming from that back one. far away, you really

[12:01] hear nothing. So, in most driving scenarios, you don't hear the motor, which is really cool. It is just super quiet. And that's different from Rivian R1 because R1 biases the front if you go to conserve mode, and it's just using

[12:14] going to hear that front motor. Here, the rear motor is sized large, so it's more powerful than the front. So, there's not really a ton of scenarios you need both motors on, you know, normal drives like this here. And so, as

[12:29] a result, that really quiet experience, which is very cool. The the noise you are hearing is the AC because it's like 85 or 90 out there. And so, yeah, I've got to get some AC on to to breathe in here, but ultimately, this is a very

[12:43] quiet machine. As far as driving dynamics, you will notice that the body is very well controlled. It this has coil spring and semi-adaptive dampers. discussion. I think from a ride standpoint, it is definitely better than

[12:57] the R1S. I found the R1S a little firm on-road, amazing off-road. I found this, you know, a bit more comfortable on-road, and also like pretty impressive off-road from a comfort standpoint. It doesn't have the crazy suspension of the

[13:12] R1S, so it's not going to feel quite as plush off-road like the R1S, but that's going to be driving these on the road more, and you have adjustable damping. You can go soft, medium, firm with the damping, and then you have coil springs,

[13:25] so no adjustment in the spring rates, but you can adjust the damping for, you as the throttle, I love it. I love the tuning of the accelerator pedal. I think they've done a great job. I basically

[13:38] I've just been doing one pedal driving and using the high regen mode, and it is delightful. I love that it has one pedal driving all the way to a complete stop, and a fun little, you know, tidbit here is that when you come to a complete

[13:52] stop, in some EVs, once you get back on to the accelerator pedal, you'll hear that brake pedal release, right? Because it's it's releasing from that hydraulic said hold it here, and then it releases, so you get that thunk as you get back

[14:06] onto the accelerator. Well, you do not have that here. Why? Well, we have brake by wire. So, there is a hydraulic system still, and, system not work, you can just keep pushing into that brake pedal, and it

[14:18] will create pressure within that, and it will work just like any other hydraulic that, you are getting the synthetic feel from this brake pedal. Uh honestly, I you don't need to except like a panic situation. Um

[14:33] disconnect theirs completely, so throttle only does acceleration, and of course regen braking, and then the brake pedal is only using the mechanical brakes. Off-road, once you get this

[14:45] thing off-road, it is delightful the one pedal driving. You have so much control. They take out some of the sensitivity of the throttle pedal, and so even if the exact command that you're looking for because it's tuned so well for that

[15:00] kind of environment. So, I was really impressed with the off-road throttle hill descent or anything like that because you've got regen. You have really good control just with the throttle pedal. I was impressed off-road

[15:13] how well the throttle felt. Steering, I don't know. I mean, it it's it's a unibody, so yeah, it's like it's better than the R1S. It's still a 5,000-lb SUV, though it's an EV and you've got that low CG from the battery, we have a lot

[15:28] of clearance. So, you can feel that this is a large vehicle. Um but once you're buying an SUV, I say you can throw driving dynamics like you don't need to be concerned about it. Nobody's trying to race these things. Yet, it is pretty

[15:40] capable and, you know, you have really good body control as far as cornering. So, overall, I think you will be pleasantly surprised in the driving dynamics of this vehicle. Okay, steering controls. So, they have these two little

[15:53] haptic halo wheels on the steering wheel and they're actually really cool. There's some There's some weird things with them, which I'll get into, but as far as scrolling, I mean, it's such a more natural thing for changing volume,

[16:05] changing the fan speed, changing the AC temperature. You can change your cruise control speed. All of that stuff is very natural, very easy, and I love the the up and down motion of the wheels. Now, you can also push them in. You can click

[16:18] them left and right. So, there's a lot of control built into them, and that's wonky. Like, if you're scrolling menus, going left or right on them, you kind of wait, and then push. And I find it works

[16:31] pause, rather than if you just go for it immediately, you kind of scroll and push get it. But if you give it a little pause when you put your thumb on the it works really well. And then, for

[16:45] cruise control speed or adjusting volume, it is perfect for that. I love a wheel versus, you know, like a little toggle notch or the other nonsense ways in, click in, click in. It's like you you have to look at it. This, you don't

[17:00] both sides of the steering wheel, right? So, you can use it from behind the your thumb in front of the steering wheel. So, it's really nice. You don't have to even look at it, and you can control so many different things. Also,

[17:13] the display that's right in front of you presents so much information. So, it's directly in front of you. You've got your navigation, limit, you've got, you know, what

[17:25] driving mode you're in, you've got, you know, the little animation of the Rivian have your music on there. So, you can put basically all the information you even need to look at this big screen to your right. And then, when you need to

[17:38] functionalities, yeah, you can do that within this larger menu. Or, if you want the large nav screen, you can, of course, use that. But, I love that front of you and you can control it with these wheels. Also, you know, they have

[17:51] a physical stalk for turn signals and, you know, wipers and things like that. What an idea. So, I love that. Also, for shifting gears. So, and I we went backwards for a little while with some car companies, but here, you know, you

[18:04] you've got the essentials as far as physical controls, even though there are functionality into these scroll wheels. As far as the stereo, I love jamming to some music. And so, I do like the stereo

[18:19] in this. One of the things I like about it is they have like force balanced don't know if anyone's familiar with Sonos speakers, but they also do this this really clean punch instead of this like boom and it like vibrates the whole

[18:33] car. It's just really clean punches. I really like that for bass. Though, really like that for bass. Though, overall, I'm not like this is this is an insane sound system. You know, this is still a 60-grand vehicle. It feels very

[18:46] are better ones out there, yes. And and and it's good. It's quite good, but it's not like mind-blowing good. I don't know. I just got out of a $220,000 the best sound systems I'd ever heard. So, like that's kind of breaking me as

[19:02] far as listening to this back to back with like a $7,000 optional sound system. You have to keep price in mind. All right, let's talk about Apple CarPlay for a second because this does not have it. And when I drove the R1T

[19:15] several years ago, I was disappointed that it didn't have it. Here, I don't care and it is maybe a personal reason, not not that everyone will. So, let me This uses Google Maps for the navigation.

[19:29] When you're navigating in an electric vehicle, it's really nice to have native maps because it the car knows then how much range it will have where should you thing, which you don't do with just Google Maps on CarPlay. So, I love that

[19:42] it has Google Maps built in. When I drove the R1T, they were not using Google Maps. So, because it has Google Maps and it has music apps, so it has, you know, native Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, whatever you use, they've got it

[19:55] the only two things I care about, Google Maps and Spotify. That is what I use CarPlay for. And plenty of, you know, like my vehicles don't have native apps for those. So, because this does, I don't care that it doesn't have CarPlay.

[20:09] Now, you don't get texting, at least not yet. I think it will be coming at some I don't really use texting with CarPlay, so really the only two apps I use are Spotify, Google Maps. Because it has this, whatever, it works well. The

[20:22] screen is very responsive. Google Maps works really well here. You can jump everything works very quickly. So, as far as the built-in infotainment system and and all of this, the it actually works. I mean, I've only,

[20:37] you know, I've only been driving it for today, but things have gone smoothly with it and I love the native built-in Google Maps. Now, don't have any concerns. I have several concerns. So, let's go over them. The

[20:50] first is the wheel size. This one's pretty easy, right? So, they offer a 19, a 20, and a 21-in wheel. But, if you get the premium or the performance, you can only select the 20 or the 21. You might think, "Well, that's because of the

[21:03] brakes, right?" Nope. All the The are the same on all the currently released versions. So, the standard, the premium, the performance, they all have the same brakes. Uh and so, because of that, that means you can fit any of the wheels on

[21:15] them. So, it's just a design choice to not allow, you know, the the performance to have the smaller wheels. So, I wish they opened up in their launch page, uh the ability to select the 19s. I'm probably the only person in the world

[21:30] though. So, uh yeah, if if you feel the same, I guess leave it in the comments. Now, that's the wheel segment. The tire choices, there's a genuine concern here because currently it's like a little chicken and egg situation where there

[21:42] aftermarket tires for this vehicle depending on the wheel size you select. So, if you select the 21-in wheels, currently there is only one tire and it's an all-season tire. So, it's it's the tire that I'm driving on right now.

[21:57] doesn't yet exist. So, you either are buying a whole new set of wheels or you you're just not using them. So, I would stay personally, I would stay away from the 21-in wheels because there's only one tire option. The 20-in wheels have

[22:11] significantly more options and the 19-in have a decent number but not that many. So, overall, the 20 looks like the best as far as having tire options. I wish the 19 came in a size that had more popular tire choices. But, here's the

[22:25] thing. This is a vehicle that's using big wheels and big sidewalls and that's a rare combination. Even if you get, you know, these 21-in wheels, you still have a meaty sidewall on it. So, because of that, it's put it in this weird space

[22:40] that doesn't really exist that much in in the automotive world and so, there aren't that many options. Personally, I would go with the 20-in wheels. That aftermarket support. You don't have to worry about just having one all-season

[22:52] option unless you don't care and you don't swap tires and you just one don't live in a state that requires, you know, traction tires or for certain see harsh winters, then just stick with the all seasons, you're probably fine.

[23:05] Get the 21s, who cares? That is the cheapest option on the performance. All right, and final concern, and I think it's cool that Rivian has at least been open about this and not hit it, but if you are getting one of the very first

[23:18] Rivian R2s, they are not coming with lidar, and yet I am told by the end of this year or early next year, the R2s are going to start coming with lidar. Now, if you don't care about the autonomy plus features, then you don't

[23:31] don't want to use the the hands-free driving at all, then don't think about probably save you some money. That said, that long, and you do want the autonomous features, there is one thing

[23:46] there's one sole thing that this lidar will enable. First, it's just going to they're going to be on the cars collecting data, providing that data to autonomous systems. But, eventually, they will offer eyes-off driving in R2.

[24:02] At least, that's the plan, right? And so, once they allow eyes-off driving autonomous, so hands-off, eyes-off, you don't have to be looking, you can actually like text, probably. Uh and and it's probably fine, I guess. If your

[24:14] eyes are allowed to be off, why not? And so, once eyes-off driving is a thing, that will only work with lidar-equipped vehicles. So, if you choose one without lidar, you can have hands-free, and you can have point-to-point driving, so, you

[24:29] know, from your house to wherever you're going, but you will have to keep your eyes on the road. And at some point, the lidar-equipped vehicles will have enabled eyes-off, so you can do point-to-point and not, you know, pay

[24:41] attention at all, I guess. Uh what a wild what a wild time, but anyways, that have to wait that long, right? It's already June or July or whatever month it is, who knows. Uh and and so, end of this year, 6 months to wait to get the

[24:55] future-equipped. I think that will also mean better resale values for the vehicles with lidar than those without because it's going to be such a brief if you don't care about the autonomy features, you can probably save some

[25:08] because they're including the tow package, they're including autonomy you don't care, but you can still get the hands-free driving and the ahead. You get that included and you get a key

[25:21] fob and you get a special color if you want. So, there are perks to buying now, but I think personally when I look at that, I'm like, "Ooh, I probably want to wait until it has lidar and that way I know it's kind of more future ready."

[25:33] All right, it is time. If you actually like this channel, perhaps you've been waiting to hear some cool engineering stuff. So, let's talk about engineering two electric motors, as you're aware, one for the front axle, one for the rear

[25:47] axle. Rear axle has more power. They are different motors, uh, larger motor in the rear. And nominally, you have a 40/60 split. So, 60% of the torque going to the rear, 40% going to the front. Again, this does depend which mode

[26:02] you're in, right? So, if you're in all-purpose or you're in conserve mode and you're on low throttle, then it's only going to use that rear motor. disconnect the front. And then, of course, as you get into the throttle, it

[26:15] also, if you're in sport mode or in snow always be using both motors. And then, if you put it into off-road, it will always be using both motors. Now, you can change that torque bias. And one of

[26:29] the interesting ways you can do this is by lowering the stability control. So, you can have it fully on, reduced, and then I think fully off. then I think fully off. With those reduced levels, you get more

[26:41] rear bias, which is funny cuz it's like the rear is then able to slip more and they give it more torque. So, they're they're intentionally making this thing playful. So, in rally mode with like really limited stability control. I bet

[26:54] this thing in some sand is just a riot. Uh but uh yeah, I have not experienced that. But, I have experienced it off-road and it was really impressive. So, yes, you have open differentials front and back, but you can use

[27:06] brake-based, you know, torque vectoring so that you can send that torque uh to because you have independent motors, you know, that's an advantage versus like just one engine splitting the power, right? You have complete independent

[27:18] can shift torque where it's needed on each using the brakes. Is it as good as like the R1S quad? No, you don't have a motor at each wheel, but, you know, you save a bit of money buying this versus the R1S quad. So, pros and cons. And

[27:31] off-road, honestly, very impressive. We did some some nice little technical need good all-wheel drive. I mean, you don't even need that great of all-wheel need. Uh decent all-wheel drive system, ground

[27:45] clearance, and good tires. This has it and it did the off-road portion just fine. I think a big big, you know, benefit that this vehicle has over others in the space is it just has so much more ground clearance. All right,

[27:58] let's talk about the battery. 88 kWh battery pack. That is the usable amount. They would not tell me what the gross amount of the battery pack is. And that is a 450-V battery pack, so you can use it at the

[28:12] lower, you know, like Tesla's lower uh voltage charging stations. I'm told it's good for up to 230 kW of peak charging, but it doesn't have that great of a but it doesn't have that great of a charging curve. So, 10 to 80% takes 29

[28:25] minutes. That is definitely on the slower side of modern EVs. So, why is that? Well, it seems like it was an intentional choice based on the cell wanted to keep the weight down in this thing. How do you do that? Well, you

[28:38] need to maximize energy density. So, they went with very energy dense NMCA cells, which they say they they just purely favored energy density so they can get as much usable capacity as possible. So, this thing has as much

[28:53] range as possible. Now, you can choose different cell chemistries and different cell setups to allow you to charge faster or have more more energy overall. And so, they are leaning on we just want the car to have

[29:05] as much range as possible and the charging speed is a bit limited as a deal. I just did a road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles in the Rivian R1S, which has a very similar charging

[29:19] curve to this as far as how much time it takes. It uses, you know, it uses more but the same amount of time relatively speaking. And so, I didn't find it all lunch, you do whatever, you have your little breaks after a long bit of

[29:33] driving, 3 hours or so. I find that completely fine. But, if you are buying this thing purely for really long-distance road trips, you should know that as far as EV charging speed, this is on the slower end. Now, some

[29:45] with the battery. So, instead of the 2170 double-stacked cells like they use in the R1, in the R2 they are using a 4695, so a much larger battery cell, and

[29:58] So, instead of one cooling plate sandwich between them, which is what they do in the R1, here they have the cooling weaving on the sides of the batteries rather than top and bottom, weaving between them within the battery

[30:11] pack. So, good cooling for the batteries. You know, reduce part count but also because, you know, you have fewer attachments to those cells, all compounds, helps bring costs down. This thing, you know, it has a lot of the R1

[30:27] features and yet is basically half the price. And so, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's an impressive amount of vehicle for what you are paying. And so, you of course have to simplify in ways then, if you're not going to strip features out,

[30:41] battery's simplified, uh the charging system's simplified. They've taken out system's simplified. They've taken out 2.3 mi of copper wiring versus the R1S second gen, something like, you know, 4 mi versus the first gen. The point is

[30:57] they've done actually a pretty impressive job on the weight of this thing. It's just under 5,000 lb, right? It's still definitely heavy, but like that's lighter than my Lucid Air, and the Lucid Air was a sedan with a fairly

[31:10] similar battery pack size. So, as a large SUV, you know, uh it's actually shorter in length than the Lucid, but certainly taller, wider. And of course, on this thing, so that's adding weight. So, from a weight perspective, they've

[31:23] done a pretty good job. Next engineering feature, bidirectional charging. Heck yes. So, this has built-in uh DC-AC converter, so that you can send power uh AC, you know, both directions. AC can come in, AC can go out. So, you can

[31:38] outage. Of course, you're going to need the charger, but you won't need like the expensive inverter mounted on your wall where you're taking the DC from the pack, converting it to AC in your garage. It's doing that within the car,

[31:51] sending out the AC, 11 kW, so plenty of power uh that you can have they have, you know, the other hardware that's required for that, but it won't be as bad as like, for example, uh the

[32:04] the Ford F-150 Lightning, you had to also buy an inverter in it. You're just in the car. Well, would you look at that? All right. So, hands-free driving. And so, how is it doing this? Well, there are 10 exterior cameras, and then

[32:17] there are five exterior radar. And so, you've got uh the long-range front radar pointing forward, and then you've got smaller, medium, and short-range radar at all of the corners. And so, what they've actually been able to do,

[32:30] another way of like, you know, maintaining features, but pulling things corner that can switch between medium and short range like when you're parking, then they don't need ultrasonic

[32:43] ultrasonic sensors the R1 has, but a lot have radar at each of the corners, so it can use that for parking, of course, in addition with the cameras. Keep your hands on the wheel, road

[32:56] curves ahead. All right, so it's getting too too twisty for the for the attention instead of talking to y'all. And then, of course, as I mentioned, so you've got the 10 cameras, five radars and then they're eventually adding lidar

[33:08] to that, which will kind of give them that robust mix. The more different types of sensors you have, the more different types of scenarios you can still have that autonomous driving function. You know, heavy fog, things

[33:20] like that. All things have pros and cons, right? Radars are good at some good at some things, bad at other things. You have the whole sensor suite, you can take advantages of the pros and cons of each individual sensor.

[33:33] All right, I'm going to take the wheel back because I don't mind driving. So, here's the thing. We got to talk about door handles because EV makers love reinventing door handles and Rivian's pretty much no exception here, right?

[33:45] They they've done their own little weird flush-mounted door handle, right? the bad news of like, yeah, the flush-mounted door handle can be a like that simple thing that you can just grab. But, you can push in, it does

[33:58] latch at all four doors. So, you can push in, pull it out, and have a mechanical latch to get into the vehicle assuming it's unlocked, right? Great. From the inside, you do have a button. However, there also is a mechanical

[34:11] latch for both of the front driver and front passenger that you can open the that for some reason that button doesn't work, you do have that mechanical latch there. Now, let's say, what is the scenario that this button doesn't work?

[34:25] Well, they have some redundancy built in here. So, if the power for this side of the vehicle for some reason gets cut out, it can supply power from the other side of the vehicle. So, this side of the vehicle can suddenly say, "Okay, I

[34:39] over here because for some reason it's not getting power." So, you have that each other out if needed. Now, let's say both fail and Rivian has told me that so Well, then of course you've got that mechanical latch, right? So, you have

[34:53] the mechanical latch on the inside and the outside. On the rear seats, there is a latch like for service, but it's like there. So, realistically, there's no way of getting out from the rear seats if you were to

[35:05] have a total power failure, but they right? Because like let's say you have a child lock. Well, with a child lock, if you have a child lock activated, you can't open it from the exterior either.

[35:18] So, what they allow for you to do with this, there's a setting that says, "Okay, if I get in an accident, I want to disable the child lock." And then you can open those rear doors from the outside. Now, if you're in some crazy

[35:30] out of the vehicle and you're not climbing through the window, well then these door handles here in order to get out the front. So, it has been thought about. It's It's I don't think it's the worst example out there. Um and also,

[35:44] with with these kind of flush mounted door handles is what happens when it snows? And some companies are like, "Well, you just uh turn on climate control and wait for it to melt." And it's like here they they

[35:56] tested for this. They said they do testing in like -30 and they cover the car in ice. And so, one of the things that they like about their door handles is that they have a lot of power in them to push out if there's ice. So, A, it's

[36:10] use that hinge, but they also say they're very powerful and can open up Of course, you know, you get a crazy thick sheet, I'm sure they're not going to open, but for like a thin sheet of ice, like for example, my Tesla Model 3

[36:23] doors would would freeze over, but they have in the app an ability to punch the door out. There is no ability to punch the door out here, but they say the door handles themselves will punch out with, you know, a little bit of ice.

[36:36] And then also you can use it as a hinge. So, you can force it open if there is ice. Is it the best? You know, it's not a normal door handle, right? It's still it's still EV, you know,

[36:48] optimizing efficiency. So, pros and cons, but it is well thought out at least, right? So, yeah, pros and cons. To be honest, I went in not expecting that every single door handle from the outside was a mechanical latch. So, once

[37:01] great. Like, this is cool. There's an actual hinge, you can pivot it, you can open it up. It's a real door." All right, so overall, I love this thing. I think it is fantastic. This is such a great vehicle.

[37:15] I have only tested it for a day, and you know, maybe there was a car out there awesome." And then I lived with it for a while and then and it wasn't as awesome. Maybe that happened. Maybe that happened, but so far today, everything

[37:28] worked, they've been really responsive. I really like this thing. I am almost debate in my mind is that I don't love the launch colors. There's a really cool purple that's coming out later. I would love to get that purple or maybe just

[37:43] get it in black and do a wrap. Uh the other thing is I I'm still torn on if I should wait for lidar. It just seems like, you know, the earlier cars are probably going to take a bigger depreciation hit when they

[37:55] don't have that feature and later you're selling them. So, I kind of like the idea of waiting for lidar, not certain there. The only real feature again you're adding is that eyes off hands-free driving, and that is in the

[38:08] scenario that, you know, this is 2028 or whenever they release it. So, it is a long ways out. So, it's not like you're getting this thing and immediately benefiting from it. You won't notice any difference for the first couple years.

[38:20] So, yeah, I can I can see going both ways. Um but overall are really good, the menus are nice. It It's It's impressive. Like even something as simple as if you hit vehicle and then hit settings, it goes

[38:34] to vehicle settings. If you hit music and then hit settings, it goes to music settings. It's like It's not all these berry menus where you have to go to this one unique spot every single time. It's kind of adaptive and like intuitive. And

[38:46] I I really like They've done a good job setting this up, especially with this everything you need to know. The steering wheel controls, uh having, you know, a real blinker, a real shifter. I I've been really

[39:00] like about this thing. So, yeah, almost certainly I'm going to get one. Just a matter of do I want it now or do I want to wait until it has lidar and perhaps some cooler colors. Y'all You got to buy the cooler colors because here's the

[39:15] thing. RJ said something about, you know, less than 1% of buyers getting the something along these lines. These are These are indirect words from someone through someone. Anyways, it doesn't matter. The point is nobody's buying the

[39:29] And so, you know, they they end up taking them away and then they get more muted and dull. And y'all got to y'all got to have a little more a little more spice, a little more zest in your life. Get something exciting to look at rather

[39:42] than just white, gray, black. >> Come on. We can do better. We can get some fun colors on our cars, everyone. Rivian R2 in in a fun color. I'm saying get whatever you get, just get a fun

[39:56] color. That's my parting advice from this video. I hope your next car you get is in a fun color. What do you think? Should I get the car now or should I the discussion I'm curious to hear about. If you have any questions or

[40:08] comments, feel free to leave them below. Thanks for watching.