Rivian R2: the same, but smaller and cheaper

The video, which was brought to our attention by Carscoops, primarily shows a lot of pie-in-the-sky nonsense about family happiness and adventure. As we all know, an electric SUV is always at the center of that adventure, and the SUV in question is the Rivian R2. This is in fact the fourth model from EV builder Rivian, which, in addition to the R1T pickup and R1S SUV, also makes the van that was initially only for Amazon, but later also became available to other customers. If we forget that bus for a moment and see the R1 variants as one model, then the R2 is the brand’s second passenger car.

The R2 is below the R1 in the range and is therefore smaller and cheaper. It is expected that this will purely be an SUV, but Rivian for now simply calls it ‘R2’ and not ‘R2S’. If we can learn anything from Tesla, it is that ‘smaller and cheaper’ can cause as many headaches as success for a new manufacturer. We wish Rivian a lot of strength with possible production problems, but at the same time we suspect that this small model could make a major contribution to Rivian’s further growth.

What we see of the Rivian R2 is not very exciting. It is that Rivian itself calls it R2 and there are people standing next to it to show the size, otherwise it could have been an R1. For example, the special design of the daytime running lights is directly taken from the big brother. The R2 also gets a similar, squared-off roofline and relatively upright windshield.

Rivian will unveil the relatively small and compact R2 on March 7. We did not get this from the manufacturer itself, but from the government of the City of Laguna Beach in California. Rivian wants to hold a major event there on March 7, where the R2 can immediately be shown to the public.