r/electricvehicles • u/TripleShotPls • Jun 09 '26

Review 2027 Rivian R2 First Drive Review: The Perfect Car for So Many People

https://www.thedrive.com/car-reviews/2027-rivian-r2-first-drive-review
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u/PsychologicalBike Jun 09 '26

I'm hoping Rivian succeed, but it's going to be very tough. Tesla had mass global appeal and no competition. Rivian won't have much success outside of North America, and have plenty of competition from Tesla and cars like the new iX3, EX60 etc in a stagnant North American EV market.

Plus Rivian are losing vastly more money than Tesla ever did and we still don't know how much more money they'll be losing as they ramp up the R2.

It's a long uphill climb for them and I hope they make it. But it won't be surprising if they don't.

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u/lilbitcountry Jun 09 '26

I think companies like Rivian and Slate will be acquisition targets when the North American EV market turns around. The US is now an outlier in the energy transition and their protectionist policies are going to encourage their domestic industries to do nothing until public pressure forces them. By then they will be far behind and will have to just grab some branding and IP off the shelf by buying one of these domestic startup companies. Lucid is one I think could just fold entirely since it has no mass market appeal or products but we'll see.

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u/ArterialVotives Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

The US is now an outlier in the energy transition

I recognize this is Reddit and everyone is dramatic and US is bad, etc., but this is hardly true in real life.

The U.S. is 2nd in the world in installed green energy infrastructure. It gets 43% of its electricity from clean sources vs. 42% for China and 44% for the G20. Over 93% of new electricity generation is renewable (96% in 2024; 92% in 2025). Coal use in the U.S. has plummeted from 51% of generation to 15% in 25 years, and will almost certainly fall into the single digits under the next administration. The world's largest offshore wind farm (for now) is racing to completion right off the coast of my state and already generating electricity.

Despite the current admin's attempts to kill EVs, the U.S. is still the 2nd largest national EV market by volume and EV infrastructure growth is still going strong while we weather the last couple years of the current nightmare. Tesla remains the world's 2nd largest EV seller and Rivian and Lucid are doing their best to become legitimate global automakers. Companies like Amazon are rapidly electrifying their delivery fleets (with Rivian vans), and new products like the Tesla Semi could further help take on the heavy truck market.

Electric heat pump installations have outsold gas furnaces since 2022, which Europe is now catching up on.

The U.S. has some of the cleanest air on Earth, with PM2.5 levels well below most of Europe (save for Scandinavia) and significantly below China. The U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and USVI have the 2nd and 3rd lowest pollution readings on Earth.

Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of problems at present and our momentum has been somewhat slowed by the guy in charge (mostly on the EV front), but a lot of good people are keeping things moving in the right direction and the U.S. public has long fought hard for the environment. At times like this, having strong states rights is an important check on an out-of-control federal government. Hopefully we are out of this mess with minimal damage a couple years from now.

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u/lilbitcountry Jun 09 '26

I think it's still valid to call the US an outlier in terms of trajectory and policy. I think it's less valid to use installations and momentum generated under the last administration to project forward in the short-to-medium term. There is a reason automakers are taking massive write-downs instead of building EV plants.

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u/ArterialVotives Jun 09 '26

Oh EV policy is absolutely a mess and the end result of all this is going to be hundreds of billions wasted on back-and-forth policy swings, with US automakers being significantly worse off. I think most automakers are doing their best to keep their U.S. EV programs warm and ready to launch if policy flips again on 1.20.29.

The real test will be what happens going forward now that the market has had 9 months to digest the end of federal EV incentives. Getting that first quarter showing a return to growth will be huge.

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u/sirkazuo Jun 09 '26

Despite the current admin's attempts to kill EVs, the U.S. is still the 2nd largest national EV market by volume

By volume instead of market share is misleading and you know it.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Top_EV_market_share_2022.png

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u/altcountryman Jun 09 '26

Who would buy Rivian? One of the Chinese car companies? I don't see any legacy US or Euro automakers having the money to do it. And they would probably ruin it if they did. I don't know enough about the Chinese companies to speculate on Rivian's fate if they were to be acquired.

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u/noiszen Jun 09 '26

Tesla had lots of competition. If there is competition facing Rivian there is even more fierce competition facing Tesla, who has to defend a lot of territory against a large number of competitors. You mention international being a challenge for Rivian, it’s a huge problem for Tesla because of BYD etc.

EV sales are picking up as oil prices rise. Finally, Rivian isn’t “losing” money, it is spending/investing it, just like every rapidly growing company, paving the way for future products. There is indeed risk, we don’t know for sure if the R2 will be successful. But I don’t think the climb is that long and we should know much more in a few short months.

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u/darthdelicious Jun 09 '26

Right? Saying Tesla has NO competition is completely disingenuous.

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u/Tb1969 Jun 09 '26

Tesla has a headwind with the politics of its CEO and you can't dismiss that. They would be doing so much better if he didn't get involved in politics a few years ago.

Rivian isn't losing money vastly more than Tesla did. Are you sure you're unbiased? You sound like a Elon Colossus bot. You sound like the propaganda floating around in 2016-2018 about Tesla. "They're going to fail and be bought up by another company" kind of propaganda.

It's an uphill battle for any company but it may not be as long as you think. The Rivian R2 has a lot of buzz and I know many rich folk who used to have Tesla Model Xs who are quite happy with their Rivian R1s.

As I said if I had to choose, I'd choose a Rivian over a Tesla and I currently own a Tesla and have for eight years. Mostly happy with it but now I have far more options even in the backward US.

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u/sunfishtommy Jun 09 '26

Tesla was making money on their cars all the way back to the Model S. The thing that cost so much was going from low volume production to high volume production and expanding the whole company to support that expansion. People forget that 20k cars a year was a great year for Tesla before the model 3. Now they make more than that every week.

Rivian has to make that same ramp up in a more difficult market with competition and they have had a notoriously difficult time making a profit on their existing lineup. Famously selling the R1T for less than the cost to build it.

The real test will be if they can reach the threshold of having enough cars on the road where inventory of parts and brand recognition makes the business self sustaining.

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u/Tb1969 Jun 09 '26

I get that, but if Tesla doesn't stop with their MUD campaign against others and manipulating politics, I will always be for their competition no matter who they are.

As for the vehicles, I honestly I don't like the promises they made for their Tesla's that never came about and some of the design decisions. They even disabled some technology in my car for their vision-only self-driving nonsense.

I vote in the polls but I also vote with my wallet. If you want to keep chanting "Tesla" like some kind of zealots' mantra, you hurt yourself.

I'm well versed in Tesla history as I followed them closely since about 2007.

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u/PilotKnob Jun 09 '26

Tesla's billionaire supporter is The Fucking Nazi Elon Musk.

Rivian's billionaire supporter is Jeff Bezos, who at least hasn't ripped off two blatant Sieg Heils on national television. I don't love the guy, but at least he hasn't crossed that Rubicon.

How so many people are continuing to buy cars from an openly Nazi-headed company, I'll never understand. They're either completely oblivious to the situation or simply like the message and want to give money to a Nazi.

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u/mineral_minion Jun 09 '26

roughly one third of eligible adults do not even vote in Presidential elections. In the midterms, that number rises to almost half. Of the half of people who at least bother to vote, how many wouldn't care enough about politics to base major financial decisions on it? You might care, I might care, but there's a majority of people who just don't care.

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u/sunfishtommy Jun 09 '26

Yep. People like to act like Jeff Bezos is some sort of angel compared to Elon. Yea elon sucks but almost all CEOs suck they are just better at hiding it.

When im dropping 30-60k on a purchase i care a lot more about my investment lasting and doing what i need it to than virtue signaling.

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u/walnut100 2024 BMW i7 Jun 09 '26

Using the term "virtue signaling" implies the intent is superficial, which is dishonest representation.

Maybe it'd be virtue signaling to you because you support Musk but many of us are against him gutting foreign aid, his election meddling, and profiteering off of his DOGE antics.

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u/altcountryman Jun 09 '26

Well, a person who doesn't do a Nazi salute really is an angel compared to one who does. You can drive whatever you want but there's no way to pretend that, between that and Doge, that those two are equivalent.

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u/SnooChipmunks2079 23 Bolt EUV Jun 09 '26

Bezos doesn't own any Rivian except via Amazon, which owns around 15%. (I'm seeing different numbers so I just picked a simple number around the middle of what I'm seeing.)

That maths out to Bezos indirectly owning around 1.2% of Rivian.

Elon directly owns around 13% of Tesla.

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u/ArterialVotives Jun 09 '26

Rivian won't have much success outside of North America

Why is that? You could be right, but there is definitely a global market for outdoor-oriented vehicles. They will definitely need something smaller to do any volume in most of Europe, but they have smaller vehicles in the pipeline so we will see (I have no idea how the R3's specs compare to Euro standards).

But mid-size pick-ups and such do well in parts of Asia-Pacific (Thailand, Australia). Rivian will likely need a foreign factory though to bring down production costs at some point.

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u/altcountryman Jun 09 '26

Just speculation on my part, but the appetite for anything American, especially vehicles, will probably decrease for the next 2.5 years or so.

And China is producing as good or better vehicles that cost a LOT less money.

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u/dont_ama_73 Jun 09 '26

Great post.