Rivian R2 Review + Torturing The Chief Designer & Engineer Live — Carmudgeon Ep. 242 w Jason Cammisa

Rivian R2 Review + Torturing The Chief Designer & Engineer Live — Carmudgeon Ep. 242 w Jason Cammisa The Carmudgeon Show · Jun 30, 2026

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Company

Hagerty

A company famous for insuring classic cars and creating videos and articles for people who love cars.

Person

Derek Tam-Scott

A car expert who co-hosts this podcast and specializes in collectible and classic cars.

Person

Jason Cammisa

A well-known car journalist who hosts car shows and is famous for explaining how cars work in a fun, easy-to-understand way.

Person

Jeff Hammoud

The head designer at Rivian, the company that makes electric trucks and SUVs. He is the person who decides what the cars look like inside and out.

Person

Max Koff

The lead engineer for the Rivian R2, meaning he is in charge of making sure the car actually works, drives well, and is safe.

Place

San Francisco

A famous hilly city in California where the hosts are recording this episode.

Car

Rivian R2

A smaller, cheaper electric SUV from Rivian that looks like a boxy truck but is designed for everyday driving and outdoor adventures.

Concept

direct-to-consumer

A way of buying a car directly from the company that made it, rather than going to a traditional third-party car dealership.

Car

Volkswagen Gti

A sporty version of the popular Volkswagen Golf hatchback that is famous for being fun to drive while still being practical enough for grocery shopping.

Car

Rivian R1

The first line of large electric trucks and SUVs made by Rivian, known for being very fast and incredibly good at driving over rough terrain.

Car

Tesla Model Y

A very popular electric family SUV made by Tesla that is known for its high-tech features and great battery range.

Car

Tesla Model 3

Tesla's smaller, more affordable electric sedan that drives like a sports car.

Car

This is a large, luxury electric car made by Tesla that runs entirely on battery power. It has four doors, looks like a sleek sedan, and was one of the first electric cars to become highly popular and widely recognized.

Car

Tesla Cybertruck

This is an electric pickup truck made by Tesla that has a very unusual, sharp, triangular shape made of shiny stainless steel. It is designed to look futuristic and is highly recognizable on the road.

Term

coefficient of drag

A measurement of how easily a car cuts through the air. A lower number means the car is more slippery, which helps electric cars go farther on a single charge.

Car

Lamborghini Kuntash

A legendary, wedge-shaped Italian supercar from the 1970s and 80s with doors that open upwards. It looks incredibly fast and aerodynamic, but actually pushes a lot of air out of the way like a brick.

Car

Rivian R1S

A large, luxury electric SUV made by Rivian that has three rows of seats and is excellent at driving off-road.

Part

air suspension

A system that uses air-filled rubber bags instead of metal springs to cushion the car's ride, allowing the driver to raise or lower the vehicle.

Term

trailing throttle oversteer

A situation where letting go of the gas pedal while turning causes the back of the car to swing out, helping the car turn more sharply.

Car

Toyota A90

This is a two-door sports car made by Toyota that is designed for fast driving and sharp handling. It is popular among car enthusiasts who enjoy performance driving.

Car

Toyota RAV4

This is a highly popular, mid-sized family SUV made by Toyota. It is known for being reliable, easy to drive, and practical for everyday tasks.

Car

Rivian R3X

A sporty, rugged version of Rivian's upcoming small electric car that looks like a classic rally hatchback.

Car

All right, everyone's laughing, so it's perfect time for an intro.

Welcome to another episode of the Car Mudge and Show.

That is driven by Hagerty.

We're not driving.

We're sitting by Hagerty.

We're sitting in a Rivian dealership.

Space. Space.

We're in space.

I am not Derek Tampscott.

I'm not Jason Camisa.

Jeff Hamoud.

Are you or you're not?

You're not.

Not.

You're not Max Koff.

No, not Max Koff.

He's, I'm not Jeff Hamoud.

And this is not going to be a regularly, a normal podcast at all.

I totally didn't get this one.

No one got the memo because this is all going to be.

What's the deeply unscripted?

I was going to say fucked up.

Anyway, we are here.

Oh, yes.

We are here in a Rivian space in San Francisco.

We have just driven Rivian R2.

And these two fine gentlemen here are your hosts.

These two guys are idiots.

But they are.

We're showing up here because they.

This is the chief designer.

You're a professional.

Yeah, they are actual professionals, though.

Like they get paid to do things like make cars

because you both work for Rivian.

You are chief designer.

What's your title?

Chief design officer.

Oh, an officer.

Officer, I'm so sorry.

And you are porn stash chief, right?

Chief engineer.

Chief porn staff engineer.

Chief.

And porn stash engineer.

And porn staff engineer of the R2.

Yep.

OK.

And we're going to go.

We did this little thing where he claps.

And it's really funny because he's genuinely

special needs clapper.

You can see it's not real.

People really think it's jokes.

So we're going to have you guys.

Oh, I should have had little signs where you could rate them.

Like a 3.275.

Derek's going to clap, which gives us audio sync.

And then we're going to go have our jingle.

And we're going to come back without you two guys here.

So we can talk behind your back.

And then we'll bring you back.

And we'll torture you about how much your car sucks or doesn't.

All right.

That works?

Perfect.

OK.

Ready?

We're going to do this.

No, do it again.

OK.

Ratings?

Be honest.

I'll have to get like a five.

OK.

On the second one, first one was like a four.

Four.

OK.

I'd say five.

Yeah.

OK.

Now.

What about adjusted for the curve?

I did grade it on a curve.

That was actually probably a nine.

Oh, wow.

There are a lot of times all you hear is a.

All right.

But since you both are so judgmental,

now you have to clap for the audience

to show the audience what real Rivian engineers can do.

Jeff, you first.

Oh, that was pretty bad.

That was pretty bad.

That was bad.

There you go.

10 for Max.

All right.

Play the jingle.

OK.

So for those viewers who are watching this and not sleeping,

we are not in a regular podcast studio.

I don't know if you've noticed.

We're in a dealership.

What kind of dealership?

A Rivian dealership.

It's technically not a dealership.

This is a Rivian store.

Space.

So technically Rivian doesn't have dealerships.

They have spaces.

Direct to consumer.

And this is not just a space.

This is a flagship.

And you know that because.

Of the ship.

Of the ships.

In the background.

Yeah.

So we're in San Francisco.

This is a Rivian's flagship space, which

is a really cool sort of dealership idea.

That's not a dealership.

I mean, it's a dealership.

And that is you can come and buy a car.

But you can also come and like hang out.

And they have functions here.

And they let us record the podcast.

And so we thought.

Functions like podcasts.

So we thought we're better to torment ourselves

and be mean to the Rivian brand than in a dealership.

Which is why the folks from Rivian are not currently here.

We kicked them out.

So I asked them to leave.

And we can put this one on me.

And even though they've given us a car

and let us record it in the space,

I thought it would be weird if we gave a review of a car

that are sort of two of the people responsible for it.

So if I say something nice, you guys might be like, oh,

Jason's only saying that because Max will punch you if you don't.

So we should also feel free to be critical, one

imagines, if we have anything critical to say.

I mean, so we have, as per usual, we have not talked about.

Correct.

What we think of the car.

And so yeah, I don't think I'm going to filter anything.

Because actually you guys are going to see this.

They're going to come back in a couple minutes.

And they're both really cool guys.

And so I think no one's going to get hit.

But I'm going to be not nice about a couple things on the review.

But OK, let's get to really quickly do our top line review.

And then we can bring them in, ask them questions,

torment them, and then go home.

OK.

So I spent 153 miles with R2.

I probably did 10.

Yeah, nine.

Nine.

OK.

I did nine miles in R2.

But it was city mile, so that takes a while.

Yes.

Like an hour and a half or something.

I managed to also string together a reasonable set

of road, which I'm not sure that you did as well.

For your commentary yesterday.

I didn't slide it around corners.

Oh.

OK.

Neither did I, probably.

I did do a bunch of rolling four-wheel burnouts.

I tried to do that and was unable to reproduce it,

even with stability off.

Up a hill.

It lights the front and then sort of half lights the rears

and does a little bit of a crowd.

It's fun.

I wish you'd given me the up a hill,

but I was trying to reproduce it and wasn't able.

Instead, we're banging off like really quick.

2. whatever 0 to 60.

I measured it.

Riving claims 3.6 to 60.

And I did two runs and it was 3.59 and 3.601.

So I think they're, but that is without rollout.

It's a 3.4 with rollout.

It's quick.

I noticed.

Especially impressive to do that 0 to 60,

given that it's a ramp up.

It's actually not quick until 30 or 40 miles an hour.

I noticed that also initially feels a little tepid off the line

and then suddenly it sort of just decides

it's now it's time to leave.

And it does it.

And it does so trying to spin its tires.

They're probably trying to prevent whiplash or something.

Occupant injuries.

Yeah.

There's an Amperage limitation typically

on the wiring and motors.

Anyway, OK.

Top line, top line, headline review.

You're verdict.

I think it's a great product and I would buy one.

Wow.

That good.

That's OK.

The other thing I guess I would add

is that one of my favorite characteristics about it

was something that I think is probably

going to be material to 0% of the people, 0.3% of the people

who buy it, which is that I found it dynamically entertaining.

Fair point.

I think that's an additional one.

No one is going to care about that.

Except me.

But yeah.

But you, me, Max is the, so when he comes back,

we can torture him.

But he likes to race cars and do bad shit.

My top line was very similar.

It is a rare, the R2 is a rare consumer product

that borders on perfect.

And when I say perfect, I mean it's a perfect car

and it doesn't have flaws.

What I mean is perfect match between consumer expectations

and what the product looks like.

It is a box which I love.

I love how it's shaped.

There is a shit ton of room in it.

It's fast.

It drives well.

It's comfortable to be in.

It has a couple of major shortcomings, which I think

we should address with the guys here.

But so, you know, people don't have to wait through two hours

of this if you don't want to.

We don't know how long the episode will be.

I wouldn't buy the car for only one reason.

And that's because it doesn't have Apple CarPlay

or the ability to do any sort of phone projection.

I think that's a big limitation in any modern car

and I personally wouldn't own one.

My solution to that is I have exclusive,

the newest car that I own other than, I guess,

well, that's technically mine.

It's the GTI, it's from 2008.

And so my standards are incredibly low.

So the fact that it has the ability to play music

through my phone is like, holy shit, this is amazing.

The, yeah, I think we'll get a little bit more

into detail with this, but neither of these guys

are responsible technically for that decision.

But the reality is holding your phone

in the state of California is illegal.

While even stopped at a red light,

you are not permitted to hold your phone

and you have no choice but to hold your phone

to select different types of music.

Apple doesn't have a mode where it's like,

oh, I'm in a car and therefore I should have

a CarPlay-like display.

And so you really don't have a choice

but to hold your phone or interact directly with your phone

and that's dangerous and it's here illegal.

And I think that's a real barrier, right?

First of all, I want ways,

I want different apps that aren't there,

that aren't integrated into the Rivian ecosystem.

But more importantly, it's text messaging.

That's the big issue.

Other than that, I would have within 30 miles,

I'd made the decision that if I were in the market

for a vehicle of this shape and size, 100% I would buy one.

And so, yeah, I think we're agreement on that.

Okay.

I love, we'll talk, Jeff, so Jeff is obviously

the designer of the car and I love that it's basically

indistinguishable.

So one of the cars in the background is an R2

and one of the cars in the background is an R1

and you all in the audience are tasked

with trying to figure out which one is which.

And they're the same color or similar colors.

I find that pretty cool.

Some people find it a minus, I guess.

I don't know.

Well, the big car came out first.

The big car came out first and I defined the aesthetic

and we've talked in the past about Rivian's design language

and how it, I think, issues the lasage, the blob shape

which a lot of modern cars have and it is, I think,

the thing that makes the car desirable in a way

that blob cars are not.

This is the same thing that is true of Mercedes Gs

and Toyota forerunners and people want which box shaped

vehicles to be that and not a blob.

So this car's direct competitor would be the Tesla Model Y.

And the Model Y is a very nice car.

I don't love the way, love is the wrong word,

but I don't think Model Y is a home run in the way

that Model 3 is, right?

It's got some ride quality issues that I don't love,

but I don't think anyone buys a Tesla Model Y

because they've looked at it and frothed over it

and thought, ooh, I have to have it.

It's not desirable.

It's not desirable in the aesthetic sense.

The way Model S was initially,

some people find Cybertruck to be, I don't.

But this car has a visual appeal right off the bat

and as a consumer product, this thing,

there are trade-offs.

Rivian's autonomy suite is not nearly as fully developed

as Tesla's.

So no longer called autopilot,

it's called supervised full self-driving.

The car really does drive itself from place to place,

something I wouldn't have ever believed,

given its lack of sensors.

This car has a complete sensor array,

but doesn't yet fully drive itself.

It will happily keep itself in a lane on the highway

and it does it quite well, but no contest there.

On the other hand, this car has a physical shifter

and a physical turn signal

and just is much more usable as a product.

So I think Tesla went a little bit too far

with removing physical controls and where Rivian didn't.

So you have trade-off.

I'm sure, and I'd love to talk to Jeff

about what sort of range hit this gets versus a blops.

Because of these settings.

But those are things.

I would like to know what the C sub D,

the coefficient of drag is.

It'd be interesting because you can genuinely

never tell by looking at it.

Yes, it's wild.

Like a Kuntash has a terrible C sub D,

even though it looks like it should be very aerodynamic.

So I wouldn't be surprised if they've done

a bunch of clever stuff to actually make the aerodynamics

like the coefficient of drag be kind of reasonable

despite the appearance of a brick.

Yeah, so I just, overall, I think this is a,

it's more compelling than R1 is.

R1 is first of all too big for this geographical area.

San Francisco is kind of a small place.

And it's a great product,

but the backseat room is so much bigger on this car,

not so much bigger.

It's even bigger on R2 than it is on R1.

Because there's no third row.

And it's just, it's an even better package.

I think it's a better sized sort of daily driver SUV

for most people if you don't need a third row.

And the biggest, single biggest problem

I've always had with R1 was its ride quality.

Early on it was, I would say unacceptable.

For Gen 2 cars, they did a bunch of work.

You can't have specifically about R1-S, this SUV.

Both, but S was worse.

So S and T both had this thing where they were lower themselves.

Their air suspension R2 doesn't.

They would lower themselves on the highway

to a point where they didn't have enough travel

to really ride properly.

And so they were bounding off the bump stops.

And even at 70 miles an hour

on a relatively smooth section of highway,

you would have bump stop hits that were clearly feelable.

And it was random corners so far.

You just had this constant yaw pitch,

roll in every sort of, I guess no yaw,

but pitch and roll in every sort of dimension

as you're heaving off the bump stops.

They raised the car initially with software

and then R2, they'd made a bunch of changes.

It was better.

R2 or R1-S?

R1 Gen 2.

Gen 2, sorry.

But specifically the Gen 2 R1-S

had a ride quality issue at the rear

where the rear was sort of very, it felt under-damped.

It would sort of heave and bound around.

And I talked to Max about that

because Max, I've only met once before,

but he was on the R1 Gen 2 trip that I was on

where they showed off the car.

And apparently there was a technical limitation

basically with how much pressure they can put

in the rear air springs.

They were at the max basically.

And what they needed was more spring rate.

They couldn't get it

because they're at max burst pressure basically.

And so they have to compensate for it with shock tuning

and that hurt the ride.

And so there were compromises built in

that by the way, weren't there for no reason.

They were there for off-road wheel articulation.

And the R1 off-road is nuts.

I mean, it's just, I don't off-road,

but like I just couldn't believe what it could do

and how smoothly it would go about doing that.

But the compromise was it wasn't ideal for the road.

I don't think R2 has any of the same off-road ability

that R1 has in terms of wheel articulation,

but it's better for it on the road.

That's kind of...

It felt like a large hot hatch to me when hustling it,

which I was not expecting.

We can talk more about that dynamic characteristic

that gave me that impression, but...

Yeah, I'd love to know if that was on purpose,

but what I loved about it is the tires let go

very sort of progressively.

And I did slide it around a couple of corners

and it does really tuck in under a trailing throttle.

Well, and it has really heavy regen.

And I think that's part of it.

It's like adding...

It's pulling the ebrake.

Yeah, exactly.

And that was the characteristic that to me

made me smile and giggle and be like, this is fun.

And I don't think it ever is going to go into oversteer.

You think so?

If you chop the throttle.

I did two corners, yeah.

I don't put it this way.

I don't think I ever,

I never got to like a 90% or 90 degree opposite lock thing.

I also didn't try.

But I know our one will absolutely let you drift around stuff

on dirt roads and done it.

Max actually gave me a ride.

And I think it was our one gen two quad completely,

or it was only a tri-motor,

completely sideways around a whole dirt course.

Wouldn't surprise me if this will do the same.

I didn't do it.

It's a, technically this was the first,

we got the first ever media loan.

So I didn't want that.

It's funny that customer vehicles

are being delivered already.

Well, what happened was Rivian did a media event

in Park City somewhere in Utah.

And I couldn't go.

And so they, and I said,

hey listen, but you guys have the flagship.

Maybe you can send a car here and do that.

And so they pretty cool.

They were like, hey, let's have you guys record in the studio

and we'll ship up Jeff and Max.

And I was like, oh, like they're taking us seriously.

We had better.

Deliver something.

Act like adults.

So I farted.

Good job adulting.

It's never gonna happen.

Yeah.

So I mean, I think just a really quick list for me

just before the guys get here

because I'd love to just quiz them

about different priorities.

Some of the cool things,

it has the rear window sort of slides down into the hatch.

Four runner style.

And it has a five window button, which I kind of love.

The ability to roll up and down all the windows at once.

Doesn't really do anything about buffeting

from a rear window open on the highway.

But it does help if a front window,

like if your driver window is open,

you get beat from the side,

you can open that rear window and it stops that

instead of opening the side rear window.

And that's kind of it for the sort of other cool

quirky features.

It does have some key issues,

which I wanna get to with them.

So R1 did it at the outset first where the car just,

we walk up with your Bluetooth enabled phone key

and you're waiting like, come on, wake up,

just a little slow to wake up.

This was very hyperactive for me

when I was using the physical key.

Like I would walk downstairs and the thing would,

even though it was parked on the street and it would wake up.

Really?

Yeah.

Like I was taking the trash out

and it was parked on the street

and it was very excited to go.

Well, that's funny because I was sitting in my driveway

with both my phone key and the physical key in my hand,

hitting the unlock button.

Come on, unlock.

So the app worked immediately.

And then eventually the phone key

started working properly,

but there were times when I was hitting on the remote,

like unlock, unlock, unlock.

And I tried to hit lock a bunch of times

and the alarm went off.

And I'm like, wait a second.

So you know I'm pressing the button.

So you didn't know I was here.

Yeah, you're just ignoring me.

You're just ignoring me.

Fuck.

It's like a poorly trained dog.

Exactly, recalcitrant little bastard.

And there are some,

I wanna talk to Jeff about the halo wheel.

So there's two wheels on the steering wheel

that control the displays in front of you.

And I think it's a really elegant looking solution

that doesn't quite work as well as I wanted to.

And another strange thing,

maybe you've ever noticed in another car,

the passenger side wiper extends past the vertical.

So it comes over from the passenger side

and then goes to about 20 degrees

right in front of your face.

And I'm not sure I know of another car.

I've not noticed another car where that wiper

comes into your field of vision quite that far.

I'm curious to see if these guys are just like,

punch me when I ask that.

Like, what is that about?

Yeah, that feels like a very small knit.

But it was a knit until the wipers went on.

I'm like, what are you doing over here?

Stay on your side.

It was just one of those like strange things to notice.

Right?

Not terrible, not really a bad thing.

But I mean, when you get to that level of minutia on a car,

like there's your sign.

Like if I'm talking about,

car plays obviously is a big thing for me,

but talking about where the windshield wiper stops

or the turn signal is way too loud on this car.

I think they,

It's definitely, it's not on R1.

So I think this is just maybe a software thing

that they have to

Calibration of some kind.

But like, there it is.

So I think we should,

We should talk about price point, I guess briefly.

I didn't look that up.

It's not, I'd have to buy it.

So the one we were driving is the highest performance one.

That's the almost 656 horsepower.

It's right around $60,000.

There's very few options that cost anything.

Like as full size spare as an option,

at least it's available.

There's a couple of things for colors that are optional,

but basically around $60,000.

And then there's going to be two trims below it

that are 54 and one that's like 45 or something like that.

45 will be the rear drive only.

I think that's a really compelling price.

I think, yeah, at that price it's compelling.

It doesn't feel terribly cheap in most respects.

There's a little bit of like maybe some of the plastic

they chose a little too hard and too shiny in some areas,

but you know,

I didn't bother me if not to buy it,

but some of the materials are quite nice.

Like from the basically from the midpoint up is very nice.

And then from the midpoint down

it's feels like they spent less money.

I think if you compare it to other things,

like even like a RAV4, which is similarly sized,

I think you'd see this interior overall reads

as far more premium and feels far more premium.

So given that it's an EV,

which is inherently more expensive,

I think it's pretty impressive.

Plus I think Rivian is meant to look at this space, right?

I think they've managed to make a really premium brand

out of nothing.

And so it even just having a Rivian badge on it

and being similarly priced to...

And the form factor does, I think a huge role in that.

It creates covetability at a price point

where there's not a lot of things that are worth coveting.

So I think that is certainly commendable

and it does it inside and out.

Well, do me a favor,

because I know Jeff got tortured for the headlight design

when it first came out.

Really?

Yeah, and that one turned off.

Sorry, we'll get it back to you.

It's gone to sleep.

I think that this brand's look,

it's just such a premium.

People hate the cartoonish headlights.

They're untitled to it,

but I think the whole car just looks cohesive and amazing.

Distinctive as well.

Let's fuck with a little bit.

Okay, right.

She's got a good sense of humor.

Let's bring him in.

Okay, bring in the Rivian employees.

Okay, so they're back.

We've brought them in.

We probably would have,

have we already entered them?

Anyway.

That thing over there is a Jeff Hamoud.

I don't know the actual pronunciation of your last name,

but Hamoud.

Yeah, but Hamoud is more fun, right?

It's better than you say it.

And you're Max Hoffman.

I believe you encoded all the Mercedes.

Close to my last name.

Koff.

Yeah, but okay.

Yeah, there is.

No, I'm just saying this.

Koff, okay.

So you are responsible for the exterior and interior

and UX design of this thing, shit box behind us.

They're good.

I got you both to laugh on the first.

Great, perfect.

This is gonna be a very formal interview.

You're both fired.

Which is perfect timing for this one,

because Max is about to leave for a year off

because, oh, it worked so hard in this car.

And then I need some time on it.

I was talking to people like you.

I was like, I can't do this.

Let the record show that the car engine

is his last media appearance before he says,

fuck everyone, I'm going away from here.

Which means that they have a year

to forget whatever horrible things you say in our company

before you go back to work.

That is it.

You on the other hand are gonna have to behave yourself

because you're gonna have to show up tomorrow at work

and people take you seriously.

I'm the boss.

I design things, do what I say.

Okay, so we can confess to you guys

now that we've said this without you here.

We don't think the R2 is appropriate for the brand.

Honestly,

why is this funny?

Oh, Derek's got the nervous laughter.

It kind of sucks.

Go on.

Because it's not the R3X that I really want

and that everyone who's an enthusiast really wants

because you ripped off completely a Lancia Delta.

There we go.

I did warn him and say he could tell me

to shut the fuck up at any point.

No, this is good.

He did warn me.

Yeah, I did.

Congrats.

Both of you guys.

What I said was my first note was 30 minutes in

and 30 miles in and I thought it's a rare consumer product

that approaches perfection in terms of how it meets

customers' expectations.

So I'm a big Rivian fan because I thought R1

did the same thing and R2 is even more compelling

a consumer product.

That was a better job.

So Derek disagreed.

Derek thought it sucked.

I think I said I would buy one.

I would but not going to.

So clearly it's not that good.

Well, my last car I bought was $3,500.

So that's the real issue.

If you're nice to these guys,

they'll get you an employee discount.

And I'm sure that's like $3,500 off on an accessory

that you don't need or want.

Yes, perfect.

This is the rebirth of the no-dicker sticker from Saturn.

Do you remember that?

The what?

No-dicker sticker?

No.

Saturn.

Oh my God, am I the oldest one by that far?

You can't be that much younger than me.

When Saturn, the brand launched, not the planet,

not that old, they did a new dealership experience.

Right, the whole point was it wasn't GM.

I know you're a Chrysler guy.

Oh, his claim to fame is everyone.

He designed the Chrysler 200.

So when you do-

I actually grand Cherokee first,

but I'm glad you picked the 200.

No, that's not funny.

The funny one is the 200,

but then I have to do the asterisks

and say the really pretty one,

not the fucking terrible one.

Not the facelift.

Which generation of Grand Cherokee?

The WK2, when it came out in 2011.

Got it.

Not ugly, right?

No, handsome.

Yeah, I know.

It's annoying because if it was the ugly one,

we can fuck with him.

But you didn't do the sea-bring with the hood strings, right?

Damn it.

That would have been fun.

Sorry.

Anyway, Saturn, their dealership idea

was what they called the no-dicker sticker.

So it was just a set price

with you couldn't dick her on the price.

Wasn't it like no Haggle?

Not no dicker?

It was the no-dicker.

Haggle doesn't rhyme with sticker

and I'm not the fucking marketing guy who did this.

It was just called the no-dicker sticker.

Not okay.

So non-negotiable prices, in other words.

Manufacturer suggested realtor price

was the manufacturer's actual-

Mandated.

I think we should think about it.

It's a good marketing.

The no-dicker sticker?

GM probably let the trademark go on that long ago.

Well.

There are so many places we can go at this.

Invitational brand, right?

Invitation to dicker.

What do you mean by invitational?

I don't know.

You tell us about invitational brand.

The phrase I've heard you.

Yeah, it's one of the key attributes

when we're first starting Rivian

was wanted the brand to be inviting.

Starting off with the face of the car.

It's inviting.

We didn't want something that was aggressive

or angry looking like purposely wanting something

that was optimistic much like the brand we want to be.

That sort of came from like group think decision

or was that just RJ from?

Oh, it was RJ.

It was one of the original things.

One of my first show in Rivian,

RJ wanted the brand to be inviting.

Didn't know how that was gonna manifest

into the product or the brand

but it was one of the key attributes.

There we say invitational, not presentational.

Meaning not show off.

Right.

Interesting.

Example we would give is just like clothing

whether it's, if you could use, I don't know,

Armani suit.

It serves the function.

It's very presentational.

You're not gonna use it and get dirty in it.

If you had something like Patagonia, for example,

it's inviting and still aspirational

but something that you can use it's comfortable.

So that's what the brand wanted to be.

It's very cool.

I can see that RJ.

RJ, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this

but he doesn't have like Super Carcy as a carado

which of course makes me a huge fan of his.

He made it right off the bat.

VR6.

VR6 carado, yeah.

You know that, right?

I do now.

Now you know.

Now the whole world knows

unless we have to edit that out because RJ like,

no one knows.

But he has Porsche inclinations that he must, right?

Yeah, he does.

Okay.

Or maybe that's your doing.

I noticed in the early color scheme

that there was some, there was a lot of Porsche present

and I was always curious about how that came to be.

RJ's been in the Porsches for a while.

He used to sum up.

Yeah, when he was in high school.

So that's why you had Bahama yellow

as a color on the R1, which I don't know what.

It wasn't, I'll give you the truth

where that color came from.

It wasn't just Bahama yellow.

It was a inspiration of taking Bahama yellow

and also sand glow, you know,

the Range Rover, Chemo-Tropi color.

Oh yes, sure.

Yeah.

Took some of those, added some metallic.

It was kind of a blend of taking two of those older.

There's also Oslo blue I've noticed,

which is Rivian blue.

It was a Porsche color in this 356 era.

Exactly.

We're just so...

They are reincarnations.

He just accused you of playing your eyes.

No, they're reincarnations.

You got me.

You can see the color.

Yeah, he's subtle, but he's a dick.

Inspiration comes from many places.

I just have, I assume there were some,

there were so obviously like Porsche inspired to me

that I was like, which I consider this a positive.

I mean, I think that...

You're a Porsche weenie, of course you do.

Well, it's also like, there's so much tendency

to make everything gray and metallic

and sort of technical and sterile.

And I think introducing solid bright colors

is a sure way to indicate that you're in a different place.

But sort of, there are also sort of earth Tony

and, you know, not...

Sort of naturally.

You're soft, so bright.

Right off.

Even if we'll do a bright color,

we'll desaturate it a little bit and make it look soft.

Yeah, it's like egg yolk versus tennis ball.

Yeah.

I got it.

They're both yellow, but one is like a very neon intense yellow

and the other is kind of a like subtle creamier yellow.

But with orange.

Okay, sure. Yes, okay.

Maybe I'm buying the organic eggs

and mine, my yolk are a different color.

You should get your eggs checked.

At my age, they would be powdered anyway.

I know for that.

So Max, what the fuck do you do?

I don't go on vacation for a year.

Yeah, I'm the chief engineer of R2.

So I lead all the engineering teams to deliver

on like the vision of what we want for the customer.

Okay, so what is the customer?

What does the customer want in this new segment?

Well, when we started working on R2,

the challenge was essentially trying to deliver

that same R1 experience

because that was what had defined our brand.

And so we did a lot of soul searching to figure out

what is it that people are really latching onto.

And what we pulled out kind of from the DNA

was this same kind of can go anywhere.

It works really well on road.

We want it to be comfortable off road.

It fits all your stuff, all your family, your friends.

It has a high degree of autonomy and software.

And it's just really a pleasant experience,

pleasant place to be.

And we wanted to really differentiate ourselves

from the other vehicles in the segment.

Jeff talks about this a lot,

but what we've done with our roofline

and our interior package,

like we're really trying to maximize that experience

for someone who has an outdoor active lifestyle

while not sacrificing everything that R1 developed

in the name of cost.

So that was like the,

it's a really difficult challenge to go.

Like R1 was hard and difficult

because we're building the company

and trying to build the most amazing product we could,

but cost wasn't the primary driver.

This is a very different challenge

to try to deliver all of those core things

without spending the money.

So it's like that balance,

it was really critical for the development.

I think I'm very happy with where we landed.

So what were some of the sort of like inflection points

for things that you figured out

that you could really like get some high ROI on?

Yeah, so, you know, R1 has a bunch of crazy,

chassis tech in it.

And that's what enables it to do these wild,

like ends of the spectrum.

You can do really crazy off-roading.

You can go, it's not a sports car obviously,

but it totally changes the character of it

for like twisty mountain roads.

And so we wanted to preserve some of that like duality

of character, like it's comfortable on-road and off-road,

but we couldn't spend the money

to do the kinetic roll control system

or the air suspension.

And so we really thought like the low hanging fruit

for value for money are the semi-active dampers.

And so throughout development,

we kind of went through a few different phases

of what's the character of the vehicle?

Because with passive springs and bars,

you know, it's you're kind of setting one.

And then with the semi-active dampers,

we can kind of like tune it up and down from there.

So it took a little bit of time to figure that out,

but very happy with like you go in the off-road mode,

it really softens everything up.

It allows for a decent amount of travel.

You go into sport mode, it's relatively stiff and responsive.

So I think that was the big like bang for the buck

in terms of enabling that character

while not spending a bunch of money.

Are those dampers adjusting both jounce and rebound?

Or is it just rebound control?

It's compression and rebound at the same time.

Yeah, so it's one valve.

So the other thing on our two,

we went to a simpler suspension setup

in the architecture as well.

So it's a McPherson front and a multi-link rear.

So it's doing both at the same time,

which saves some cost, but it sacrifices a little.

If I were to drive an R1 and R2 on the same road

which one actually, and this is the performance obviously,

and so in the sort of softer ride mode,

which one actually is softer or compliant?

Depends on how large the inputs are.

I think R2, I think one of the things we've,

across the whole organization,

we've just taken a step change in maturity.

Like we've just learned a lot from R1.

Like I think R2 rides better than R1.

Okay, that was exactly what I was hoping you would say

because that's my impression

and I haven't done back to back at you.

Yeah, for big inputs, when you're off-road,

R1 wins hands down, it's got more travel

and you can disconnect essentially the front bar

by going to no pressure across the axle,

but for small, like everyday things, R2 is more plush.

That was my, I said offline,

my biggest complaint always about R1,

you probably know this, is that I never thought

suspension tuning wasn't,

never got where I'd hoped it would be.

Gen two was much better,

but you explained to me and I said to the audience

that you were running up against some max air pressures

on the rear springs.

This never does the bobbing, it does come down.

I will say I'd love to experience R2 on a smaller wheel.

These are 21s on the performance, right?

There's still a lot of,

so my benchmark is so annoying, it's a fucking golf,

just because it's my daily, right?

And so I can sort of calibrate that as,

this is a compact car with nothing special at all,

done at all to it.

Came on 16s, I have it on 18s,

so I've destroyed any sidewall flex at all

and just decimated my range too, but don't care.

But I am shocked at how many cars just can't get close

to its ability to filter out sort of high frequency,

like and sharp impacts.

And I think the golf still rides a little bit better

than R2 on the sort of really jittery kind of stuff.

Even on the 21s though, we have relatively large OD,

so they're 32 inch OD.

So in that segment, there is still a really big sidewall.

We should try the 20s.

I would love to see the 20s to see,

because the rest of the ride, other than the fact that,

I had it in soft mode most of the time

because I jiggle.

I do that too.

I found it was just the best compromise.

And then occasionally you sort of hit a heave

in the middle of a corner and you kind of get a big too much

and I thought, oh, I will have one of those.

I mean.

Were you sideways?

No, I wasn't sideways, but I did have one.

There's a section of road that is fast and sweeping

and it's also bumpy and I did it soft.

But not sideways.

And there's a median and a bus stop kind of combo.

And you hit the bull.

I was threading the needle.

But there was a moment where then I'd left it in soft

the entire time and then I had experienced that road

and I was like, I probably should have put it in firm

before heading up this road.

And that was the only time that I noticed

that soft kind of was ran out of sort of control.

If you get into something really big heave events

that it runs out for sure.

Yeah.

That was the only time other than that

I feel like soft is always the mode.

Yeah.

Why not have suspension control when if you can't?

Like if you, it's there use it,

I don't understand this spot buttons that the Germans

have done have made sort of ubiquitous

through the whole car industry.

Like, you don't, why do I want it to ride like shit?

Yeah.

There's no benefit.

I toggle between soft in all purpose

and then moderate sport damping.

So are there three modes?

We have always the softest setting available in other words

because the soft goes away when you're in sport mode.

Yeah.

But the moderate damping I think is pretty good

in sport mode.

It does like delivers a high degree of body control

without being overly harsh.

Like it doesn't do the super tuggy feeling.

Right.

Even the firmest setting I never felt it got.

Super tuggy.

I usually ride it in moderate and sort of.

You know, when you go over something

and there's so much compression to it,

it's like pulling you.

My tits hit me in the face here.

Doesn't probably, not an unfront for you.

You're not gonna make the video?

Of course it is.

This is unedited.

No, no, no, the video of your tits hitting your face.

Oh, oh, I could do that.

I could, we could, we could.

Well, do it as an insert after.

It's wonderful.

Your followers want to see.

No, nobody wants to see that.

That's just what I've been told.

So I can't lie to you.

Oh, my only fans follow me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's actually my only fan.

This is one person who gives me,

gives me $5 a month to stop.

It takes.

Jesus Christ.

I should have never started this whole meeting.

So off camera we started, I'm like,

I gotta break these guys.

They just have to be humans

because I've interacted with you both offline

and you're both fun.

And I'm just worried you'd get all corporatey in.

Whatever, so.

Max is going on vacation after this.

He's fine, he's fine.

Super corporate.

Anyone at Rivian HR don't hold,

I told it against these guys, it's my fault.

So question that we had is,

if you turned everything off, stability control,

I love that it's a single long press

turned stability control off.

And the car will do, rolling four wheel burnouts

up San Francisco's steepest hills,

which I discovered yesterday by accident.

I was merely trying to do the safe thing,

which was to accelerate with the flow of traffic

at 600 and something horsepower.

It seems quite, the chassis balance of the car

seems quite neutral.

I love that it talks in will it drift?

Yes.

The way, yeah, I feel like you're gonna say that.

Cause I was afraid to do this.

I'm like, first loan, I'm not gonna wreck this thing.

Rally mode with stability off is amazing.

Like, I don't know if you've driven R1 in drift mode,

but this puts it to shame.

I mean, it's about 2000 pounds lighter,

shorter wheelbase, less inertia.

It's so responsive and intuitive and easy to control.

We have a proving ground in Arizona

and we set up cone courses and it's like packed dirt.

I'm not particularly good at drifting,

but I have like so much control.

It's so fun.

So yeah, the platform itself is super capable.

He says that, but all the videos of Rubyans going sideways

is just being max.

Yeah, I was in the car for one of them.

I mean, yeah, no, complete, full opposite lock and a try.

And you're like, wait till you see what Quad can do.

I'm like, Jesus Christ.

Yeah, so this is a use case that exactly

all of your customers want.

It's inviting me to be sideways,

inviting me to lose my license again.

More like provoking you.

We're inciting you.

No, that was your observation.

Yeah, and this was something I think that I said

for you guys arrived was basically

that it's a functionality that perhaps 3%,

no, 0.3% of people will care about.

But the way that you can adjust the handling balance

with the throttle in this thing is extraordinary.

And I don't think most people are going to care about that.

But for me, when I took it on,

one thing I did was take it on a twisty road.

And is this from Regen?

It's kind of the way that it basically tucks in

so completely, which is very much like,

it reminds me of a 911 in that sense,

like an old 911 because the line is so adjustable

by throttle based on the throttle.

And I just, like I purposely did this,

I was going neutral throttle on a tight corner

and then I just chopped the throttle completely

and the thing just tucked in towards the apex.

And I was like, this is incredible.

I just want to take this on every back road

and like do an all day rally in it and see how it is.

And like, because once you have a car that can do that,

obviously you have the ability to really have all this extra,

an additional two, lower three in your toolbox

of getting the car to go there,

be pointed this direction at the speed.

That was one of the things when we did testing the vehicle

and went and tried out a bunch of different vehicles as well.

We all agreed that, you know,

even just like off road sort of dirt trail,

the Rydian was like the most fun to be in terms of,

it's handling off road,

but then also just kind of being a hooligan.

It wouldn't say it's like completely compliant

and going fast over rough road terrain,

but still really, really good, but it's just fun.

I don't know if this is right.

It's playful.

And now you know why R3 will be my e-golf replacement finally.

I mean, the biggest challenge that I've had,

I've said this a million times on the podcast,

so is that I'm 89 years now

of driving a fucking e-golf and nothing will replace it.

Cause I want something small that works in a city,

that's electric, but handles and steers properly.

And that's those seem to be things

that no manufacturer wants to invest any money in.

So people are like, get a leaf, fuck that.

Get a front of ours as a Chevy Spark EV.

And yes, it will do a thousand foot burnouts.

And I've, it's amazing.

I think that's 400 something foot pounds

of torque to the front wheels.

I mean, it's so stupid, but it ultimately is a shit box.

I mean, and I say that knowing that I love shit boxes.

You know, it's an economy car that happens to be electric,

but doesn't steer like, you know, well.

And so the e-golf does, it's a GTI.

It's all good Volkswagen stuff, peak Volkswagen stuff.

R3, imagine a bit of a shorter wheelbase.

I mean, I found this was perfectly willing

and capable to do anything.

You have a dog.

So you need the, you need, and friends.

I have none of those.

Although my dog has jumped out of a window

of a moving car before, so I might have to disable

that rear tailgate window.

That's, there should be an automatic dog sensor in there.

A dog present, no, do not roll the window down.

Not my dog anyway.

Yeah, no, I think that's a pretty cool thing.

Steering, I'm really impressed with on-center talkativity.

I will say you definitely, in a climate like this,

we got a lot of sidewinds.

And so on Golden Gate Bridge,

I had 40 mile an hour sidewinds yesterday.

Ooh, you knew what's happening.

Yeah.

You know, when some you lose some,

when you, everything's compromised.

I'd much rather have steering feel

and then notice crosswinds.

Yeah.

Which actually brings me to a question for you

because we're talking about breaking wind

and you just farted.

But also, I thought someone told me somewhere

they heard an interview with possibly you

about how much range you guys sacrificed overall

because of not making it look like a marshmallow.

Was that something you said or did I dream this?

I think we've talked about the trade-off before, yeah.

So it's not as massive if you think when you add it up.

And even though it's like,

it has a very two box silhouette,

we still spent a lot of time in the wind tunnel

and CFD to get it as slippery as we can.

But it was ultimately,

we weren't trying to get for the most efficient shape

because the trade-off,

I mean, you're talking like 10 to 12 miles of trade-off

as we would have made it with a very fast roof line.

And we just felt for our vehicle,

didn't think it was really worth it

considering my customers want choice.

And that was a trade-off that we're willing to make.

And could we got up to all the variants

to be well over 340, yes,

but we thought, hey, this is the right trade-off

for this car to have storage, have visibility out of it,

and also just interior volume.

And also one other thing that you've glossed over,

desirability, right?

People want a truck that looks like a Tonka toy.

It's just over and over again.

Not a jelly bean, right?

And so as much as the Lucid Gravity, for example,

is a packaging miracle,

I don't think that shape makes people look at it and say, want,

the way they do for a G-Wagon,

or any of, insert any Land Rover product.

And so I think you have people lined up

at this dealership outside right now

to come and drive this car.

And I think so much of that comes from the fact that it looks,

it looks like a aerodynamic brick.

People want that.

What is the coefficient of drag?

It's 0.3.

Yeah.

0.3, oh, 00 wow, that high.

I mean, it's pretty time for that.

That wasn't for that.

When we see stupid things like,

all the Mercedes claims 0.219 for everything and whatever.

I mean, that's high for today's jelly beans,

but it's not a jelly bean.

But it's not a jelly bean.

No.

But it's also the same as like the Audi 200 or 100

when that first came out, which was like absolutely.

Yeah, but it was like an absolute, you know.

Impossibility.

Yeah, and a Kuntas is 0.41 or something like that.

And then an old 911 is 0.36 or something.

It's just.

I don't know of another vehicle with that side profile

that's that low.

Yeah.

And there are tricks.

Like they've got the pass through spoiler in there.

I saw that.

The windshield is pretty fast.

It's raked.

If you look underneath the car, it's insanely flat.

So there's a lot of work that was done

on the underbody of the vehicle as well to get there.

But I'm sure that helps with downforce

at high speeds as well, right?

Yeah.

But we knew we wouldn't have as competitive

as a overall CDA.

So we have to find efficiency elsewhere.

So like our tires are very low rolling resistance.

You know, our front motor,

we have a full axle disconnect.

How does that work by the way?

That's just a physical hydraulic clutch.

It's a, yeah, it's a electro mechanical like dog clutch.

Oh, wow.

So it.

Modern cylinder deactivation.

Dog, really?

So I tried to trick it a million times to see

because there's a little display that you can put on.

You can see which wheels are being powered and how much.

And I'd wait until sort of cruising on the highway,

defaults rear drive most of the time.

And then I'd hang out there for a while and then mat it

and see if I could catch it out.

It never once felt a single thing.

There's definitely an initial ramp of acceleration

and then another secondary one.

But I never felt an actual engagement.

So.

Yeah, we've made huge progress since R1.

R1, you can definitely feel the connection.

It's a lot quicker on this vehicle.

Also because we've biased more torque to the rear,

it's rear wheel drive.

You have more capacity in the rear motor

before you have to engage the front.

So it's really like above 0.3 Gs of acceleration

when you need the front.

So most people are just gonna be cruising around

in rear wheel drive.

And it uses Regen.

It primarily rear also keeps everything disconnected.

Which is a conscious decision we want to do over R1.

R1, it's front.

So for us, we wanted knowing that the base car

was going to have rear wheel drive.

We wanted that more premium experience for rear wheel drive

and also just for overall handling characteristics.

Yeah, I mean, I love that it is really acting

on the rear axle because it makes it more playful.

And on the topic of, I guess, range.

So when you go to the 20s, is that because of the,

and you have a range impact,

is that the result of the tire or the wheel design?

It's the tire.

So if you put road tires,

then you wouldn't have that trade off.

It's both, but it's primarily the tire.

Tire is a much bigger driver.

Like the seat, well, yeah, the CD on the wheels

is slightly worse for the 20s,

but the tire is the massive difference.

Well, we do spend like, even with all the tires,

we still spend time on all the wheels

to make sure that we can make them more efficient.

I mean, a big part of it and how much it is,

just as usually the edge.

So a lot of our design of our wheels,

is that most of the arrow comes from the first two inches.

So the flatter that is,

if you look at a lot of our designs,

we purposely keep that flatter, isn't there, to help.

And on your e-golf, when you replace the tires,

did you buy the super energy efficient ones?

You know, I don't like the tone of your voice.

It's a little, I feel attacked right now.

No, I went from a 16 inch.

That's just cheating.

Cause what you could put,

the thing is when you're doing a low roller tire,

there's so much more structure and stiffness

to get that range.

So you know what I did though,

I've completely fucking ruined this car.

So I went from a 16 with a 205 55.

So it wasn't a huge sidewall to begin with,

but 205 55 16 Bridgestone Ecopia EP422s,

which are low rolling resistance to a 225.

So plus 20 mil, 35, I think it is, 18.

So GTI tire size with PS4Ss,

which admittedly have a pretty soft sidewall,

compare it.

And I lost 20, on a scientific test,

it was 19% of my range.

In real world, it was closer to 30.

Because now I was pulling 1.06 G static.

And so I was pulling over G on every arm.

Do you like 100 miles or something like that?

I don't really like the tone of your fucking voice either.

That's a big percentage.

125 rated EPA, but I was averaging 140, they over delivered.

That brought me down to, well, now what I did

is I have Fredestine Ultracks,

which now I'm down to about a 40% hit.

But I don't care.

Like I have a G of cornering,

and so I don't have to slow down.

So it's more efficient overall.

I have solar, so it's, here, watch me just make up

all these bullshit reasons.

But you're probably not actually doing that many trips

where you need that range anyways, right?

The car doesn't have a spare tire.

So I'm not gonna take it more than 20 miles from home anyway.

That's one of my other pet peeves.

No, it's, you know, I have nine combustion cars

that I can take on road trips.

And then this is just a city dingy.

And it's rare that I ever need more than 100 miles range.

And happens occasionally.

And in the winter, I put my 16s back on

because that range hit was made it,

I was down to like 80 miles in the winter.

If it's like raining and to heat on and whatever else.

And that's, you know, you can't have a 40% hit

and you have 100 mile range.

So yeah, so it's, you know, the EV world is very difficult

because you guys have all of these competing priorities, right?

You want it to look like a truck, but then you need the arrow.

You want, you know, you want playfulness,

but you need some grip.

You want low rolling resistance,

but you need stopping distance.

It's kind of a nightmare to be an EV car company.

Well, one of the things we also did from

to help out with arrow was just reducing frontal area.

So if you look at it versus a Tesla Model Y, for example,

it's narrower and also I called the body mass index

sort of the bottom of the vehicle to the top of the roof.

We're also about an inch shorter.

So we're finding ways to also just decrease the frontal area

because it's another way to get range out

and not getting CDA down.

So you told me when we first got here this morning

that you had a slight brain injury

when you were designing this car.

Is that why you just didn't do your work

and made it look exactly like an R1?

You just stole a max joke from Merlin.

Totally did.

It was good though.

It was too good.

And we weren't gonna comment about it.

I was just gonna tell it after Jeff turned fucking purple.

It's gonna break the ice.

So I think I'm gonna publish a spotter's guide

on how to tell these cars apart, right?

But I wanna know, so there's a couple of things

that I've noticed that sort of make it pretty easy,

but are you so close into this design now for so long

that you can tell them apart from 500 feet away

and with your eyes closed?

I don't know.

They're really similar.

I mean, look.

Oh, you just gave me a look.

He gave me a look.

I did give you a look to the camera.

I did give you a look.

I gave you a look because yes, they look similar,

but then, and that was done on purpose.

But think about how many other brands do this

over and over again,

whereas you get to a C-Class, to an E-Class,

three series, five series, et cetera, et cetera.

There's a lot of one that do that.

Sometimes they do it, sometimes they don't.

Sometimes they don't, right?

But every line on the car is different.

I think the key two things that you really notice

is the hood cut line is on around the side,

which is the A line.

It has an A line, which is line that goes all the way

from one end of the vehicle to the other.

R1 doesn't have that.

That's a key differentiator.

And then on the back, the easiest way to tell

is the license plate is not on the gates, on the bumper.

I didn't even notice that one.

There's also on the back, there's a badge that says R2.

That one says R1.

That's a pretty, that's a giveaway.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

I really appreciate that.

No, there's some, I'm there real subtle things.

So there's that third brake light up on the rear.

First of all, the rear window trim is completely different.

But up front, the R1 is an air intake, R2 doesn't, right?

It does, it's just lower.

It's just lower.

There's the rear door glass is separate.

It's got a fixed piece on R1.

There's no halo trim,

like the bright trim that's around the top.

I mean, the fact that it looks like an R1 was intentional,

right?

We knew everyone really likes R1.

We wanted to build off of that,

offer it in a smaller, more affordable package.

Didn't you tell me that even your parents

made fun of the front end graphic on that one?

My dad, his first time my dad saw it in person.

My dad said, oh, I didn't really like in photos

and it looks much better in person.

It was my first time my dad seeing the crowd.

I was like, thanks.

Much better, much better.

Thanks, dad.

Much better, exactly.

Much better.

I thought it could fucking really suck,

but it only personally suck.

Good job, son.

Sounds like my dad.

That's about as much of an out of boy

I'll get from my dad.

So that's why I'm giving you shit.

I always thought, I've sold many R1s to my neighbors

as I know you think you want another rover.

Like they all have Land Rovers and Range Rovers.

And like you don't.

This is what you really want.

When you say you want a Defender,

this is actually probably what you want.

And I did get a couple of people are like,

yeah, it's too cartoonish.

Okay, I bet they're while sitting on the side of the road

and they're broken down Land Rover product,

they're probably like, wow,

I wish I had that cartoonish front end on my.

I think it's one of those things from the design

is always a challenge, right?

If you try to create something that everyone loves

all you do is create something that nobody hates.

And it's about driving and emotion.

And if you look at the design overall, it is pretty simple.

It's a kind of classic proportion and style.

And the front end is the one area where we wanted to push

and provide an identity.

And with that, you're gonna get some design tension.

Some people say they're gonna like it

and other people are gonna not.

But the people that like it really like it

and those drive those emission decisions

to actually purchase a car.

And also the thing that I think we were successful at

is you can notice it from a mile away

and know there's a Rivian coming.

That's true.

So I sort of gave you a little bit of shit a second ago

about making cars look like each other.

I think that you said BMW, Mercedes, whatever,

they are at their best when they have that sort of,

what Bruno Sock had called it horizontal and vertical,

right, lineage, where you look at the current lineup

and you say that's his horizontal, right, axis

where everything is instantly recognizable

as a sibling of the other.

So you see C-class, C-class, S-class,

they all look family.

And then you, the vertical was chronologically, right?

So you know a new model comes out

and it speaks to everything in the past.

And I think car companies are,

there was a lot of criticism,

especially in the 90s and early 2000s of BMW

with the same sausage, different lengths, right,

35 and seven series.

Washington Dahl and Colette too, yeah.

And then there's kind of a smart move.

I never understood that criticism,

especially in this one,

you're debuting this language on R1,

which is the premium product.

And now it's that design is trickling down

into a less expensive product.

Well, you also talked about R3.

That's why we showed R3 at the same time as R2.

So show how the brand could stretch.

That was a very different form factor,

very different design, but still looks like a Rivian.

So, and then it doesn't look anything like an R1.

So it was...

Doesn't look anything?

I mean, family resemblance for sure.

Well, not front, but yeah.

So hot.

So annoyed, so long one.

What would you characterize as your inspirations,

like when you were looking at other vehicles,

what would you say like,

oh, this is something that I feel like is a philosophy

that I would like to capture

or an approach that I think was worth repeating

or that they did something well.

I want that question for both of you,

as dynamics and views.

And you know, looks like that.

Well, my talking about R2.

Let's go back to the beginning, actually.

Yeah, well, when we were doing R1 purposely,

we actually started with the truck first.

And knowing that from the B pillar forward,

they were gonna be common.

It was really important to be designed them at the same time.

And so trucks are a great example.

You can put the windshield further forward

on a pickup truck and it looks fine.

If you look at, I'll use the big three, for example,

if you look at GM Ford Chrysler.

So if you look at GM out of their trucks,

they're actually the one with the longest hood,

the windshield's further back

because they share basically from the dash forward

for a long time with Nascale, Denali, Yukon.

So they share them.

Or if you look at like the Ram for a long time,

it didn't have a sister product.

So it actually had the longest,

furthest forward windshield.

And when you take that proportion

and you put it on an SUV and you start stretching it out,

it just looks malproportioned.

So that part of that premium proportion

is really getting that windshield further back dash axle.

And that's something that's really important.

So we started with that short front overhangs

and rear overhang being an off-roading vehicle.

Automatically through approaching departure angles,

it helped that.

And also just short front overhangs, they'll cool on SUVs.

I don't think they look great with longer ones.

And then the wheels and tires was a big part of that.

And that's, there's a kind of classic proportion

that we learned in design school even,

where if you go to draw an SUV,

the optimal shape for an SUV is you take the bottom

of the floor of the vehicle

and line it up with the center of the spindle,

where the hubs are.

And then if you take three wheels

and sketch them between it,

and that should be your wheelbase.

That's kind of like the golden proportion for drawing an SUV.

So as much as we could to like maintain that proportion

was something that we really, really pushed to.

And there's obviously in the vehicles too,

there's nostalgia of other vehicles you see in there.

But I think it's like, I've heard a lot,

it looks like this or it looks like this

or it looks like that.

It's not something we particularly reference,

but vehicles of that time have a particular shape

and form factor.

And that's why we wanted to bring that back.

And when we did the truck, then the SUV followed,

it was really important that we designed them

at the same time to get that proportion

to work for both of those cars.

So Jeep Cherokee.

Not your grand Cherokee, there is no Cherokee.

There is no Cherokee, it's awesome proportion.

Perfect, right? Yeah, it's awesome proportion.

Actually for the R2, a lot of that,

the things we looked at for like inspiration

is a lot of those 90s SUVs,

because they were just, they actually were sport utilities.

They were slim, they were lifted,

they had like proportionally big wheels and tires.

You think about that, like a pathfinder,

you know, no forerunner from around those 90s.

I mean, they were just so well proportioned.

And if you look at those cars today and actually see them,

they were really small.

They're little.

Yeah, they're really tiny.

You had some absurd comparison you drew

between the XJ Cherokee and like some contemporary car.

Modern golf.

Same size as modern golf.

Yeah.

It's like six inches taller, but it's,

I think it's actually narrower than a golf.

Which is why I wanted to call in that episode

like America's favorite hot hatch,

because it's other than the fact that it's got a lift on it,

it's proportions of a hatchback.

All right, so you, inspiration on sort of dynamics,

and then we can get into sort of structure

another engineering kind of thing.

Yeah.

I'm gonna pivot a little bit for your question,

but it's based on dynamics.

So when we started on R2,

we're actually designing, we call the mid-sized platform.

So this is the same platform for both R2 and R3.

And we actually started developing R3 first.

And so when we were,

well we developed both at the same time,

but yeah, we started on R3 and then developed R2.

Like we'd already started R2,

but when we reset the platform,

we said, let's make sure that this scales to both.

Basically just checking.

And what I really wanted from the,

what I really wanted was the base vehicle to be good.

So the standard one, not with all the bells and whistles.

And for me, I was thinking of an old Volkswagen Beetle

in that, our cheapest version will be rear wheel drive.

It'll be a single drive unit.

It's essentially like a rear engine,

but something that is very simple,

has a lot of great packaging volume,

is actually still pretty good off-road

because you have all the weight on the rear axle

and that's the driven axle.

So just something simple that is fun and delivers

and can provide just a great experience for the people.

And then you can obviously flex that,

you can think of it like a 911 or a Porsche,

as you start to add power and those work well in the car

and rally and that sort of thing.

But really building it off of there,

kind of starting there

from an architectural layout perspective.

Okay.

So this structure of this car is unit,

full conventional unit body, very different than R1.

A friend of a friend works for another competing car company

and pulled apart in R1.

They pulled apart in R1 years ago

and did some analysis on it.

And it was multiple times stronger

than they would have ever done,

which shocked me because when I,

I'll be honest with you,

when I first drove R1, I thought,

ooh, it's got a bit of a weak structure.

Turns out it was, I think some of the ways

from the interior parts were screwed together.

So things were moving around a little bit.

Don't laugh.

This is what's gonna get you in trouble.

RJ, he doesn't mean it.

Okay.

So, you know, sometimes it's really hard to tell structure

on a car, right?

You can do sort of things like listen for door seals

separating and whatnot.

But they were shocked at this competing car company

when they pulled in R1

because it was just so fucking ridiculously strong.

And that of course plays,

it pays huge dividends in often crash,

but also handling and ride and such.

Similar sort of philosophy on R2,

or is this like, let's pull 2000 pounds out of this?

Well, yeah, I mean, the big redundant structure on R1,

I mean, it has different, it's a body on frame.

That helps from a lot of the big off-road loads,

but from a like torsional stiffness perspective,

R2 is actually about 40% stiffer, the top hat is.

So it doesn't have as much structure,

like the actual mass of the body is not that high,

but it's really stiff torsionally

in comparison to kind of vehicles of this class

and segment as well as R1,

which is one of the reasons why the ride feels so good.

It's solid.

Right, so the suspension,

it's happening in the suspension and not in the chassis.

Correct, yep, correct.

And we still have the same goals,

top safety pick plus five star crash ratings.

So like it still can manage a bunch of energy,

but yeah, right sizing and making it efficient.

Cool, I did weigh it.

I don't remember what it came in.

So I don't ever believe you motherfuckers.

You all lie about weight, of course.

I don't think you guys lied.

Because it's hard to verify.

It was under 5,000.

Correct.

I think it was 49,35.

49,35, okay.

Hold on, so what do you guys quote?

Well, I think, I don't know.

You better do it now,

because I'm pulling up the pictures.

My guess is 49,57.

I did have my laptop back in it to start,

and then I did, I pulled it out.

Okay, good.

So I have to look at the post laptop.

What do you say 49,57?

49,43.

I had the lightweight pack.

The lightweight one.

I pulled out all the NVH materials.

That's exactly the experience.

That's why it's, you know.

So you can hear the engine better.

You hear the engine better, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, under 5,000 pounds is not,

it's not bad for a modern vehicle.

It's still not, I mean, it's not tiny compared to old cars,

but it's,

but also compared to other vehicles,

other EVs that we compete against,

we're designed to do things they aren't.

So we have big wheels and tires,

and we have off-road low cases

that do drive a lot of structure

that you wouldn't typically have.

So there's definitely some mass spent there,

but then it provides this really versatile vehicle.

Yeah, so it is about 400 pounds heavier than Model Y

if I'm correctly,

but I'm not seeing too many Model Ys on off-road trails.

Yeah.

And again, that's not a dig.

Same with the CD, right?

The drag thing is not a dig.

Just different cars.

People don't want,

they don't look at marshmallow shaped cars

and think I have to have them, right?

And so there's always gonna be a cost for it.

And I, for one, am glad that Rivians have an identity

visibly, visually, and people don't.

Yeah, you don't wanna make a car that no one loves, right?

But I don't know if you saw it

from an efficiency standpoint,

or the same as Tesla, so.

The EPA, what, overall like MPGE?

You mean? Yeah.

Is it really?

I hadn't seen, I hadn't looked at it yet.

That's how.

Ha ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

I can't spill it.

These tires and, well, so they have an induction front motor.

So when they're off, it's still spinning.

We have the axle disconnect,

which helps us pretty massively there.

And then just wheel bearings and brakes and tires.

We have a larger diameter,

actually can give you a lower coefficient,

a rolling resistance coefficient.

Your tires being squished less often,

plus forces get different, right?

That's how I convinced Max to let me put 32 inch ODs on it.

Was it rolling resistance?

Yeah.

So you guys are you guys often at each other's throats,

like tricking each other?

Well, you can tell the LA show story.

Oh, you're doing it now.

Yeah.

So, we're not editing this out.

So when we first showed R1 in LA at the LA Auto Show,

right before the car went on stage,

Jeff put larger OD wheels and tires.

Cheating rally.

Faster, just tire.

Yeah, not wheel, just tires.

So we are designed.

This is the first time we were showing the car,

like it didn't matter.

It was a concept.

33 to 34 exactly.

Cause no one's ever cut springs down

or widened the whole car.

But then we couldn't not sell it with 34s.

So then we had to do a bunch of development work

to redesign the wheel houses.

You couldn't look at it with the 33s

as the main tire anymore.

That's the best part about having a car guy be in charge.

Cause some other dick bag, like CEO would have been like,

no, I'm not doing this, you're fired.

I love that.

So he cheated.

But it was the right decision for the product,

but I was like, hey, in the future, can we just,

can we just talk to each other?

Like, I'm okay making a cool looking car, you know?

No, but that became part of our like Rivian DNA is like,

we know we're going to have big wheels and tires,

deal with it.

We know we're going to have short overhangs.

Like those drive a bunch of engineering changes,

like short overhangs and getting a five star crash rating

is not an easy thing to do.

But if you know going in, okay, this is what we're going to do

is let's figure out how to deliver it

instead of just arguing with the studio all the time.

Like, can we get 31s?

Can we get 31s?

You know, that's I think why we were successful

in making a lot of compromises

because we just eyes wide open went into it.

Okay, so if you're willing to spend money and time

on engineering things that make the experience better

for users, why the fuck doesn't have car play?

Because we said about doing things that are better

for the users and we don't think car plays better.

So holding my cell phone.

So I true story, right?

I'm in the car, I'm fuming.

And I know this is not your decision,

but I'm going to torture you anyway.

I'm in the car and I'm fuming

because there's a text message thread going on

that I don't have access to

because group text messages are excluded from the Bluetooth,

blah, blah, blah, blah,

Apple limitations don't want to hear about it.

That I, telling me where I need to go

and I don't know where I'm going to meet a bunch of friends.

And I see an a out of state plated R1S in front of me.

It's same, same plate as Illinois plate as Illinois.

Yeah.

As on my car.

I'm gonna go for Rivian, whatever.

And as I'm approaching it,

the car departs the road,

goes onto the shoulder and then jerks back

and then almost hits another car and jerks back.

And I'm like, what the fuck?

Is this like autonomous like malfunction or something?

And as I get next to it,

the person driving the car has their fucking phone

in their hand and almost hit another car.

And I thought, this is why you get car play.

And this is why it's illegal.

And I'm gonna use this to humiliate the whole Rivian team

because I want car play on the car.

So that person could have been using autonomy

and they wouldn't have had to have that happen.

And also with our voice assistant that we have in R1,

which is coming to R2, also will support text messaging.

Okay.

But there's no engineering reason for not having,

not giving the customers the choices that they want

by giving Android Auto on company.

We don't want to do it because it's a,

for an actual reason where we don't want it

to take over our system.

And with any of the car play or Android Auto,

you can't actually have full control of the system with it.

So you're basically overlaying their infotainment,

which is like, if you think about something like,

even how we approach Google Maps,

which is using Google Maps,

we have all the connectivity with our charging scores,

if you want to do route with charging networks as well,

and you can filter out what networks you want.

There's a lot of functionality that the vehicle can do

that you can't do with car play.

Even for navigation is a great example of that

because like, depending on how you're driving,

what drive mode you're in,

it'll more accurately tell you what your range will be

upon getting the different charging destinations.

How long you need to stay there,

how many chargers are open.

Yeah, that's the sort of big, huge benefit

of having it on board.

But then the limitation is you're telling me

what apps I can use.

You know, I stupidly mentioned

that I was looking for Pandora and Derek.

Yeah, but I said, maybe you need a time machine,

not a different car play.

I am grandfathered in at $2.99 a month for Pandora.

And so when I don't care what I'm listening to,

I admit I will play Pandora.

We can add Pandora.

So those are things we can add.

You don't need car play to add Pandora though.

Yes, you're right.

And this is my retort that I would give to everyone.

Not you, because this is not your design and UX,

but what happens when something else

then replaces Spotify as the sort of all of our go-to music.

Then we'll adopt it.

Then you have to write another app

and you're gonna have to continue to support the old ones.

The other great thing about using it is

it also helps for like profiles.

So the thing that absolutely loves,

if I'm sharing my car with my wife, for example,

she has an R1S, she drives that one.

So if I get in the vehicle, as soon as I know it's me

and it's logged into my Spotify account.

So what's your phone?

I don't have to.

Your phone would be too, because it's your phone.

And your phone's using the phone to unlock the car anyway.

But it's also setting a whole bunch of other settings

for you inside the vehicle as well.

That's fine, that can do that.

But it could also set as I want my default to be Pandora.

Car plays good for rental cars

when you don't know any of the interfaces.

Or they have bad interfaces.

Which they all do.

And I will look, I'll stop being so mean.

I'm not gonna let this go.

Oh, I know you will.

I won't buy, I genuinely-

The one I agree with you is Waze.

Waze, I agree with you.

But that's not that far away from actually happening.

Okay, all of those things are great.

My true general, genuine issue with this whole thing

is you're now married to this UX forever.

And so you're now always gonna have to look

and support the old vehicles and write software

to interact with whatever new app is people's choice.

And the alternative is have a window within your UX

that allows people to just use CarPlay.

If I wanna use the shitty version of Google Maps

on CarPlay, let me as the consumer decide.

I know I'm not gonna have the range predictions.

I know the charging stuff is not gonna be there.

But maybe in 15 years, Google is no longer dominant.

And maybe there's a new mapping thing

that's not Waze that we can't even imagine right now.

Now you're gonna be writing software

to for every one of the old cars to support this.

And by the way, I'm not just torturing you.

I do this, I've done this to Tesla guys too.

But at the end of the day,

I really do think this is a huge barrier for me personally.

And the data supports it

that most customers won't even consider a car without it.

That's because almost every not legacy manufacturer's UX

is not just bad, but dangerous.

They're awful, they're so bad.

This isn't, but it is limiting.

And so, just write a pared down fucking window

within a window that allows me to interact

with my phone in a way that's legal,

that complies with the law

because you can't even hold your phone to the stoplight.

Ask me how I know, I got a ticket for that.

I just picked up the phone.

Yeah, and it just kinda sucks.

And now we have this probably a rivian employee

leaving the road multiple times

because they're interacting with a phone.

So there it is, I've said it, I'll shut up.

And now I'll move on to other things

that I can torture you about the UX,

like those fucking halo wheels on the steering wheel.

So, really cool idea.

So for those of you who have not been,

I'm giving him shit, would you like?

He did warn me, he was gonna give me shit.

Do you want me to be nice?

I can be nice.

Okay, I'll be nice for the rest of this little segment.

All right, segment's done.

Steering wheel, and we're done.

Good, listen you fucking, no.

Steering wheel controls are often difficult.

Seem to be very difficult to get right.

And car companies have gone to capacitive buttons,

which don't, I don't think are a great idea

because you're hitting them by mistake.

Your solution was a sort of three dimensional spinny wheel

and three in the nine spoke.

That allows you to interact with audio and displays, right?

It looks. Temperature and fan speed.

Yeah, temperature, fan speed, stuff like that.

You can spin them, you can push them in and out,

longitudinally and then transversely, left and right.

I think it's a really elegant looking solution.

They feel high quality, they feel,

they're also, they will stop you from spinning,

so they're obviously, they're an active,

they'll let you know when you hit a wall.

Very elegantly done.

And a nice, simple way of interacting with something.

My one piece of feedback to you would be that,

number one, I don't think the software's perfect.

I think sometimes the left, right, and in and out and stuff.

We will never have an update coming for that.

Figured so much early.

My one piece of feedback is if you could ever update,

could you recess them a little bit?

Because if you drive like a cocaine,

out of New York cabbie like I do,

if you palm the wheel, like I'm always at three and nine.

And if I do a sort of handover palm,

I, the volume goes up and then down and then up

and then down as I'm weaving through.

Of course.

So that is something we have experienced.

I actually, now, not to say that I'm selling with this,

is like I was actually doing it on the way here.

I actually use it where I want to actually adjust it too.

As I like, you can do it from the backside.

But we're working on putting in software,

which is a great thing.

We can update a lot of these things.

So once you mentioned on the left and right,

you can basically, because this is infinitely

tunable with software, where we can actually start to,

when you start to turn the wheel and you get certain speeds,

actually disable them so they don't actually.

That's, oh yeah.

That was my other question,

because you're just disabled.

So once you're past 20 degrees or something, that's cool.

Neat solution.

How did you like using them other than that?

I think it's great.

I think it's a real other than the fact

that I kept turning the volume control.

Look, I said to Derrick on the intro,

all of the problems that I have with this car

are so stupidly nitpicky that it tells a bigger story.

If I'm bitching about the turn signal blinker,

click being four times louder than it should be,

and I am, so that's your back car.

Which is also acknowledged and coming in an update.

Told you.

I don't even disagree with you with the feedback.

You're not, no one's gonna disagree with you.

It's deafening.

It's like having a fucking nuclear powered metronome.

I'm turning.

On the way here, I didn't for the first time in a long time,

I actually turned onto a side street

without using the turn signal,

because I didn't wanna fucking hear it.

It was just loud.

And it's one of those things that's so obvious

when you drive the car, you're like,

okay, this is a software thing.

But yeah, to get to the point where I'm bitching about

that level of stuff, like turn the volume up

and the ramp up at the amp level is,

or software is so slow that I'm always overshooting,

you get used to that,

but there's a piece of constructive feedback.

Maybe the amp, the volume control can react in real time

rather than being late.

The horn is also delayed.

Oh, I didn't use the horn.

Did you use the horn, Mr. Road Ragey?

No.

Did you?

No, maybe.

The horn's actually a digital horn.

So it's actually quite hard to figure out what to do there.

It's using the same speaker as the A-Vos noise.

So that she comes out of the vehicle,

she has 24 regulations.

So it's a basically called an A-Vos,

because it's horn and for autonomy sounds.

So it's combined.

So we did quite a lot of testing and development

to try to make the horn.

Is it three notes?

I only heard it when the alarm went off

and I was like, that almost sounds like a horn.

No, there's just one for the horn.

Yeah, just one for the actual horn itself.

Single note?

Oh, because the alarm sounded like two or three.

So most horns are two, right?

And then the Cadillacs back in the day were three.

Yeah, I heard it, it sounded, I was like,

oh, that's a speaker.

That's not an actual horn.

But I didn't notice the delay.

It's funny doing that project,

because you'd think it's like,

I can make this sound like anything.

What would I do?

It's a digital.

We'll test them in, it's not like a fart.

Well, anything you did that didn't sound like a horn

sounded wrong.

Like you're just so socially accepted

to like what a horn should sound like,

that anything you did that didn't sound like that.

Fjamm Airworns.

Yeah.

Yeah, every time I-

For Kugu Karacha, that was a solid plan B.

Or do the, what was the Dukes of Hazard?

Na na na.

Yeah.

Consider it for Halloween maybe.

I mean, I feel the same way about turn signal stickers.

To be honest with you,

I just wish it sounded like a relay.

Just a click versus the,

this sounds like almost the top of a Snapple bottle.

And tell the jar, yeah.

That's considered more expensive sounding, you know.

Is it?

Then a click?

By whom?

I'm sure some 90s survey that happened in, you know.

A Jaguar, because Jaguar was the first one

that I remember is this.

God, how do we know that?

I don't even know that.

Yeah, XJ40 was the first turn signal I ever heard

that wasn't, because it was always just an actual relay

you were hearing.

So it was mostly travel, this, you know, the high pitch.

And Jaguar did a, this has two tones.

This is high, low, low.

It's bump, bump.

And the Jaguar was, it always struck me as like,

why just make it sound like a fucking click horn same thing.

So on R1, we had just one tone.

And then we're updating it for R2

because then some people, we got feedback

that people when they're driving it,

because it's one tone,

they might not hear it when they're driving.

So R2, we specifically put in two.

Hmm.

The things you have to think, I mean, it's amazing.

Okay, things that we're bitching about.

Is it my imagination or does the passenger wiper

come almost fully in front of the view of the driver?

And if so, why?

I don't know if I've ever noticed a passenger wiper

coming in front of my field of vision at an angle.

Like you stop there, stay in your lane.

Right, this is the now we torch you department, right?

I can't say I've never noticed it.

Yeah, I know I went over and looked at the R1

and I was like, is this the same way

but there's no marks on that windshield, it's too clean.

But I was like, is it the same way?

Does it like, I feel like it needs to stop at the vertical.

Like there should be like,

I'm just,

I'm just messing with you.

Like if you go back long enough,

then the wipers would go through full 180

and not stop at vertical for old cars.

When they had a single wiper.

No, like a 911 or a sob 900 or,

yeah, they would do a full 180 degrees.

Okay, yeah.

This is just monitor.

I just, one of the wipers came on.

It's an aspect ratio of the windshield issue, right?

If you're not gonna get with your windshield is low and wide

then you need 180 degrees of swipe.

Toyota FJ Cruiser with three.

Yeah, E type also.

Or the Mercedes one.

Series one, E type.

That's still the best wiper ever.

I mean, sure, functionally,

it was wonderful functionally

because you know that the reason they did that

was that the blade was always parallel to airflow.

So it never lifted.

So you could be doing 240 on the Autobahn.

So 150 miles an hour on the Autobahn in the rain,

as one does when one is suicidal.

There's not a reason they did it.

I thought it was for higher reach.

I mean, that's why they extended.

So their first generation up until what month of production?

March of 85, I think.

March of 1985.

It was a single regular articulating wiper

that was parked on the driver side.

And then in March of 85,

they switched it to the passenger side.

Oh, that's the other way around.

Other way around, sorry.

It's the driver side.

So it's when you turn it on,

it's there more quickly in front of your field of view.

And then it does the articulating thing

to cover more of the windshield.

But the benefit is if you have a center hinge,

the airflow is always parallel to the blade.

And you don't need the spoiler on the driver side

to stop it from lifting in auto-mode speeds.

And Citroën, of course,

pioneered this like a decade earlier with the CX.

Did they? Yeah.

A single wiper.

Yeah, not articulated, but it's a single wiper.

Both talking to the tube.

Schirachov, Mark I in 1974, out of single wiper.

Why do we know this shit?

Do you guys kind of leave?

Are you gonna go on vacation and be like,

I'm so glad I'm away from those fucking nerds?

I would never say that to your face.

See, he is Southern.

So I said to you earlier,

you're suddenly gonna be nice to my face.

As soon as I turned around,

you were like, fuck this fucking fucker.

No, you didn't, not at all.

All right, what are they,

did anything you wanna bitch about?

Maybe a question that I have for both of you,

which is what is the most sort of,

or can you give me an example of sort of compromises

that each of you asked the other to make

that was potentially like contentious

or like that ended up having, I don't know,

something interesting happen as a result?

Doesn't have to be contentious, could be interesting,

or even just the biggest magnitude thing

that was sort of a source of sort of trading off

between your respective objectives.

I've got one.

The wheels example that you offered before

made me think of this.

We used to have a pop glass.

So the quarter where we showed the show car

had the rear quarter glass popped out.

And we're looking for all opportunities to reduce cost

and still provide a good experience.

And I've had cars with pop glass

and I had a forerunner with drop glass.

And I think the magic of the drop glass,

one of the things is like cleaning up the airflow

while you're driving.

It helps from that buffeting perspective.

And typically like the quarter pop glass

is there in like a sedan

or someone doesn't have a window that rolls down.

So it gives them airflow.

Well, ours are behind where the people are sitting.

They already have a window and we have the drop glass.

So it's like, we don't need this other feature,

but both Jeff-

That's just fucking cool.

Yeah, both Jeff and RJ.

It's just fucking cool.

But the luggage needs ventilation.

I don't know why it's so cool, but it's so fucking cool.

RJ and Jeff loved it.

And that was also the wiper.

The wiper integration hidden under.

And it's just that.

We were talking about that was that.

Okay, so you guys are just fucking as weird as we are.

Like we're talking about wipers.

And you're like, you know,

I don't know, we've talked about wiper so much.

Especially for that car.

Ladies and gentlemen,

if you'd like to have a career in engineering,

you too can be obsessive over the wipers.

We love a wiper.

You really want to go next level.

There'll be headlight wipers.

That's a whole other genre of crazy.

It's people who like headlight wipers.

The wiper though was like a huge development,

not issue, but like a,

it was a whole massive work stream

because like we said earlier,

to get the Aero benefit,

we went through the pass through spoiler.

So we couldn't hide the wiper up there.

You don't want it exposed

because when you're loading things in and out of the back,

you know, for that use case,

you don't want to snag it on a wiper.

And so our best option was to tuck it

in its own little trough,

which I tried to kill for a long time.

Really?

Just because there's so many engineering challenges.

A lot of failure modes,

and we didn't have a lot of package space.

Like it getting stuck frozen over that whole drain,

how that thing drains and where the drain path is

and how you clean it as a user, you know, like as a customer.

So yeah, I think it got a lot of attention

because we were very worried about it.

And I think it turned out really well,

but that was a back and forth.

It needed a custom motor basically,

because if you think of that, how thick the gate is,

there's not, we obviously had to make that shelf

on the top a little bit wider,

which worked with the design.

But then you had to have a special motor for it

because if you look at a lot of the wiper motors are huge

and because we don't have a lot of depth there

because right behind that's the glass.

So there's a lot of work with engineering and packaging.

The motor and the transmission, the worm gears.

That's pretty cool.

Yes, on a worm gear, which is different than most.

I didn't hear it, I should have listened.

Does it sound, does it make a

rrrr, sound?

I don't even hear it.

You don't hear it.

We plum in our own noise for it.

Active noise cancellation on the rear wiper,

that'd be hilarious.

So front.

That's why I made the turn signal so loud.

But to exactly its timed,

perfectly like a metronome with the rear wiper.

Did you make the turn signal stock that loud

or did it just happen?

A turn signal pop that loud or did it just happen

that way somebody chose a volume setting?

The volume's not, didn't go in correctly.

So, yeah.

Oh, okay.

So, probably will be fixed by the time this goes live,

therefore making me look like a weirdo.

No, it's fair feedback.

Front frunk is not power opening.

So it's a power release latch and then it uses gas struts.

The test car that I had just opened sort of

two thirds of the way and then stops

and you can push it the rest of the way.

Is that design has functioned

or is that, was that an anomaly on that particular car?

An anomaly on that one.

It should fully open and then,

and that's how we've designed them.

And then you gotta manually close it.

And that was the trade off and it has cinching latches.

That was the trade off that we made

from a content decision over R1.

R1's got power struts,

so it's fully power open and power close.

So on R2 to reduce the cost of those struts,

we essentially said, all right, let's get rid of those.

But then, you know, with having a powered latch,

you can essentially release it

and the strut, the power of the struts

will open them themselves.

And then when you go to close it, it'll cinch down.

Other than the other huge benefit of having the power,

the cinching latches rather is the gap around the hood

on the side because for-

You need overslam.

Yeah, overslam.

Overslam is about six millimeters

with cinching latches, we get it down to four,

which is like door gaps are usually three and a half,

three to four, so it could match

because of that character line

going all the way down the side of the car,

but then also going around the stadium shapes,

having a big gap there just looks really bad.

So that was a right trade off.

I said, I interrupted you and said overslam,

but this is a term that before I was in this industry,

never heard of.

Can you explain it to Derek?

Derek's probably heard of it.

It's intuitive.

So what was always explained to me is like a trunk,

you know, you're gonna break the tail light

if you don't have enough protection built in

for somebody to slam the trunk

and it goes to further than its resting position,

breaks the tail lights and then comes back up.

It's actually with the hood

because this is your big enclosure.

That is closing essentially,

it needs room to basically go further

than where its resting position is

because naturally the inertia of it will deflect.

So you need some of that with the cinching latch,

you can decrease that gap.

Okay, so if you're looking at pulling costs out on this,

why the power door handles, exterior door handles?

And because you're here and I can torture both of you,

why bother with a push button door release

on the inside of the car?

Is that something you want

because you're a fucking designer

and you all love little buttons

instead of like physical controls?

No, the...

Oh, Max's smile tells me I got it.

He has thoughts.

It was actually doing the buttons

is actually cheaper than doing...

You have to have a bullshit, hold on.

Sorry, I shouldn't.

Respectfully, I find that difficult.

It depends how you do the mechanical door handle.

If there's a lot of treatment on it

and it's like an expensive part

versus a very cheap button

and a very cheap pole cable.

To be honest with you,

the whole idea of it scares me, right?

Electrical malfunction,

I need to know how to get out of this car in an accident.

I'm sure it never happens fringe case,

but I like the idea that I should be able

to manually manipulate something.

And C7 Corvette was the first one to use that.

And when that car came out,

there was an old guy who died in his car

and that just always sticks in my head.

The battery died while he was in it

and he couldn't figure out

that there was an emergency door,

at least it took him three days,

but he died in the car.

That always sticks in my head.

I'm like, what?

Is there an actual benefit cost, clearly?

Is one of them?

So we have multiple redundancies in there.

So if something, you know,

you did have an accident, something failed.

I mean, the zonals are separate.

So they'll always stay connected.

But the other big benefit that we have,

especially for the second row is really child locks.

And you think about child locks as a great example.

Most of them are mechanical

and you have to put the little key in the door

to basically lock them.

So in the event of an accident of though,

there's no way you're getting out of those.

Like they're mechanically locked.

So you have to have to crawl out the front

or go through the window.

I mean, that's, there's no choice there.

And from a UX perspective,

the great thing about having them be done

through electronics is that in the screen,

you can basically turn them on and off.

So if you want the left one on or right one on,

you don't have to go and do that.

You can do it straight from the screen itself.

But then also in the event of a collision,

you can put it as a setting like,

hey, I've sent some in a collision,

just automatically unlock those doors,

which is you can choose that.

That's something we were gonna offer.

It wants to be an opt-in

because you never know.

Some people still may not want that,

but that's a choice you can make.

So what's the mechanism?

Can't you just ask your kids not to,

to not throw themselves out of a moving vehicle?

A little three year old, please don't.

Right after you ask your dog.

I mean, you didn't,

did your parents have child locks on your cars?

You've made it through childhood.

I think we didn't have any cars with back doors.

Yeah, in the 1800s when you were a kid.

He's actually 1914.

And what about, so pop out door handles.

This seems to be prevalent.

Am I supposed to be nice here?

Seems like a waste of money.

Why have door handles get hard on?

It was a decision to make conscious decision to do that.

One being flushed is better for Aero.

It just is.

But other people have figured out

where you put your thumb in

and then it extends and you pull the rest around Tesla,

for example.

But these ones, when you walk up to it,

it's actually the UX on it, disagree,

but I think it's very easy.

It's presenting.

You just pull it.

It's like a fridge handle.

If it works, listen, you guys have somehow managed,

I have PTSD for this.

So when inside baseball, when R1 came out,

we had one that would just refuse to fucking unlock

no matter what we did.

And we were like stepping on the key, throwing it,

praying to Jesus.

Like everything we did,

the car was never wanted to fucking unlock.

And we're filming, again, super early car.

Like this is not, did not reach customers this way.

This is also a super early R2,

but I had same like PTSD.

I'm like, would you just open?

And if I feel like if it had a regular door handle on it

that I could push, I'm gonna use Tesla, sorry,

as an example.

Model three, you push in the thumb section,

the longer section pops out.

And in that moment, I'm pretty sure it's looking,

it does a quick scan for your phone and will unlock.

You can do that on my own.

But it doesn't seem to,

when it's being a recalcitrant little bitch,

it wouldn't open on me.

Again, early car, I'm sure there's software issues,

but it's like so funny that you guys can make this

amazing piece of engineering.

Like that does all this,

that rips off at 3.4 seconds or to 60,

probably gets about 100 miles per gallon equivalent.

Like it's just amazing, amazing.

The key just work.

This is a riviant.

Does this give you like PTSD for R1?

Cause I know you guys had trouble with like.

No, but we, I'm surprised to hear this in R2

cause I've had just great experiences with R2.

So I understand R1 cause I've had the same thing.

So I still have my Gen 1 on the Gen 1 truck.

I still have it.

I never like get fully.

Well, Gen 1 used Bluetooth,

which is, you know, not super, not super accurate

as much as so on Gen 2 and then also for R2

or using ultra wide band.

That's why you can use like your phone

and also your watch.

If you want to for digital key or using CCC

and it's really quick.

So I've never.

Once I paired my phone, it was a non-issue.

But when I was trying with their actual remote,

I was just sitting there going,

you little motherfucker.

Did they give you like a dead fob or something?

I don't know.

The fob sometimes lit up.

There's a little light on the LED on it

and sometimes lit up and sometimes didn't.

But I was telling him, I did hit it three times

at one point and hit lock and the alarm went off.

That's how I had the alarm.

And I'm like, you little bitch,

you hurt me this whole time.

You just decided like not opening.

La, la, la, la.

And it could have been you guys locked

in the car remotely and fucking it.

Let's fuck with it.

My story has to stick into it.

It always strikes me funny again, early prototypes,

but we had a very or early build car.

We had a filming in early Lucid and early Rivian.

And at the same time, years ago,

and you both had keys,

both companies had keys that didn't work

and it was just struck us so funny.

We're like, these are the disruptors of an entire industry.

Like shitting on the established car makers,

doing this most amazing shit.

And the simplest stuff is so difficult to do, apparently.

Shouldn't be on R2.

Okay.

Maybe there's user error.

I'm not sure.

It's pretty easy though.

I feel like you could figure it out.

I knew this facade wasn't gonna last all the way.

I'm very, very much appreciative of that.

I have one more piece of feedback for both of you guys

that is the Jason wouldn't buy this car

because department, but the rest of the car

is good enough that I would look past it.

The front lights on, I did this to you

and all in Seattle when R1 Gen 2 came out

and you were showing me this beautiful display

on the front of the car that can turn different colors.

And it's like green when it's charging.

It's the light bar on the front.

Where I turned green and whatever.

And like, oh, so 16.7 million colors

that you could probably do with these fucking things.

And yet you went with red,

goddamn fucking rear turn signals.

And now you did it again, again.

But I explained to you why.

Because you're cheap.

No, it's not cheap.

It's not cheap.

You didn't like the answer then.

Do you want me to give it to you?

Yeah, please go right ahead.

Let's try it again.

You're not going to be able to get a soft top safety pick

plus next year or whenever it goes into effect.

Because it makes the tail lights bigger.

Because.

So when I'm rear-ended, because someone didn't see it.

If you get one in Europe, it'll have amber.

Okay, so it doesn't make the tail lights bigger.

Is the tail lights bigger in Europe?

It's because of the requirements are different.

So if you look a lot of the European cars.

Surface area.

Illuminated area.

They can do the swoop in Europe where they can.

It's not even that.

The requirement for break is larger in North America

than it is in Europe.

So you essentially use that lower area in North America

that we changed to red for the turn signal

to basically both of those will work for break.

But then the requirements in Europe are not as high

but you have to have amber so you could have that.

So if you wanted to make a global tail light,

you'd have to make the whole thing bigger essentially

to work for both North America and Europe.

And that's why even you see the European cars,

they have red here and not amber because of that.

And that's the reason.

The ones that do a swoop also have a separate block

that lights up immediately.

Or it has to do the other way you do a swipe,

which we do on R2 as well.

Fully on first and then a swipe afterwards.

What do you think of BMW's solution?

I know you probably shouldn't talk

about competitive vehicles but.

Which one?

BMW now instead of going.

I don't know her.

I don't even know her.

BMW, never heard of it.

No, I don't know what solution.

So all the new BMWs, so the correct way as far as I'm concerned

would be full on swipe off, right?

Because then you're getting maximum visibility.

This is a safety device, right?

It's not their first aesthetics.

Despite the fact that you're a designer.

BMW is a pulse on, pulse off, off

on all the newest cars.

And I think they should be shot over this.

What don't you like about that?

I haven't paid attention to it.

Because you can barely see them.

They don't reach full intensity for a second after they go on

and then it's for a split second.

They have to though.

For legal requirements, the first initial burst

has to meet the legal requirement for lighting.

It must, yeah, probably meets the minimum

but then it gets swells bright

but it's not very visible.

I can't believe you're gonna notice this.

It's too progressive.

Clearly you don't give a shit about turn signals the way I do.

Let's go back to wipers.

Let's go.

What's your feeling on it?

What's your feeling on amber turn signals?

I was surprised that that was your reason

why you wouldn't buy the car.

I was just...

Just give them European lamps.

You just won't be, you won't be regulatory for them.

I'll get me rendered in a braking zone,

not in a turning zone.

Well, the other thing is that why in the United States

do they go on surface area rather than brightness?

You'd think that if you're delivering

the right amount of lumens,

then it doesn't matter the size of the lighting.

Why do you need amber reflectors,

which I despise in North America,

but Europe, you don't need them.

You don't need them.

Surface area is probably,

area is probably for dirt, right?

So you can have a huge amount of light.

It feels also like a holdover from the era

when those tings were correlated in a way they aren't anymore

because it's the advent of LEDs and lasers.

They're always the same bulb

and they just had like the better pain.

But you do realize that, you know,

like you have a headlight that's one single small projector

versus like a five-inch in diameter sealed beam, right?

You have, that light is coming from a smaller area.

And so a big piece of mud would be able to secure

the light output far more in the one sense.

It's probably where it came from.

Am I saying it's a great idea?

Still probably not.

I think probably the answer is regulations don't move

as fast as technology.

It always by necessity has to lag because-

Although you do have matrix headlights, right?

This does have-

You're the first ones in North America to have them.

How many pixels are they?

Do you guys-

She told me.

It's not, it doesn't seem like too many.

It's sort of large blocks of light, but it did work.

It's pretty cool.

Finally, you guys got that snucket past that morons

at the DOT who refused to allow us to have real technology.

I can say morons, you probably can.

Yeah, the amber turn signal thing.

I thought that was starting next year, model 2028

to get a top safety pick plus you need to have amber.

Yeah, it's in 28.

So we'll see.

Maybe I'm gonna get my wish after all.

Maybe my R3, my fictional R3.

Do you have anything you wanna torture these guys about

or be nice to them about?

Oh, I think we've, I don't have anything specific

to cover that we haven't ready.

I think the only thing to cover is that

I love giving you a guy shit

because you're both good sports about this

and I hope the audience enjoys this because

Sierra, my favorite part of this career

isn't actually access to the cars.

It's the people who make these cars

because cars are really magic, right?

Magic is something that shouldn't happen in the real world

and you guys make magic happen.

And it's really cool to hear the explanations

on why you fucked up the turn signal.

Why you wasted money with these stupid fucking door pulls

that you say are cheaper

and I just call absolute bullshit.

No, it's a really cool insight.

It's access to the behind the curtain of stuff

that there's so many decisions that go in these cars

and so many compromises you guys have to make

that we would never have guessed.

So I love this part of it

and thank you for letting me torture you on it.

Yeah, thank you for having us.

And seriously, the one hell of a car I would with CarPlay

would absolutely, no, and I would for anyone

who's not a nerd about that would absolutely

recommend this car.

I think it's a rare consumer product

that nails its intended purpose.

So we keep on super happy with that.

You fuck off for your year, you know,

come back and make an R3 please.

And R3X rear drive.

I don't need a million horsepower.

I just needed to be sideways and slow.

You want an R2?

Yeah, I'm interested.

Okay, well, we know of a dealership.

That's not a dealership, it's a space.

And we'll send you a discount code for,

oh, go to JasonSemme.com for $1 off of your,

nothing, nothing.

Uh-huh.

All right, thank you guys.

Thank you, appreciate it.

0:00

99:15

Rivian R3X

About this episode

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