Rivian R2/R3 Hands-On Impressions!

all right so rivan had an event today

and we've talked about r1t their first

pickup truck r1s their first SUV and uh

you might have seen the waveform podcast

where I talked with RJ the CEO of rvan

about the future and R2 and that's what

we finally have here and we also have RJ

with us here to help walk us uh through

this so first of all thanks for joining

me again thanks for being here I would

love to look around this uh this R2 here

for a little bit because first of all

we talked about it keeping all of the

same character of R1 but you wanted to

bring it down in price make it

accessible but still be a really fun

capable vehicle and bring rivan to more

people yep so let's look at this let's

look at this R2 and see how much of that

character we see here you saw the

teasers it's still got the same face

which I think is fairly iconic so I

don't blame you for not changing that

but what are some things that are

different about R2 I feel like the size

is the number one thing yeah it's a much

smaller vehicle I mean as we walk around

it we've got as you said that iconic

front end um still a beautiful front

trunk mhm uh it's a two row vehicle so

five passengers we've really optimized

everything about this for the package so

the first and second row Comfort is

really high coming around the back we've

got a lift gate but this is a drop glass

now so this glass drops which is okay

really nice for throwing a surfboard or

longer gear into it but I think in

general if I zoom all the way out like

the silhouette I don't want to fall off

the stage here but it look looks like an

r1s in almost every way but I think I

looked up the dimensions and it's

probably closest to like a a little bit

you said it's a little longer than a

model y a little shorter than model y a

little shorter but very comfortable in

the in in the second row as well a lot

of the engineering exercise was making

this

door the combination of this plus the

second row very comfortable there's a

full drop glass without a division bar

here so of course optimized around

creating that open air experience so so

a lot of the headlining specs people are

looking forward to is base price of R2

base price of 45

$45,000 and there's several trims so

there's going to be a base single motor

rear whe Drive trim correct there's a

dual motor trim and then there's a crazy

triple motor R2 Tri which is the fastest

one don't know the price of that yet but

that's like a sub 3 second Z to 60 well

under 360 plenty capable very quick

vehicle but this dual motor one here I

feel like is a good sweet spot of a lot

of capability yeah it's all-wheel drive

it's very quick yeah over 300 Mi of

range over 300 okay yeah is the base one

at 300 or it's a little less the the

smallest battery with rear wheeel drive

is under 300 okay but there's an over

300 rear wheeel drive over 300 all-wheel

drive over 300 uh Tri motor base is a

smaller physical battery than the other

two mhm okay yeah and also on the

outside I wanted to get to this rear

part also you mentioned so I didn't

realize this pops out which is pretty

cool very

power out which is really cool and then

at the back it really honestly still

looks like r1s which I think is a

complement it's got the same bar got the

same logo you see R2 down here at the

bottom so you know it's the new one but

generally it's just a little bit

squatter a little lower a little less

ground clearance just a little trimmer

in every Dimension to make it

appropriately two row sized I also

there's a couple other things on the

other back side here which is you move

the charge port yeah so charge ports in

the back rear corner so back rear and if

we pop it open I believe we'll

see as right it's an nacs Port so now we

know R1 owners will be able to use an

adapter to charge an nacs but R2 has

moved it to the back right corner and

can charge at NSS natively or now CCS

with an adapter with an adapter exactly

okay tell me about these wheels they're

also kind of a little bit Arrow cap but

yeah Calpers this is a dual motor setup

but the the this is with the more

off-road tire there's also more on-road

tire but the the Dynamics on them are

outstanding okay couple other character

things for R2 do you still have I have

to ask the Bluetooth speaker and the

flashlight from R1 we have um a

flashlight which we should we can look

on the other side okay oh now we don't

have the Bluetooth speaker in this but

it's still flashlight in the door very

signature rivan headliner in the vehicle

um 100% recycled plastic about half of

that comes from Ocean based plastic mhm

so a lot of work just on creating an

environment that feels comfortable not

overwhelming very Timeless there really

a process of extracting elements to make

it as as clean and simple as possible

but still bold okay getting in the R2

here pretty similar looking front seat

experience and a lot of the same

materials oh is there still a wireless

charger going to be up front here and it

yep and it'll work really well nice okay

okay I hope so got cup holders here and

the other thing I I just got a quick

walk through of it but there's there's

basically

two impressively different things to me

someone who's driven R1 yeah one is

there's not just one glove box there's

two there's two glove boxes okay one

here one

there and one for the passenger so

there's no longer the Bluetooth speaker

under here but there is some floor

storage space here and there's no more

under seat storage so before there was

no glove box in R1 but you had the

center console storage which you still

have and you had that seat storage so

that's still there there's two USBC

ports which is nice but now you have

glove boxes the other thing is this

steering wheel so we should talk about

the steering wheel I haven't quite found

a way to explain it but I think the best

comp I can give is the PlayStation 5

controller mhm you have these new

buttons here with these haptics on them

so this big wheel here which you can

scroll up scroll down it's got Springs

and it's got resistance and they can

change based on what you're controlling

with the software so here's an example

right now I have this wheel on the left

controlling the volume dial right here

so as I scroll it's got all these little

clicks for each individual volume

number which makes sense but if I were

to explore a larger menu item maybe it's

switching between Drive modes or

something larger each one of those

clicks would feel with the springs and

the resistance like a much larger here

you go so a much larger

click and it actually spring stops you

at the end at the top and the bottom of

the menu it's clever it's not quite like

fully like touchscreen on a steering

wheel I like that I like that it's

actually just better haptics and more

responsive and more contextual haptics

for what you're doing in the car it's

impressive yeah I like it we developed

it entirely house it's um all the

electronics to give that software

defined haptics is really uh we wanted

to create this amazing scrolling

experience yeah I did not expect that

and that's super cool there's also a

bunch of new looking software so this is

a software UI refresh that R2 is going

to see R1 owners will also get a lot of

this stuff which is this new sort of

almost like an art style uh for the car

so this is the actual color of the car

uh this is a camp mode which there's a

new Tent Accessory that is really

serious looking uh there's also a super

dark mode so if you're sleeping in the

car you've got this super low light uh

all red version so you cannot have tons

of light blasting into your eyes um and

also this new UI up front which has your

speed you can again change volume and

get your compass up here and things like

that so it's all looking pretty

refreshed which I think is a good thing

but still has a lot of the rivan

character but I think we should jump in

the back seat that's do back seat so

okay second row of the two row

R2 and I got to say really nice second

row space here I mean if you're anywhere

from 56 to probably like 66 you're going

to have no problem with leg room a

little bit of storage here two more USBC

is good no second row screen but

physical AC controls yep good and then

uh still a whole bunch of glass in the

top I kind of like this though really

nice lighting a lantern grab handle I

mean the goal for R2 is basically to

make an appropriately sized two row

version of r1s want to embody the

everything that is rivan into a smaller

vehicle uh and as you see really not

give up anything in terms of the

experience or or the field of quality uh

the way you approach materials the seats

um of course we had to optimize to

enable the price point to be much lower

but uh we think we've really made the

right trades things like back here as

you pointed out these being these

fysical buttons here little simplified

um the door system is massively

simplified uh the seats themselves still

offer the same support and comfort but

yeah obviously in a two row fashion also

USBC up here and a little coat hook type

thing all right so two last little

storage tricks with R2 first of all it

does have a front trunk which is it's a

tiny bit smaller than R1 but it still

has a little bit of a sub trunk and it's

the same idea powered opening not

powered closing save a little bit of

weight save a little bit of complexity

save a little bit of money great but

this last thing I have not seen before

so you might have to explain it but I'm

going to it doesn't have a name either

it's just you can camp inside it yeah

with all the seats down yep I think when

I say all the seats down people are like

yeah of course you can put the back

seats down yeah no all the seats the

front seats fold as down okay so show me

this so we can go and uh look over here

so you see the second row seats are down

yeah you get a flat floor but you can

also fold the front

seats and

uh an inflatable mattress comes in and

covers this and you have a really nice

comfortable full vehicle camping

experience then of course even just the

passenger seat on the driver or in the

front of the vehicle going down is nice

for carrying longer things sure so

imagine you're carrying out a band

equipment or the giant telescope or or

whatever you're car but I've never seen

the driver seat also go down but that

makes a lot of sense so now the

headrests go down the entire thing is

flat and you put the mattress in it's

some accessor you can get it's

inflatable and there's glass on the

ceiling and you're camping in your car

yeah yeah it's kind of sweet so we've

seen R2 yep and I think everyone was

expecting R2 cuz you guys have been

sharing R2 and teasing a little bit but

you guys pulled the one more thing on us

yep and there's R3 as well now yes so

what is R3 so R3 takes um the R2

platform shrink it a bit but it's a

crossover that is interpreted in every

way through through how rivan would look

at a crossover so it's it's a much

smaller vehicle uh it has great ground

clearance you can drive it on or Offroad

uh but it's but it's an everyday vehicle

it's a kind of thing you could use in a

city it's very maneuverable and has a

lot of really interesting functionality

in terms of storage and cargo and of

course focused on making it comfortable

with being so as far as the hierarchy

now you have r1s r1t think of those

Flagship the flagships the most capable

the the absolute highest end R2 coming

2026 lower entry

slightly smaller and then R3 is going to

be the smallest and the lowest price

yeah R3 is the lower price than R2 okay

it's also the smallest vehicle it's a

5in shorter wheelbase than what you see

in R2 and it still keeps a lot of the

same character again I'm I'm looking at

the front you keep the same shape this

the headlights are again I've seen them

all over the streets you know what you

see behind you when you see the lights

coming up but then it's still got a lot

of the same shapes the yellow accents

this is also I think a new paint color

but it looks like it fits right in but

then this hatchback shape at the back

here I think is where it differs the

most and this is the rear of R3 so the

lights don't wrap around as much I

notice you got this Big rivan Tex even

bigger than R2 MH and then you're saying

something about this glass and there's

it's got a lift gate the whole rear

hatch lifts up and so you can go all the

way up so that's pretty normal two

rows little sub truck I'm going to guess

yeah this is a little extra storage sick

there okay and this also pulls out to

act

as as a seat if you need it nice that's

one thing but if we look here at

the at the other side of this mhm

there's a flipper

glass yeah so just the top half now so

that's for okay loading up groceries

dropping a couple things in the trunk

Maybe have a long this is probably going

to be a very California thing but your

surfboard right you just drop that in

here maybe your bike tires stick out the

back and you can drop this down and

maybe hold it in place that's cool it

has yeah this the back is very different

very iconic like slope looking type

thing back here and then uh there's also

another thing behind us and this we call

r3x and so this is the performance

version of R3 performance version of R3

so it's a little wider and if you come

to like the front view here you can

see these flares step out a little more

give you the room for wider tires mhm

this with a tri motor is just that

sounds absurd it's incredible um

incredible but it takes the R3 product

and and really interprets it through the

lens of extreme capability on and

Offroad so it's it's the smallest

probably the most Nimble but also yeah I

can see the tires and the wheels look a

little bit different yeah a little wider

you've got a new accent color y if I'm

not mistaken this little orange for the

front tow hooks and for these mirror

caps that's uh it's different yeah yeah

so we weren't expecting that but that is

further down the road we don't have a a

price or a date for it yet but you're

sort of showcasing the entire yeah this

shows the the road map for R2 and R3

okay fascinating front trunk still front

trunk still rear everything the same as

R3 in terms of the lift gate and the

flipper glass and ACS port at the back

right again two seats two rows of seats

wow same steering wheel it's all very

interesting very interesting okay I say

this keeps the Adventure theme going

this definitely has the same character

which I'm very happy about and uh I know

a couple people uh one of them's name is

Andrew who is going to be very excited

about R2 so all right uh we'll keep an

eye on uh the pre-orders and the release

date and all that fun stuff and

hopefully hopefully it comes out soon

yeah we we're excited about it sweet

thanks best of luck yeah thanks