The Rivian R2 is an electric SUV that’s about to start being ordered for real, not just reserved. The show explains what buyers can choose in the online configurator and how its price and specs stack up against the Tesla Model Y.
A configurator is the website where you pick the version and options of a car. Once reservations turn into real orders, that’s when you can start making those choices for your specific vehicle.
EPA range is a standardized estimate of how far an EV can go on one charge. It’s useful for comparing cars, but your actual range may be different depending on how you drive and the weather.
A tow package is an add-on that helps a car tow things more safely and properly. It usually includes the parts needed for towing, and towing can also change how far an EV can go.
A launch package is a bundle of extra features that comes with a car when it first goes on sale. Here, the hosts list some of the items included in that early bundle.
An all-terrain setup is meant to work on more than just smooth pavement. Here, the hosts mention a 20-inch option that’s geared toward tougher surfaces.
A compact spare tire is a smaller temporary spare you can use if you get a flat. The show points out it’s optional here and costs extra, so it may not come with the car by default.
The Tesla Model Y Performance is the faster, higher-trim version of the Model Y. Here it’s mentioned mainly to compare price and where the Rivian R2 Performance lands versus Tesla’s option.
Firmware updates are software updates that change how a vehicle’s electronic systems operate, often including infotainment, connectivity, and driver-assist features. In EVs like the Rivian R1, these updates can add or remove integrations (like voice assistant platforms) without changing physical parts.
On-device processing means the car does the “thinking” for the voice assistant itself. That can make responses quicker and can also help keep your data from being sent to the cloud as much.
Latency is the lag between your command and the car’s response. Lower latency means the assistant reacts faster.
Term
DVS led
The hosts mention a specific market indicator (the transcript says “DVS led”) to set up a discussion about used-car prices. The exact meaning of the acronym isn’t spelled out in this excerpt.
Eon is a company mentioned in the context of home energy products. They’re saying that “green energy” equipment is becoming more standard for people buying homes.
“Green energy kit” means equipment for homes that helps produce cleaner energy or use energy more efficiently. The hosts say buyers are increasingly expecting it.
Level 1 charging is the slowest way to charge at home, usually from a regular wall outlet. If you rely on it, you may not get enough charge in time, which can make owning the EV frustrating.
Three-phase power is a different way electricity is delivered in many places (especially in Europe). It can help charging work better and faster than setups limited to single-phase power.
Level 2 charging is faster than plugging into a regular outlet. If it’s installed permanently at your home, it’s usually easier and more dependable to use every day.
The Dodge Charger is a car model that people often choose for a sporty driving feel. In the context of EV charging, it’s being mentioned because having a Level 2 home charger installed can make charging easier and more consistent. That kind of setup is what the podcast is highlighting.
Smart charging means your EV charging can be managed by an app or system. It can help you charge at times that cost less or match utility programs, rather than just charging immediately.
Time-of-use incentives mean electricity is cheaper at certain times (like overnight). If your EV charges during those cheaper hours, your charging bill can be lower.
Concept
plug your car in
This is the idea that you just plug in your EV and the system figures out the charging schedule for you. The goal is to have the battery ready by the time you want to leave.
Time-of-use pricing means your electricity price changes depending on the hour. If you charge your EV during the cheaper hours, it can cost less overall.
The California Air Resources Board is a government agency that regulates air pollution. In this story, they flagged that some small gas engines used for kids’ cars weren’t properly controlled for emissions.
“Net zero by 2030” means aiming to cut pollution a lot and then balance what’s left. Here, it’s used to describe Disneyland’s plan to switch from gas cars to electric ones.
Honda is the brand of the small gas engines being used. The issue raised is that these engines didn’t have emissions controls, which led to a settlement with regulators.
The Buick Century is a type of car that Buick made for a long time. The podcast mention sounds like it’s about the car’s role in marketing or sponsorship during a certain time period. It’s not about how the car drives or its technical features.
LIVE
Welcome back to EV news daily today Rivian's R2 configurator opens used EV prices begin
to grow and green tech shapes home buying plus they tuned later in the show I'll tell
you why a 1955 Disney ride is finally being updated to electric power.
No EV news China today is it's the weekend our spin off show looking at what happens
in the east and how those stories shaped the global landscape that's back tomorrow morning.
Rivian's opened the R2 configurator reservation holders can now begin specifying the midsize
electric SUV as deliveries move from reservations to confirmed orders R2 production began at Rivian's
factory in normal Illinois last month some zip codes even show a delivery window of one to six
weeks for the R2 performance they want to get those orders locked and loaded quickly for now
buyers can only configure the R2 performance there's three trims that's the premium and the
standard R2 performance starts at 57900 and ninety dollars the
premium is 53990 and the standard is 48490 the first
version out of the gates is the performance 600 and 56 horsepower version
EPA at 300 and thirty miles and a nought sixty dash in three point six seconds
comes at the launch package as well with Rivian's autonomy plus a dash system tow package
and a launch key fob and exclusive access to launch green paint the standard wheel option is
twenty one's buyers can also pick a twenty inch black sand all terrain wheel inside
either black crater or coastal cloud on the interior a compact spare tire will run you
in the options list 700 and 55 dollars nothing comes with the spare tire now
does it maybe i'm too old nothing does it ever unless you're getting a complete off-roader
where there's one on the side opening boot or something but still almost a thousand dollars
for a spare tire the broader accessory list is limited at 57990 the R2 performance
is about a thousand dollars cheaper than a model y performance the R2 premium obviously goes up against
the long range model y and the R2 standard competes with the model y at about 416
thirty so that standard R2 is going to be a bit more expensive now talking Rivian they've rolled
out their new AI powered voice system Rivian assistant and this is to the R1 so the R1 TR1S
owners through a new firmware updates the move replaces amazon's system in their flagship models
the change comes with a clear trade-off enabling Rivian assistant disables amazon and all its
integrations drivers can call up the new system with hey Rivian or ok Rivian they can also use
a steering wheel thumb wheel shortcut or tap the center display Rivian says the core functionality
covers nav hvac and media playback with Spotify and apple music also generating passenger stories
on long trips over time it'll learn your preferences there are limits though Rivian
assistant needs an active connect plus subscription and it's only in english and
they unveiled their assistant at their autonomy day last december they promised an early 2026 launch
well it's not even summertime yet is it was still officially spring so i guess they're in the window
maybe the feature didn't arrive really until an update in february but now it's been fully shipped
the chief software officer wasim ben saeed who i've interviewed on the podcast before
has confirmed that both gen one and gen two are ones get it the processing is done on device by
the way it doesn't send it to the cloud doesn't fall over when your mobile signals weak and so it
uses on device on device processing that's good for privacy and it's good for cutting latency
as well of course i guess some things might need to go through the cloud and things like navigation
will inevitably have and entertainment will have inevitably some connection but it looks
like the processing of the voice is done on device that's good let's move on use dvs led
the uk car market for price growth in april last month for the first time this year actually
use dv prices rose 1.1 percent and that's the strongest increase of any fuel type petrol prices
were actually down as fewer people wanted to go buy them as used vehicles higher fuel pump prices
and strong demand for evs driving the price increase albeit 1.1 percent in evs they became
the fastest selling fuel type in april as well sales volumes rising 33 in april and march compared
to jan feb now eon next is in the news saying that green energy kit has moved from being nice to have
to standard must have with home buyers eon did some research covering a thousand people planning
to buy a home 93 percent which i this is a staggering number by the way 93 want green
features like solar panels or ev charging the shift looks pretty recent and sharp 68 percent of the
said these features would not have been on their radar 12 months ago i wonder how much
of the global conflict in the middle east has raised awareness of things like generating
your own energy not being at the whims of people who run countries that's not a trump dig by the
way it's you know not not a putin dig it's any of these not a shijin ping dig is any of these
leaders that can i don't know wake up one morning and decide they're going to do something that
affects your very life your balance sheet your money in your pocket you drive past the pumps and
it's up another five pence or five cents and you're like this is it i'm done solar panels
heat pump drive an ev you lot can go do one you can go and have your fights if you want to but
it's affecting my life personally and lots of people are feeling like that um in a way i guess
it's why we got solar panels and home storage and an ev just because it's cheaper uh there was a
green element as well i guess but i suppose just because it's saved us money and was just better
and we just moved into a new house between two good schools are going to be here for
hopefully a long time so we amortized it over whatever period the mortgages and so
that's all in we made the investment but over the last 12 months more and more people
doing that 70 in the survey see energy technology is now non-negotiable and buyers are putting
energy efficiency above other attributes cost is leading the change rising energy costs they
say the driver 52 percent of respondents said they want to buy a home that's energy efficient 29
percent want energy security themselves ev charging is high on the list 61 percent of
buyers want an ev charge you're already installed in the property solar panels are just behind it's
60 percent 70 percent so they look out for a heat pump and 63 percent look for home battery
storage eon next says its own sales track the same change in demand they're selling more solar
panels heat pumps and batteries as well at eon an energy company i always thought that by putting
the panels on and the the battery which i knew would be outdated the minute we put the battery in
ours is solar edge it's a name it's it's a good name uh it's an ncm chemistry for the life of me
why on earth is home storage not lfp or in the future it'll be sodium ion but um but anyway
so it's it's you know not the safest is why i've got it tucked outside in an external
garage by the way just in case the worst ever happens touch wood it won't uh but um but i i
always thought well we're gonna get that we installed it during uh maybe just before it was
just before rushes were on ukraine um yeah it was it was post pandemic but before ukraine and then
all my maths changed because the payback period changed i did the payback period maths on our
solar storage ev stuff based on us living here and the money we would save i never factored in
any kind of increase in the house price because i just figured you know what a 10 kilowatt hour
home storage is today in 20 years will be either laughable or something and so but i don't know if
we ever sold the place and probably will one day i suppose um yeah looks like that could be
something that people are on the lookout how about you do you agree or disagree i'd love to know
let's move on this is interesting canada's grizzly club reached 10 000 members earlier this month
the sharp rise for the program that launched last july hitting a thousand members in december
it passed 5 000 in march so it's doubled in the last two months the latest jump means that the
grizzly club has doubled its membership with the pace suggesting strong demand for incentives
it's run by a company called united charges and full disclosure they also sponsor the weekly
podcast that i do called batteries included podcast with the gang and so they're a sponsor of that
show it operates what it describes as the world's first clean fuel credit based paper kilowatt hour
home charging program so it's only in canada for now hinges on compliance credits united charges
sells the credits to fuel related businesses to offset their deficits and those proceeds then fund
free home charging for its members like a grizzly unit members also get a lifetime warranty
and cash back which is ongoing by the way the club charges no membership fee installation is not
included you won't be surprised to hear but still it's a good deal so far over 300 000 canadian
dollars have been received on top of the free hardware they're now looking at any kind of
u.s equivalent scheme and wouldn't you sign up for it by the way you get free home hardware and
you get paid or just free charging and sometimes money back to charge because they're tapping
into these regulatory schemes absolutely now a german research project is utterly brilliant i love
this next story it's testing where the park dvs can help charge electric ferries on the north sea
now osnabrück university of applied sciences and the ferry operator nord and frisia are doing
the trial the project is called biddy l or buy die l now i think it's buy die l because buy die would
be bi directional and l would be electric bi directional electric vehicle integration or
something and it's a it's a well it's a crazy name but it's a great scheme the system draws energy
from parked evs so you rock up to the ferry terminal park your car plug it in and hop on the
ferry to do i don't know whatever business you're doing on the electric ferry and then
they can tap into your battery and you can charge the ferry if you need to from all of that stored
energy they've got solar panels at the terminal which charge the park dvs back up during the day
direct solar output also feeds the charging infrastructure and that turns your parked cars
into decentralized small energy stores but all put together means you can charge the ferry
that you're about to go on then when the sun comes out you can get back in your car and
you'll have at least if not more as much energy as when you left it they put solar on the terminal
in 2024 it's a 1.7 megawatt system and they're expanding that with fixed battery storage as well
and now this scheme they hope will show how cars can be an energy store as well i am well up for
that what a party trick hey gas guzzlers you tried doing that yeah one of the many reasons that evs
are just better and if that reduces the cost to the ferry your ticket prices get cheaper
and well as long as i get back in my car and i've still got some battery left sign me up we'll
take a break we'll come back and we'll talk about a couple of stories uh like ev charging
satisfaction and disney back in a moment welcome back to the podcast now rising electricity costs
and poor owner education are dragging down ev charging satisfaction and weakening long-term
loyalty according to jd powers 2026 us ev experience home charging study and that matters because home
charging is 86 percent of all ev charging jd power said that at home charging the experience is a major
part of whether you like driving your ev the weakest scores came from those who rely on level
one portable charging and i'm not surprised that's absolutely painful on 110 volts uh i mean we've
got 240 volts here single phase and then in europe most of it's three phase or a lot of it's three
phase and so yeah if you're if you're level one portable charging at 110 volts that's going to be
a horrible ownership experience no one should be doing that apart from in extreme cases satisfaction
amongst level two uh charges is much higher and if you've got a level two permanently mounted charger
they score the highest uh permanently mounted level two charges had the highest problem rate
though more and more charges these days are complex they've got wi-fi connectivity mobile
apps smart charging and integration with utilities as well which means that they didn't always work
as they should the gap shows up in running cost tv owners who always schedule charging
scored 734 out of a thousand in the satisfaction survey spending 65 dollars a month on electricity
if you don't schedule your charging you spend 71 dollars per month on charging awareness of
smart charging is spreading 69 percent of those in the survey know about utility smart charging
programs but only 12 percent have enrolled in them half of ev owners said the utility offers
variable rates or time of use incentives jd power pointed to a basic failing at the point of sale
around 20 percent of ev owners said they received home charging guidance from their dealer jd power
called that a missed opportunity Brent Gruber is the executive director of jd powers ev practice said
automakers dealers and the utilities have a responsibility for education over time of rates
time of use rate structures and smart charging as well boy is that true so former sponsors of this
octopus i've i've been a huge i am a huge fan of octopus for my energy here but they're changing
their intelligent go package which was simple it was it used to be plug your car in tell us what
you want it to get to and we'll make sure that by the time you want to leave tomorrow your car is
at that level and if we can do some cheap charging we will they've just sent oh i don't know i'll get
into it i just sent an email that i've read so many times i mean i'm not that stupid okay hey
quiet at the back i heard that and i've read it several times and it's they're doing a six hour
limit of cheap rate but then your overnight 11 30 till 5 30 is cheap but then one of the bit says
midnight not 11 30 there's a typo in it which is very un-octopus um it's so it's not been proof read
it's messy there's like four different scenarios and if you plug your car in at this time you'll
get six hours but is your six hours cheap rate also including the six hours overnight because
then in that case just take me off a smart tower if and i'll just charge 11 30 every night because
that's my six hours if that's all you're gonna give me then forget all the smart stuff it's
i found it very confusing now i know if you if you've read the same thing and you're thinking
it wasn't hard you're making a meal of this i'm absolutely open to that scenario by the way
i might be making a meal of it but i've read it several times i think i get it but they've made
it so complicated for someone new to the intelligence to smart charging which used to be
plug your car in we're trying to give you some cheap stuff when we can and if not we was guarantee
overnight whereas now it's like we know so the the essence is if we've used up your six hours that
not overnight you don't get your overnight cheap anymore but only for your car but your home will
be because we're going to do some funky stuff with splitting out you're charging meter on the
my zappy divide oh my gosh all right just okay i mean i'm not going to leave octopus because it's
it's they do a very good job but i agree with this this this most recent survey yes utilities
need to do a better job this has not been wonderful let's move on disneyland will replace the petrol
powered cars at its autopier ride in tomorrowland with electric vehicles next year disney says it's
part of their plan to go net zero by 2030 the california air resources board also pointed out
that the little mini honda engines they use in the little kids cars don't have emissions controls
so disney had to pay a big fat fine to settle the matter i'm sure i can call it a fine okay let
me let me rephrase that disney settled the matter let's just say that wasn't a fine it wasn't a
fine it maybe it was it wasn't i don't know but that's been settled however i can imagine they're
like little lawnmower engines aren't they little honda engines yeah probably not the latest greatest
emission standards on those autopier opened in july 17 1955 it's one of disneyland's original
opening day rides and one of the most durable ideas kids drive small cars on a track what's
not to love bob guh was the designer of the original autopier cars and mr guh is now 94 years young
what disney hired him personally in 1955 when he was 22 years old to design the cars for the new
anaheim park mr guh said talks about electrifying autopier have been going on for years um chevron
took over sponsorship around the turn of the century and even then said at some point they'll
have to go electric disney hasn't released full details but mr guh said he'd even met the disney
team recently working on the new electric autopier said they were all very sharp and enthusiastic
and that the new cars would be the same as the current cars dimension wise um but the updated
vehicles will have better lighting better sound effects and that they will be a real surprise
for kids and parents and his own shift mirrors the ride he designed in 1955 mr guh has changed
his own personal transport from a gas guzzler recently to a chevrolet bolt ev well if it's good
enough for the designer of autopier it's good enough for the rest of us and that is your podcast
for today thanks to our premier partners national car charging on the u.s mainland and the loha
charge in hawaii and test ev avalued strusted partner for independent ev battery health testing
in australia and new zealand have a good and see tomorrow and remember there's no such thing as a
self-charging hybrid
About this episode
Rivian’s R2 configurator is opening up for reservation holders, with early pricing and a positioning check against Tesla Model Y variants. The show then pivots to used EV prices rising in the UK and how green tech is reshaping home buying—energy efficiency, EV charging, heat pumps, and battery storage are moving toward “non-negotiable.” Charging satisfaction is also under the microscope, from smart-tariff confusion to studies linking costs and education to lower satisfaction, plus a North Sea trial using parked EVs to power ferries.
