Rivian flew us out to beautiful Park City, Utah, to get a first test of the R2, its $45,000 “bet-the-company” mass market SUV that it has promised for years. Today it begins delivering these vehicles, and I can say unequivocally after driving a performance variant for 5 hours, that these early customers are going to be very happy, though with some notable caveats…
The R2 looks a lot like its bigger, heavier 3-row sibling, the R1S. Same oval lights, same boxy adventure SUV stance, same unmistakable Rivian fun ethos. Just scaled down to 5000lbs, 40cm more compact, 16 cm shorter with a 15cm smaller wheelbase. The battery scales down to 88kWh instead of the 92-141kWh on the R1S. And there are only…gasp…two rows of seats.
You get the picture, this thing looks like a smaller Rivian R1S. It doesn’t have the dorsal fin antenna (radios are now integrated into the rear), its front is cleaner, there are small visual optimizations everywhere. But that is just skin deep.
Better than R1
To sell a mass market number of these vehicles, the R2 has to be better than the bigger R1. The most obvious difference is the price. The R2 will eventually start at $45,000 for an RWD, smaller-battery variant that the company doesn’t think many people will want over the better-specced versions. The company often points toward Tesla’s demographics for its decisions, and Tesla’s Average Sale Price (ASP) is way over $50,000, and that’s with the discontinued Model S and X. Tesla’s base car price is close to its $35K Model 3 promise, but after destination and fees, is closer to $39,000. Just the same, Rivian think the sweet spot in terms of sales is probably an AWD Premium version that will cost over $55K after destination and other fees.
