Early units of the Rivian R2 will not be equipped with lidar.
This has caused a bit of a debate between early adopters: buy early and get the car first, or wait for the newest tech?
Rivian's leadership says that buyers won't notice the difference between the two "for some time."
Rivian's upcoming R2 is all the range right now. The automaker has the potential to poach a ton of buyers already in the EV space, including Tesla buyers who want to try something new. But a lot of those Tesla owners have technological PTSD and fear that being an early adopter could mean that they're left in the dust later on.
That's why when Rivian announced that early models of the R2 wouldn't come equipped with lidar, some folks winced. Fans on forums wondered aloud whether it was really worth buying a Launch Package R2, or whether they should wait until Rivian pushes out its new autonomy-focused hardware later this year. Fear not, early adopters, because the automaker says that even if buyers pick up a lidar-less R2, they won't notice a difference for years.
