Rivian R2 Experiences

[SpaceEVDriver]

We ended up converting our Rivian R2 reservation to a purchase. Because I wanted the tow package, we did the math and the Performance package available as the Launch version was the best price given all the considerations such as AWD. So we ordered a Launch Green R2 a month or two ago.

The R2 is quite a bit smaller than the R1S and the upcoming Traveler. It fits our SUV needs better than the Traveler appears to. A smaller width vehicle can get us to the places we tend to go much more easily than the 80-inch wide Traveler.

I’m not a huge fan of the software and other UX elements such as Rivian’s war on buttons. It’s not really my vehicle, so that dislike is not especially relevant to the overall ownership plan. My partner is much more forgiving of some things than I.

Here I’ll log our experiences with the vehicle.

We picked up the R2 in Tempe, AZ. It’s about 350 miles round trip from our home. But they wanted to charge some ridiculously high delivery fee, so we made the time to go down and pick up the vehicle.
We arrived about 30 minutes early, so it was delivered with only 96% state of charge. That was not at all a big deal.

Delivery was not very smooth.

First, they didn’t let us order the temporary spare because they have a nationwide shortage. Instead, after we got home, I ordered a spare for a Hyundai SUV and a reduction ring to hub-center the spare on the Rivian. It saved us more than $200, so Rivian’s loss, I suppose.

Second, they couldn’t change my partner to be the “administrator” of the vehicle, so I still need to get on the phone and argue with them about this. I made the reservation and apparently they don’t have any clear provisions for changing the main “owner” of the vehicle to be different from the one who made the reservation. This is poor planning on their part.

Third, and most frustrating: We were unable to pair either of our phones with the vehicle. We were also unable to pair the key fob with the vehicle. We spent almost an hour with them, they fiddled with some buttons on the server side, we rebooted the vehicle, etc., etc., etc. We had a long drive home, so we eventually just accepted that we’d have to figure it out at home and we left without either phone being a key, without the fob being recognized as a key, and just the NFC cards being recognized as keys. Having real key fobs that are paired with the vehicle at the factory would have been preferable to this nonsense.

We got home and I did eventually get the phones to pair as keys, after several hours of fighting with it, getting bad information from the internet, and just randomly having it start working. Phone as key is not my preferred method—I would still much prefer a key fob, but I don’t have much choice in this.

The R2 fits in our 1-car garage just fine. It must be backed in because the rear hatch will hit the garage door if it’s pulled in front-facing. This is fine for our setup since we have the charger on the driver side anyway.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Today I took the R2 on a calibration drive to understand how its range is impacted by our typical trips and also to give myself a control for a test towing the popup trailer. It was just me in the vehicle and the exterior temperature ranged from about 75 degrees to 85 degrees F. There was a slight tail wind on the way out and a bit stronger headwind on the way back. I set the HVAC to 70 degrees, fan speed to low, and let it manage the rest. I usually run at 75 degrees F, but my partner prefers it a little cooler.

I chose a 100 mile round-trip drive that takes me down off the mountain quite a bit and then back up it. I did not stop on this drive. The speed limit is generally 65 mph and I stuck to the speed limit. The average speed was 52 mph.

The elevation profile of this short trip is below. There’s a bit of a climb, then a long drop. Then coming back up the mountain is a long climb with a short drop back down in elevation. The maximum elevation was about 7,282 feet. The minimum was about 4,397 feet.

At the start of the drive, the R2 was at 100% state of charge with 330 miles of estimated range. I put it in conserve mode and that bumped the estimated range up to 334. Not much of an improvement, but I left it in Conserve mode.

On the way out, the R2 hit a peak of 5.4 miles/kWh right at the 50 mile mark. If our only driving was downhill, this would be fantastic for a 91.6 kWh battery. But, of course, that’s not realistic.

This is a graph of some data provided by the Rivian Roamer site. I think similar data could be pulled from the truck somehow, but I’m not sure how, and I decided just to pay someone else who already knows how to get those data.

The climb back up greatly reduced the efficiency, as is to be expected.

The final result was that the 100 mile drive required 30% of the battery and the end efficiency was 3.66 miles/kWh. That efficiency is pretty much spot-on exactly the EPA estimated efficiency/range. With 3.66 miles/kWh, we could reasonably expect about 330-335 miles of range. The EPA estimate is 330 miles and the Conserve setting suggested 334 miles of range.

Tomorrow I’ll take the trailer on the same drive. This will help inform us whether we can reasonably expect to be able to do something like use the R2 to take the trailer to Moab/Canyonlands National Park or to Kodachrome State Park in southern Utah or if we’ll need to use the Silverado.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

This comment is reserved for an update.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Some impressions after driving the R2 for just a short time.

I like the amount of information provided. I’m a data geek, so giving me a way to see what I want to see is great. It’s also optional so if people don’t want to see these things, they can choose a different screen or setup.

This is mostly true with one exception. When the vehicle is in the “hands-free” driving mode, it refuses to show the navigation screen on the driver’s information display. This is dumb. The 3D rendering of vehicles on the driver information screen is useless and distracting. I don’t want to see that and I’m likely to never drive in hands-free if I can’t turn off that view.

I like that the large screen is tilted up to look at the driver. However, I think the dash should have a small lip to provide shading of the screen for both thermal and visual reasons.

The glass roof is not my preference. I do NOT like the new fad of not providing a motorized shade to block the sun on these glass roofs. We’ll be purchasing a fabric cover and probably won’t take that fabric off except rarely.

The vehicle is nice and quiet with one exception. The HVAC fan is loud at any setting other than “low.”

The seats are fairly comfortable.

I haven’t tried to listen to music or an audiobook. We use Libby for audiobooks, and it’s not an app that’s been approved to sit within the walled garden, so that’s a disappointment. My partner says it works okay to stream via bluetooth. The problem is that we’re unable to change what we’re listening to unless there’s a passenger in the vehicle who can operate the phone. That’s annoying. The projection tool doesn’t really open up full use of the phone, so it’s not as useful as I’d hoped. On vehicles that have Android Auto, there’s a “speak" button on the wheel that allows me to trigger the phone to listen to voice commands. I don’t know if there’s a way to do that on the R2. I don’t allow my phone to respond to voice commands without a physical trigger, so I don’t do the “Hey Google,” kind of voice command. There doesn’t seem to be a way to trigger the phone from the R2 steering wheel.

I’d really like to be able to set departure times on the vehicle so it can schedule cabin warm-up/cool-down before we leave on a regular schedule. The Mustang, Lightning, and Silverado have this capability and it’s rather sad that Rivian hasn’t made this an option.

The R2 really does drive wonderfully. It’s a fun, sporty SUV that responds “instantly” to commands. And even in Conserve mode, it does a fantastic job of moving to where I tell it to go. It handles better on our gravel road than any of our other vehicles.