This new R2 is a unibody- so more of a car, less so a truck
I miss the days when men looking to compensate would buy sports cars. It wasn't any less ridiculous, but at least they (edit: the cars) were better looking and more fun to drive.
So that would associate you with the (A man's manly-man maybe?) driver of that car.
But now race cars are not really much like a production road car. And those older men with money don't necessarily want to be like the ever younger drivers being employed to win races.
As you say, ridiculous, but at least the sports cars were cool.
Comparison image: https://www.reddit.com/r/RivianR2/comments/1inep90/r2_vs_4ru...
It's about a foot longer than my crossover, which is about the same size as a RAV4 or CR-V and there's no way I could call it tiny.
It looks good.
But $45k++ is just wild to me. It seems like the market is undervaluing used EV’s, so hopefully the depreciation curve will bring these down to $30k in a couple years for us old-school folks who prefer not to have a $1000/mo car loan.
We have one person saying "well in Californian wages..." and another saying essentially that 50K isn't a lot of money when the average SALARY is $66K/year.
To what degree is this caused by car prices versus Americans' compulsion to keep buying new cars? Anecdotally, the folks I know struggling with car payments are almost exclusively in the latter bucket. But I'm open to having my mind changed with data.
Typically speaking you're going to spend $10,000 to $13,000 more then an equivalent gas car for a BEV vs a comparable gas car in Canada.
That said, china BEV's are 1/2 the cost even accounting for import costs to the USA lol so sort of points toward a issue with US companies at the moment
Have they learned nothing?
At some point I want a self-driving car, but I'm happy to let Waymo and Tesla users test those systems for another 10+ years before I personally start using them.
* I wanted my most recent purchase to be a PHEV
* I want my next purchase in roughly 5 years to be an EV (hopefully solid state batteries are available by then)
* In about 10 years I am hoping that I can buy a car that can self-drive most of my trips door-to-door
One thing I'll add is that I live in an area that gets a ton of snow, and current ADAS features are basically worthless in snow. They all turn off once the sensors get covered in ice, or when lines in the road are no longer visible. So I expect that even in new cars 10 years from now, I'll still need to take the wheel to drive during winter. Basically the features are nice when they work, but I'm still going to want to car that is first and foremost designed to be driven by humans.
I live in Western Wyoming. While my Subaru won't drive itself in a blizzard, the radar is still useful.
My plan is to wait until I have something that can drive itself unsupervised in clear weather. Given that's Waymo today and maybe Tesla in ~5 years, I'm figuring something should be on the market that fits that bill within 10, which is how long I'll try to hold onto my gas-burnig Subaru.
Why should they? We're already approaching geopolitical competition at this problem, given self-driving cars and self-driving self-propelled guns and the like are basically technological twins.
I wish Rivian would stop trying to emulate Tesla on this front and add support for CarPlay. I don't want your UI.
I actually like the look of the Rivian and this is something I'm somewhat in the market for (or will be in the next few years) but I won't touch it without CarPlay.
They are. It’s also subscription based, however.
(For what it’s worth, my friends with Rivian are fine with its phone interface. As are most people who own Tesla’s fine without CarPlay.)
https://evplay.io/shop/ev-play-for-rivian
(I can't vouch for it, just something I stumbled upon recently.)
I want to drive, not constantly connect/accept privacy etc. Especially if that is a $100k+ car.
When i get into the car, the last thing I'd like to know how my car is getting connected to my phone, if there are any issues, especially if that is not my car.
I love how my car knows that in the morning i go to work, and wednesday evening i go to yoga, and put GPS, with best traffic options. 0 touch, all super seamless. No phones involved.
The challenge for them is can they integrate a better in-car experience
If we can have open standards to allow my car to interoperate with my home batteries (Franklin, Enphase, Tesla Powerwall or others), we'll all be better off.
But we have been misled so many times about EV prices prior to launch, I think it's important to wait until we see what it actually costs for different trim levels before making comparisons to the Model Y. That $45,000 price they are throwing around could very well be for a trim that isn't even available at launch.
And anyway if I were going to buy a new compact crossover today, I'd probably lean more toward the RAV4 PHEV. It's an EV most of the time, I can refill it up with gas during long trips, it's got tactile buttons, and it has carplay.
Nowhere on the Toyota site did I see anything about range on battery only. Still, I wouldn't mind having one.
I settled for a refurbed Leaf and have only needed an ICE vehicle twice, because of cargo capacity, not range.
Looks like I was mistaken though and you can't actually buy the 2026 model yet (and the Toyota website still shows the older 2025 model). And as another commenter pointed out, it may not actually be possible to buy the older model either due to insufficient production.
[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a69059379/2026-toyota-r...
Rattles, a door mirror motor breaking, doors that wouldn't shut properly, door weather stripping that fell off, a door that just wouldn't open, panel alignment issues, some kind of screaching-to-a-halt-and-terrifying-my-family auto-brake that Rivian never figured out after reviewing log data.
Oh and did I mention the fans or heat pump that sound like a ROCKET LAUNCHING?! At a park one time someone asked me if something was wrong with the vehicle. Nope, that's just the terrible fans they chose!
Insult to injury: someone rear ended me. Insurance "covered" it, but the local collision center --- my only option within 6 hours --- charges a 2X rate for EVs that State Farm would not cover. So a $14,000 MINOR FENDER DENT turned into $7,000 out of pocket for me.
If you look at /r/rivian, it's a near constant stream of issues. While Rivian did expedite service center visits for critical issues, other times repairs were months out. And as the R2 scales, SC growth will probably trail for a while, and so I really fear for the experience early adopters are in for.
I am rooting for them but for me personally I would not consider another Rivian.
Tip: do not get Rivian unless a service center is close.
neogodless•2h ago
https://insideevs.com/reviews/786814/rivian-r2-prototype-fir...
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/first-drive-2026-rivian-r...