Tesla FSD v14 1-HOUR+ Live Test + Rivian R2 First Drive Impressions
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Term
full self-driving
Full self-driving is a feature in Tesla cars that allows them to drive themselves in some situations, but a driver still needs to be ready to take control at any time.
Car
Rivian R2
The Rivian R2 is a new electric vehicle that is designed for outdoor adventures. It's part of a brand that makes electric trucks and SUVs, and it has some cool features for driving off-road.
Term
FSD
FSD means Full Self-Driving, which is a technology that allows cars to drive themselves without much help from a driver. It's part of the effort to create cars that can operate on their own.
Term
manufacturing verification prototypes
Manufacturing verification prototypes are test versions of cars made to check if everything works well before making a lot of them. They help companies make sure the final cars will be good quality.
Term
ADAS
ADAS means Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. These are technologies in cars that help drivers with things like staying in their lane or parking.
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is a high-end electric car that came out in 2012. It's famous for being fast and having a lot of cool tech, like the ability to drive itself partially.
Car
Tesla Model Y
The Tesla Model Y is a type of electric car that looks like a small SUV. It's known for being very efficient and having a lot of cool technology, like self-driving features. People talk about it because it's becoming a popular option for families who want an eco-friendly vehicle.
Car
Mercedes-Benz CLA
The Mercedes-Benz CLA is a small luxury car that looks stylish and is fun to drive. It's a good choice for people who want a nice car without spending too much money.
Car
Mercedes-Benz Sclass
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is a very fancy car that offers a lot of luxury and high-tech features. It's often seen as one of the best cars in the world because it combines comfort with advanced technology. People talk about it because it sets the standard for what luxury cars can be.
Term
Supercruise
Supercruise is a technology that lets you drive your car without using your hands on the steering wheel on certain highways. It's like having a helper that drives for you in some situations.
Term
BlueCruise
BlueCruise is a feature from Ford that lets you drive without holding the steering wheel on certain highways. It's designed to make long trips easier and more relaxing.
Car
R1
The Rivian R1 is an electric vehicle built for adventure, designed to handle off-road conditions while providing modern technology and comfort.
Term
all wheel drive
All-wheel drive means that the car can send power to all four wheels at the same time, which helps it grip the road better, especially in bad weather or rough terrain.
Term
dual motor
A dual motor means the car has two electric motors, which helps it drive better in different conditions by providing power to all four wheels.
Company
Monroe
Monroe is a company that makes parts for car suspensions, helping vehicles ride smoother and handle better on the road.
Car
McLaren MP4-12C
The McLaren MP4-12C is a high-performance sports car made by McLaren. It was first released about 12 years ago and is known for being very light and fast.
Term
unibody
A unibody is a way to build a car where the body and frame are made as one piece. This helps make the car lighter and more efficient.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful a car's engine is. More horsepower usually means the car can go faster.
Term
Nvidia chip
An Nvidia chip is a powerful computer part made by Nvidia that helps cars process information quickly, especially for things like self-driving features.
Term
Lidar
Lidar is a technology that helps cars see their surroundings using lasers, which helps them understand where to go and avoid obstacles.
Term
Level three autonomy
Level three autonomy means the car can drive itself most of the time, but a human driver needs to be ready to take control if necessary.
Term
OTA
OTA means that car companies can send updates to your car's software through the internet, just like how your phone gets updates. This helps keep your car's systems up to date without needing to go to a shop.
Term
L3
L3 is a level of self-driving where the car can drive itself in some situations, but you still need to be ready to take control if needed. It's more advanced than just basic cruise control.
Term
autonomy processor
An autonomy processor is like a brain for self-driving cars. It helps the car understand its surroundings and make decisions while driving by processing information from cameras and sensors.
Concept
L2
L2 is a level of self-driving where the car can help with some driving tasks, but you still have to pay attention and be ready to take over at any time.
Term
Ford collision warning
Ford collision warning helps you avoid accidents by warning you if you're getting too close to something. You can adjust how sensitive the warning is, so it alerts you sooner or later based on what you like.
Car
Rivian R1S
The Rivian R1S is a new electric SUV that is made for people who love the outdoors. It has a lot of space inside and is built to handle rough terrains. People are excited about it because it combines being eco-friendly with adventure-ready features.
Car
Jeep Wrangler
The Jeep Wrangler is a tough car that is built for driving off the road, like in the mountains or on rough trails. Many people love it because it can handle all kinds of outdoor adventures. It's often talked about because some people buy it just for looks and never take it off-road, which seems like a waste.
Car
Rivian R1T
The Rivian R1T is a new electric pickup truck that is designed for people who like to go on adventures. It has a lot of cool features and is built to handle tough conditions while being eco-friendly. People are excited about it because it offers a new option for truck lovers who want to help the environment.
Car
Ford Bronco
The Ford Bronco is a strong SUV that is made for driving on rough trails and in the wilderness. It's popular with people who love outdoor activities and want a car that can handle tough conditions. The Bronco is talked about a lot because it has come back after many years and is exciting for fans.
Car
Tesla Model 3
The Tesla Model 3 is a smaller electric car that is more affordable than other Tesla models. It's known for being efficient and having a long battery life, making it a great choice for everyday driving. People talk about it because it's helping more people switch to electric cars.
Car
Nissan Maxima
The Nissan Maxima is a large car that is known for being both comfortable and fun to drive. It has a sporty look and comes with many nice features, making it a good choice for families who want a little excitement in their ride. People talk about it because it offers a lot of value for a full-size sedan.
Car
Chevrolet Chevelle
The Chevrolet Chevelle is a classic car from the 1960s and 70s that many people love for its powerful engines and cool design. It's considered a muscle car, which means it's built for speed and performance. People talk about it because it's a piece of automotive history and still popular among collectors.
Car
Dodge Charger
The Dodge Charger is a big car that looks sporty and can go really fast. It's popular because it has a lot of power and is fun to drive, while still being practical for everyday use. People like to talk about it because it combines a family car feel with a race car vibe.
LIVE
Welcome to The Inevitable, a podcast by Motor Trend.
All right. Hi there. Welcome to a very special episode of The Inevitable.
I'm Ed Lowe and today there's no Johnny. We have a very special episode for you. This is the start
of a series that we're going to be doing on semi-autonomous driving systems. I'm behind the
wheel of Motor Trend's company-owned Model Y that has full self-driving supervised version 14
and we're going to pick up our colleague Frank Marcus and go for an FSD drive with him. We're
going to talk about his experience with semi-autonomous driving systems. He's pretty new to FSD. He
drove a previous version, something like early version 12 way back when. But we're also going to
talk about the Rivian R2, which he just drove and has a lot of thoughts and feelings about.
So there's Frank right now. Let's pick him up and see where his head is at in the new world
of semi-autonomous driving. All right. Here we go. Come on in, Frank. Hello. Hi, Frank. How you doing?
Good. Good, good, good. All right. So I just did the intro.
Some of you, I hope, I hope everybody knows who Frank Marcus is. The man, the myth, the legend.
New guy. New guy. Industry only 35 years. Our technical director, the man, the myth, the legend,
responsible all the weights and measures and numbers. Mechanical engineer by training.
So really has had a lot of patience for this microchip, electron stuff, even though it's kind
of not his bag. We're here to talk about FSD. We're here to talk with the Rivian R2. We have to
remember this is both a video and an audio podcast. So as much as we can, I'm going to try to also
narrate for the folks at home if something happens. If we go off a cliff, I'll tell you how big the
cliff we went off is and what we're doing as we go screaming down the hill or whatever.
But why don't we, as we, we're leaving Rivian's headquarters right now, why don't we just quickly
switch seats here so you get behind the wheel and we'll just start FSDing right from the start.
Holy smokes. Okay. Let's do that. All right. It's in park.
Dude.
Okay. So seat belts on safety first.
Is this safe? I have loved ones at home, you know. That's right. Okay. So
super fun. The car's already on because your butt hit the seat. Look at that. It's a really slick
look. Yeah. That's the ones we drove yesterday. Oh, neat. Oh, that's R2. Yeah. Oh, very like on
cue. Fantastic. So we just saw an R2 with what do they call that styling on it? It's just a wrap.
This is all of the prototypes are wrapped like that. These are manufacturing verification prototypes.
It's a great wrap. It's like orange stripes and silver. Yeah. Very slick. Okay. So what's really
cool is you got your foot on the brake. You can hit start. So why don't we do this first?
So the left side scrolling wheels are volume for the video. This is for controlling the drive modes
for FSD. Got it. The right scrolling wheel. Okay. You can also push it to use the voice assistant.
Got it. We can say navigate to John Wayne Airport. Let's go that way. And if you do a long press,
you'll get GROC, their A.I. Assistant. Okay. So do a short press and say navigate to John Wayne
Airport. Okay. Navigate to John Wayne Airport. Okay. There it goes. All right. And then hit start
self-driving. Okay. So Frank, this is your, oh look, another R2. There it is in yellow. We're
going to talk about that one. Okay. So this is your, why don't you give the audience your sort of
history with Tesla full self-driving or Tesla's ADAS systems? Well, I mean, I was blown away by
Tesla ADAS when we awarded the Model S the car of the year in 2012. And I remember driving the car
back to headquarters from the high desert to El Segundo largely in hands-free mode. Now that was
not navigating or anything like that. But on the highways, and of course in those days, that was
early, early. We didn't have that in anything else. So I was amazed by it then. It wasn't perfect.
I did some weird things that I can still remember. But it worked pretty darn well. And now I have
tried some of the earlier full self-driving things. And back when we were all reporting
lots of kind of scary, weird anomalies in the driving. But I missed support utility of the year
this year, this most recent one. And that's when we had V13. So we think you probably drove like
V12 or V11 or something before. Something like that. Yeah. All right. So you've had,
you've had probably experienced maybe with 12. You did not have the experience our team had
during SCV the year with version 13. And then you certainly haven't been in the version 14. I think
we're 14.2 in this, which I could actually check. Yeah. So I don't know, I'll show somewhere else.
Yeah, here we are. So we're at FSD 205, yes, version 14.2.2.3. So I think we're the most current.
Okay. All right. So, okay. So we know Frank is not limited experience. You're already on the freeway
ripping along at 69 miles an hour and a 60. Let's just do a gut check here. How do you feel?
Feels fine. You know, I'm open to this level of freedom at the hell.
Not concerned at all that it's a vision-only system. I am concerned about that. I do feel like
that's a terrific solution for Southern California, but if you're where I'm from in
weather country. Right. You might have some issues. So let's recap. We are in the 2023 Tesla Model Y.
This is the old version, not the Juniper. It does have the latest hardware for, which means it has
seven cameras. There is two up here right behind the, on the windshield, just above the rearview
mirror. And there's a narrow angle and a wide angle. And then there are the two fender cameras
that are front fender, sort of looking back at your blind spot. And then there are two in the B
pillar, one each. And those give you actually really good approximation of the driver's sort of field
of view, looking to the side, because it's right about eye level in the B pillar. And then there's
one camera on the back. So that's two, four, six, seven. They used to have eight. There used to be
a nose camera, like way up on the nose, but apparently they don't need that because they
have two up here. And that was, I think, getting obscured a lot by bugs and dirt and stuff. So
only seven cameras, no radar, no LiDAR. Not even the very common, like ultrasonic, like parking
sensors. And none of them is a night vision camera or an old infrared camera either. Right. And the
rationale that Elon has said quite famously is like humans only have two eyes. We have seven cameras.
Like we have a neural network in the running in the car on Tesla's chip that apparently can do
all the processing, all the perceptions, the cameras and the chip could do all the
perception and processing needed to drive down any road, whether it has a line or not. And I
actually tested that. It took it off-road camping and it was actually pretty amazing. But we're
gonna... I always say two eyes are great for what, 15 miles an hour? How fast can humans generally
run? You know, we're a little faster here. Okay. All right. Well, you know, we're not trying to
convince you in the episode of a podcast, but it should be interesting to see... I'm not trying to
use anything. We're just trying to give you an example of how this does. This is part of a series
because we think the first true competitor to FSD is coming online this year in Mercedes-Benz.
Probably the CLA or the S-Class. I think CLA is what we'll get it in first. And that has
point-to-point driving, like on-road. Everybody else so far, Supercruise, BlueCruise, Hyundai,
Drive Assistant, BMW's version. Everybody is kind of mapped highways or mapped roads only.
Tesla's been out now for a while with this system that allows city streets, highway, you name it.
Benz is going to come out this year. They made a lot of human cry. And then you think Rivian's
probably the next... Yes, Rivian is scheduled later this year. The R2 is... I believe it will go to the
ones as well because they have the hardware stack that we're looking for here.
So we'll just keep FSDing here. We're going to go once we get to the airport. And I chose the airport
because airports are notoriously sort of complicated to drive around, even as a self-driving human.
Because people are frantically trying to get to the curb, unload people, pull out. So we'll see
how this does. John Wayne Airport in Orange County is not as hectic as LAX, Los Angeles
Airport on a weekend, but let's see how it goes. And then from there, we can go someplace else.
Do you suppose it'll take us to departures? We just said the airport. It's such a small airport
that it's just going to roll probably right through the airport. Yeah, well, it probably
just roll into the front door and then say, you take it over. Where do you want to go?
Okay, well, as we encounter interesting traffic situations, I'm looking for unprotected
left turns, making right turns on red, merging on the freeway, that kind of stuff. We'll call
them out. But why don't we change topics here to the what everybody really wants to hear about,
which is you were among a very small group of journalists and influencers that got to drive
the Rivian R2. And this episode should debut after that story hit MotorTrend.com. You can
read Frank's story there. But tell me, what are your impressions on R2? Well, I was pretty
impressed. You know, the price is roughly half of what an R1 is. And it feels like a lot more
than a half an R1. It's a very nicely executed car. Now, we were, of course, riding in the launch
vehicle, which is, you know, a dual motor, all wheel drive, you know, upper level one, and no one
ever launches with the loss leader, obviously. Although we did see bucks of the base interior,
and it is not a penalty box by any stretch. It is lacking a lot of the neat stuff from the R1,
like those McLaren corners. But you still get a semi-active adaptive damper by Monroe.
It's a single valve instead of a two valve. So it's not quite as capable as the even the dampers
on that one. But we found that, you know, the ride quality was quite supple when it was in the
softer modes. And yet off road, plenty of control there too. So what's the McLaren?
This is the McLaren. You know, the regular R1 has the hydraulic, the air suspension with
hydraulically interconnected corners and, you know, on and on. That debuted on the McLaren MP4,
the 12C. That's the one I went on that press launch. That was like 12 years ago.
Right. And then they adapted, they hired a bunch of those people and put it on an off-road vehicle.
And we took it on the trans-American trail and it was awesome. So the R2 doesn't have,
doesn't have that. But a lot of the other cost savings are honestly, you know, we've learned
a lot more about cars, you know, this smaller car and, you know, announced plan or, and I don't
think it's going to happen for a truck version. So it's a unibody, which is lighter than a skateboard
with a body on top of it. It has a lot of holes on the floor that the structural battery fills.
So you end up with a lighter, cheaper, also has some, probably maybe mega castings, not giga
castings, but a lot of those die castings in the back that remove a bunch of other parts. So
it's 200 pounds lighter, 23% stiffer than the R1. And cheaper too. They didn't give us numbers on
that. But obviously it's less expensive to make. The motor has a bunch of learnings in it. You
went to one of these new woven stator core, you know, windings where you don't have to weld the
end of every hairpin, you know, which is very time consuming and costly. Are they building their own
motors? I believe so. Okay. Yeah. I mean, they started doing that with the Gen 1. So I believe
this Maximus is also. So let's, let's back up here. You, you drove what exactly? You drove an R2
dual motor? Dual motor, yes. With the biggest battery. Yes. And you said half the price of an
R1 roughly. So we think this will be a $45,000. It's going to start at $45,000. That's not going
to be for a dual motor. So we'll, you know, we'll see what, we can't talk about any of those other
prices yet. But it's going to definitely be more than that. All right. We're here at the airport
and we're about to decide departures or arrivals and we're picking the departures.
Okay. We're going to departures. Which is also where parking is. So I think that's probably.
Maybe. Yeah. Well, valet is up there. I think, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And we didn't specify. So
it's not like it's going to make a mistake either way, whichever one it took us to.
You can grab the wheel and then it's aimed for the downstairs if that's what you're doing.
By the way, I should have told you that if at any point you want to get out of FSD,
you can dab the brake and you can just grab the wheel and it'll pop up and say,
right. You just, you just, FSD is off. Right. Okay. All right. Okay. And is it going to say
arriving here at some point? It's a 0.4 miles. It's still. No, we're there with this. We're.
Oh, and so do we have to push this end trip thing or we're still driving? We're still driving.
Like we're technically here. I'm curious. It doesn't matter. I mean, it's successfully
navigated. So I guess now where should we go? We can go to what was the plan again? I got to
look at the plan. Yeah, let's go to Laguna. So why don't you hit the long press? Okay.
What are we going to do there? Head to Laguna Beach. Just generally. Yeah. Navigate to Laguna
Beach. Okay. Navigate to downtown Laguna Beach.
Navigating to downtown Laguna Beach about 15 miles away, 24 minutes. I'll guide you turn by turn.
Great. So what you did there, Frank, is actually you did a long press? Yeah. Oh,
that's fine. Either way, this is great. So this is one thing that Tesla is doing also that is a
little bit ahead of others. You long pressed, which bought in GROC, which is the, whatever, XAI
route assistant, and that you gave it navigation instructions and it added it into the. It was
to a right link in its AI. Exactly. Exactly. And that is you could have short pressed it and used
the in-car assistant. Right. Eventually, I think the two are going to combine. They'll just build
this way. We were able to engage the cloud and burn some more fossil fuel. Right. Exactly.
But it is unique in that currently, I don't know another OEM that the Gemini has control over
the car systems, including navigation. Maybe in Google. I don't know. Have you? Yeah. I have the
fact check then. Anyways. Okay. So you drove a loaded R2 dual motor and I think this is also
unique what we're doing here because it's essentially a direct competitor to this vehicle.
Sure is. And just give me any initial sort of butt dyno to butt dyno comparison, like in terms of
quality or you're not steering. So yeah, I mean, there's really not that much comparison. The shape
and size is very similar, but the missions that they're going for are so. Now we're slow. We slowed.
We could have made, I'd have made that if I was driving. We sort of gave it a chance to turn yellow.
Right. For those listening, we came up on a left turn and for some reason it was green as we
approached and turned to yellow, but we could have easily made it and we did not, which I'm always
set up for spicy or whatever. No, we can't. Okay. If you want to, so Frank is asking of the drive,
of the five driving modes, if we want to go to a spicier mode, we can. You're currently, oh,
that's why you're in standard. If you just scroll, that's hurry. Okay. And we go to Mad Max. Okay.
This is the Frank Marcus mode. Okay. So we can do Mad Max. It's not great. I made it in that
next time. Unless, I mean, this is one of those lens turn lights that is hard to see
until you're right in front of it. I don't know if maybe it couldn't tell for sure. That is true.
So that might not have. What's unique is that you can kind of watch it here, whether it can,
whether it can see it. All right. On the, on the screen, I'm saying the,
Tesla does a really good job of showing you what it's seeing, including people, bicyclists,
other cars, and actually variations between. Oh, that car just turned into an SUV.
Cars in large trucks. Exactly. Before my very eyes. So you were saying, RTHs is the low Y.
Yeah. I mean, the missions are so different. They, you know, they're always adventuring,
is their idea. And this, that's not a Tesla long suit. So they've got a lot of more
ground clearance and suspension travel. So, and in that softened mode, the ride is much
nicer on that car. That weighs 5,000 pounds, probably a little more than this one. So there's,
there's that to obviously, you know, more power. The one we had, they did announce it is 656 horsepower
and 609, 609 pound feet. So a much more immediate performance. Do you feel like you're sitting
a lot higher? Yes. Okay. And, you know, the whole, I mean, I feel like the, the, the sills are lower,
the, the, the eight pillar seems a little more upright and maybe farther away than the greenhouse,
the airiness of it seems quite a bit different. And more so in that one. They also now, you know,
pursuant to what we're doing here, their stack is very different. They've got 11 cameras and five
radars. Too many, too many. Well, you know, and it, because it's, it's basically the,
the sensor set that's on the gen two R ones, I guess they couple of the cameras are higher
resolution than a couple of the corner cameras, radars are upgraded for R two duty. But R two,
when it comes out in the spring is meant to have universal hands free, which is, you know,
Rivian speak for FSD. And then later in the year, probably towards the end of the year,
there'll be a limited rollout. I don't know if it'll be called beta or what, but a limited rollout of
point to point universal hands free, which is navigate on autopilot in Rivian ease.
And they won't be changing the, the compute stack at all. It's still, when it comes out,
it's going to have the, an Nvidia chip, which is, you know, what they have now in the gen twos,
and that will support the navigate or the point to point version. Then into 2027,
they will begin equipping R twos with a lidar mounted above the windscreen.
And then, or sometimes shortly thereafter, they're going to go to level three.
Okay, let's pause there. Yes. So R twos will be out this year as 2027 models. Right. Okay. And they
will have universal hands free, which is like FSD this year available when they come out.
Right. And will other, will R ones also get, have it at the same time? Will this be like an OTA for,
for all or R twos? Well, no, the R one is universal hands free when I'm driving.
It's, it'll, it's, it's the same system. Yes. That's the same chip. It's the same sensors. Well,
they've got this slightly downgraded few little pieces here and there. So all that, and they,
I think they'll get point to point probably in a similar time frame. They don't have to
add compute for that. Okay. Yeah. And then later, so when L three comes out,
then we see a new chip, new chip first. Yes. And then that's, that's later in 20 and later this
year, theoretically. Okay. That's when we get the wrap. That's a wrap Rivian autonomy processor.
Wrap one. And that is eight tie are four times the processing power 800 tops. So
tariff, tariff, operations per second. I believe it is. Okay.
And then in 2027, LiDAR were start shipping and we'll get level three autonomy. Right. So
none of the, none of this first 18 months or so vehicles will ship with the LiDAR,
the forward facing LiDAR. No. Okay. If you, they will not be over the air upgradable to that.
If that'd be sawing holes in metal. So that's not an upgrade that will be,
Oh, you can't, because it's above the windshield, which was surprising to me. It's not wiped by
the windshield. It's in, there's a little indentation and they claim that bugs never hit that and that
it's got a hydrophobic coating and the way the water comes off, it'll go over that little dent
or whatever. They think they won't really have a cleaning problem. They don't have a cleaning
solution integrated into those initial cars. They may do one later. We'll see.
So if you want, if you want to have level three autonomy in your R2, you're better off waiting.
Oh, you absolutely must wait. Yes. There's no, there's absolutely no way they'll roll right
and it's also worth noting that when that L three comes in,
you won't have L three on every road that has L two plus plus the day before. Okay. They,
Rivian like Tesla uses a large driving model. So like a large language model for a lot of
other AI things, it's large driving. So their car, all every Rivian on the road has been
recording driving scenarios and uploading them to the cloud. So they've got millions of miles of
drive learning and they're going to be getting drive learnings like that from every R2 when
they come on. But for L three, the use case is different. We need to know where all the likely
places are, but we're going to need to ask you to take over. And so there will be a smaller
operational design domain. I want you to pause just, did you notice what the car just did?
It was a pretty aggressive cut over on a solid white. By the way, we were doing 80 and a 55.
Because we're in bad mix up. Now it's worth noting it was a flow of traffic.
This is California. We were not aggressively like blowing by people. No, and this we're just now
letting a guy move in. We probably could have blown by him.
Is a Mad Max model and Frank Marcus approved? Yes. I knew if it would be.
Honestly, I cannot get my head around the law breaking this car does. And I asked
that Barrisett and I from General Motors while he was still there, whether GM's
you know, version of FSD will allow for over speeding situations. And he basically said,
no, no, are you crazy? Right. And we noticed the same thing in Austin when we tried the
Robo taxi versus the Waymo. And the Waymo really much went the speed limit. And the Tesla was
always over by a little bit. It was usually going with the flow of traffic on that case.
But there, of course, that's just the person getting hitched in a ride. There's no, they don't,
you know, pick Mad Max or whatever. That's just how that's built in. Right. Right. So
yeah, this is again, this is the point that I kind of I spent when I'm not driving most of the time.
I've done 95% of the drive, the mileage in this car for the sense of November in FSD.
I basically sit around and think about where's Tesla's legal department? How do they even allow
this? And what's going to happen when level three autonomy comes? Because our standard of
measure for level three is that the OEM bears responsibility. Like it is responsible for any
accident or law breaking that you do in the car. Enduring eyes off. Because it is eyes off. And
the assumption is it's going to change for Tesla. Something's going to happen. And now I'm starting
to think maybe it's not, maybe they're going to, they have found some loophole in the law that's
going to say, no, you know, if you're, okay, if you're in level three FSD and you're doing 80 in a
75 and the car pulls you over, that's your ticket. We're not paying it. Right. Like I don't, I,
if there's, if there's any, and I've already appealed to some former Tesla chief legal officers,
can you please come on to the show? Or if you're a, if you're some sort of legal expert in this
realm, we'd love to hear what this, what the rationale is here, because I don't understand
how any of this is possible. Right. As amazing as it is. Yeah. So just a quick temperature check.
Any concerns at the speeding or the, the style or? No, largely because it feels like the way I would
do it. If I was kind of like, ooh, I'm running just a teeny bit late to get to Laguna. Let's,
you know, so it doesn't strike me. I, well, maybe it's like, can't, glass houses, you know, I,
can't complain too much because it's kind of the way I would do it. Right. And we should know,
that didn't show you how to do it, but we could, we could adjust the, the offset. So you're in
Mad Max. We have the offset of only six miles per hour. We can push it up to like, let's see if we
want to go 15 over, which would be even, which would be even wilder. And then, you know, you can
adjust your Ford collision warning, whether you want it off completely or early, late, medium.
It's, it's tuneable. It's only applies when I'm driving, right? I mean, it's, it's not going to
let you, let you hit something. I don't know. Let's not find out.
I would think it's going to stop itself. I mean, don't waste the brain power to, you know, light
a buzzer and a light. Right. Just hit the brakes. So well, one thing, once we get to Laguna and we
get into more stop and go, I want to show you a really cool, one thing I really like about this
system is that you can sort of, you can drive, you can goose the throttle while in FSD because,
and again, I think, I think Frank and I, we speak the same driving language that like,
some of this stuff is way too conservative. Like stop signs. This car does a full one to maybe
two seconds stop. No. Yes, absolutely not. So, which I don't like and you can just goose the
pedal and it'll go right through it. And it'll tell you, hey, when your foot's on the accelerator,
the car's not going to stop for you. Right. Which is the way I like it.
So does the, yeah, my Rivian was just doing that too. Every time I overrode everything,
the little sign came up, you know, it's all you right now. Right. So I think that's,
that's the right way to go. Okay, sorry. We were, we were, I interrupted you in talking about R2
versus Mollewa. Any other, any other? Well, and unfortunately, the
prototypes we were driving, the cruise control didn't even work. So I, I can't tell you anything
about, you know, well, certainly not point to point yet, but universal hands-free yet either.
Frankly, I found it very difficult to try and go 10 over the speed limit. I was, I always keep
looking down. Oh, jeez, I'm, you know, I'm 15 or more over. You know, I've gotten very used to
setting the cruise control at about 10 over just so I don't, I don't need a ticket. And I don't
want to think about it. So are you, are you saying the, the Rivian drives faster? It's just, you
know, an electric car, it's quiet, you know, you're not getting as many clues about, you know,
increasing speed or whatever. And so you just keep looking down. Oh, jeez, I gotta back it off again.
You know. How, how, how finished were the cars you drove? What would you say?
These were built on the assembly line. Okay. Okay. And so it's all pretty much, you know,
the latest tooled parts and all, all of that stuff. So they looked, you know, very nice on the inside.
They had the wrap on the outside of the interior. All A surfaces, nothing, nothing, they didn't
say like, this is not done yet. That's not done yet. Nope. I was not asked to excuse any of the
stuff on the inside except the non-functional cruise control.
But the screens, including the, the, the UX, the screens, the displays, mostly controls.
I believe all that stuff was, was working for, I'm trying to think if there was anything that
they were like, oh yeah, that's, and they might have been one or two weird little off on the
fringes thing. And how many vehicles did you drive? One, there were only three prototypes
available and there were three journalists. And all, and all the same spec? Yes. That is the only,
that is the mono spec launch condition. Okay. And the drill, and is it, will it be called launch,
launch edition? They, they made it sound like it would be. Yeah. Okay.
What color, which color of the, of the prototype wraps that you have? Yellow?
Purple. Purple. Yes. The one we didn't see today. Convenient. Yeah. Maybe once again,
they were the first ones back and I already reparked. Okay. Oh, why is today another wave of
trouble? Apparently so. I mean, I, it looked like that's what was coming in. I don't know,
but those were certainly the three cars and it's probably about the time we came back yesterday.
I bet they've gotten an influencer program today or something. Okay. So. Any other thoughts,
any other impressions? Grantslam homerun for the Rivian folks? Oh, you know, I think it's
going to do very well. We also went off-road and, you know, light off-roading, but, you know,
they have reconfigured that screen. A lot of the stuff that's across the bottom of the top or not
is now in a little, you know, a pill shaped thing on the far left. It's a little bit easier to get
that. I think the improvements there have been nice, but anyway, there's still a button for the
camera right away. Brings it right up so you can see exactly what you're about to go over.
The approach and departure angles are very close to what they are in R1. If you haven't
raised the suspension, you've got nine plus inches of ground clearance. We did rub the
undercarriage on a couple of sharp breakovers and they said, yeah, it's got the same very
hardened, you know, undercarriage to the battery so that it can take a very hard strike on a very
pointy rock and be okay. What else? Yeah, I mean, very quiet. It accelerates like crazy.
656 horsepower, obviously. The ones we drove was on the all-terrain tire. There's an all-season
and an all-terrain. We were on 20s and there were BFGs and they had reasonable off-road grip
in the sandy dirty stuff we were in and yet we cornered pretty hard on Ortega going up to that
location before they made any noise and they made noise kind of as they were breaking away,
just as you'd like. You know, the car does also allow some natural roll and pitch and dive,
which I personally prefer. These cars that use extraordinary means to keep it completely
level, I find a little disconcerting. So I like that too. I was very impressed.
So no, so the original, the first gen R1S had a suspension issue that seemed to be all mechanical.
It was something about, it caused some porpoising. Oh, okay. That was one of the reasons why I think
we we dinged it and didn't want to have to do the year. They fixed it. Is there any indication?
I would have to deal with that. Even if it was mechanical, it would probably involve with those
highly complex springs and, you know, corner units. Whereas, and this new one is so much
simpler that, no, we didn't feel anything like that. And I wouldn't think that this car would
even susceptible to anything like that. So let's talk about the competition. So
is this going to, is this a problem for Tesla and the Model Y or do you think this is like
something that's going to put the Mercedes folks on notice or coming, what, Slate or
Scout? Well, Slate is definitely going for a way lower, you know, in the customer.
Scout, we'll have to see. I mean, my sense is that that might kind of subdivide the size of the
two and the one at the very end, although I haven't seen them parking next to each other or
studied the spec sheets. So, and we don't know quite enough about that one yet.
Like I say, I don't think anyone's going to, I don't think the cross shopping between Model
Y and NAP is going to be all that great. We'll see. And there might be a lot of people that
are ready to get out of a Model Y because they're tired of seeing themselves coming and going on
the streets and get into a more, you know, unique R2. I could see that happening a lot because the
use case is, you know, kind of similar. I mean, you know, I love the fact that it has the roll down
window in the liftgate. That's one of the many things. We did like two stories on cool stuff
in the R2 and I am sad to disappoint the listeners and readers. If you had your heart set on a
bunch of those, a lot of them got cut for cost. Okay. There was going to be something that sort of
slid out to act as a tailgate that got lost. The minivan style vent windows in the cargo area,
those got lost. Apparently Max and RJ really had a big growl about that. But Max won out. He said,
look, that's cost we don't need to spend. You crack that back window and you get the airflow
that, you know, alleviates that buffeting and so forth that those would give you anyway. So
they're not adding anything. We can't get already. So I agree with him on that. There was a sub
frunk, you know, a little thing. You lift it up and you can put something else down in there.
They got rid of that as well. Now there's a kind of a bent floor and, you know, it's a stiffer floor
and so forth. It's better and cheaper and so on. So I didn't argue with most of them. But again,
it was a lot of stuff that we thought was really cool. It's not going to happen. So
and now they did say we might go back and add some of those things later. That's within the realm
of possibility. They have kind of developed them, you know, so. Well, here we are in downtown
Laguna Beach. Beautiful day. Like, you know, if it's like in the single digits where you are,
when you're hearing this, we apologize. It is like 74 degrees. It was 90 yesterday.
Yeah. Well, that's borderline. Come on now, you know, let's, let's go to Newport Beach.
So go ahead. You can long press or short press. Let's say navigate to Newport Beach,
but say let's do it on PCH. Tell to go on PCH. Navigate to Newport Beach on PCH.
I don't want to go back to the freeway. That's the same. Say multiple resort results.
Hello. Ah, get away. Let's do it again. Let's go.
Navigate us to Newport Beach, but only using PCH.
There you go. Do we have, we don't have to say Pacific Coast Highway? No, I think it'll do it.
Grog's down Pacific Coast Highway to Newport Beach, about seven miles, around 15 minutes.
It's a scenic coastal drive through Laguna. No highways needed.
Fix, Rex. Done. Navigation set to Newport Beach via Pacific Coast Highway, about seven miles,
16 minutes. All right. Beautiful coastal route ahead. All right, all right, all right.
So this is going to be a little bit cool. Did he just now notice that that road is closed,
maybe? Perhaps. So, and I like how you've personified the tendency to a he. Well, it doesn't sound
a very feminine name, does it? So, so Frank, if at any time you want to goose the throttle,
if you think it's going too slow or, you know, feel free, this just driver on,
we're going to be heading up that turn. We're going to turn around and go back that way.
Sorry, go back north. It's PCH, so it's mostly going to be straight. Oh, look at this slick R1.
You can see it's got a cool, it's got a rack on. Oh, there we are.
The advent, what's their tagline? Adventuring forever.
Adventurous forever.
Adventurous forever. Look at this guy. See? Yeah, live in the dream.
And that is the thing about it. Oh, it's a lifeguard. It's the Lisses team.
Interesting. You know, you'd hate for someone to buy a Jeep Wrangler and not ever go off-road.
And you'd hate for someone to buy a Rivian and not ever go camping in it, you know, adventuring
in it. It's because they really are optimized for that. Well, so I have this argument with
Johnny all the time, which I think, A, I think Rivian puts too much power and torque in their
vehicles. Do you need 650 horsepower and 609? What is it? Bound for your torque? Yeah, need.
Okay. And then I also think for most people, they over-index on the off-roading. Like,
how many of these things are? I mean, all the ones in my neighborhood in, you know,
Redondo Beach, they're pretty clean. I don't see a lot of mud on their fenders.
Yeah. Well, I mean, you take your once-a-year vacation and put your roof rack crossbars on,
put your Rivian tent on there. We saw the Rivian tent, by the way. They had that in the...
That real? Or are they going to do me like they did that camp kitchen that I cooked on and never
was sold in the R1T and R1S? Oh, they sold those for a while. Well, the camp kitchen never made
it to market. The one that pull-out thing that was in the... Really? Yeah, yeah. Well, they have a
new one that's... And they showed us that too, which it's maybe, I don't know, 30 inches wide and
maybe, you know, a foot tall and maybe three, four inches thick and it's an induction... You fold it
open and it's induction stove on one side and like, you know, storage for utensils on the other.
This fancy one, we did at TAT when I met RJ and Moab and made tacos. I think that never came to
market. That way, I think I did see like a lower cost, slightly simpler version. Well, this one's
going to be $1,400. Okay. Well, anyway, so that's what you... You know, and they... Oh, by the way,
that's also worth noting that the mounts for that will accept the same crossbars and the same...
All the same stuff that goes on in R1. Well, that's smart. So, yeah, you put all that on and the tent
looks hella cool, I have to say. You know, it's a neat shape and it doesn't look like any other tent.
I don't know how hard it is to put up and down. Oh, and also, of course... Oh, another thing they
don't have, the front seats were supposed to fold flat so you'd have a giant mattress area
and they don't have that. It was going to have to make the seats too uncomfortable.
So, they do fold forward and you can put mattresses in the back. So, the same mattresses
fit in the car and in the tent. So, you can see four people on the same comfy memory foam
Rivian mattresses. Oh. So, two upstairs, two downstairs. Right. But how do you store that
second mattress? Is it a... That's a good question. You're not going to have a ton of space for much
else in the back, I think, if you fold it up. Is it like a tri-fold, like a seam?
I think. It's not like a roll. I think, yeah, no, it's a memory foam so it's not going to really
want to roll up. Okay, so here... Oh, they're giving you the high sign so you can goose it.
Oh, see? Oh, no. All right. So, now you took over. You took over and said, no, I'll probably
disengage. What happened? You can actually hit and record and send them a note. I don't do that,
so we'll just go back to full soap driving. So, we had a little incident there. It was a
four-way stop and this is one of those fun ones where the human driver tells the autonomous
driving car to go ahead and the autonomous driving car doesn't know what the hell the human's doing.
See, the cameras don't see little hands in the car, do they? Well, important fact,
I don't think radar or LiDAR would figure that piece out either. So, here's your point cloud of a
human waving at you. No, it's not even because it's behind glass. I can't see that. Exactly.
Uh, you know, let's talk about that for a little bit because, and again, I'm not the biggest Tesla
homer, you know, far from it, but I just keep thinking how seven cameras and a neural network
or whatever you want to call it, making a lot of other car companies look really stupid right now,
so far on this drive, right? Like, I get it, maybe there's a big cliff or step change coming with
level three, but if there's not, uh, Tesla's so far ahead. Six, something six and a half,
seven billion miles driven where Ford and GM are bragging about 600 million or 700 million miles,
and then now you've got NVIDIA Alpameo coming out saying that they're going to use their chips
but train them on really fancy driving simulations, which I think is a hedge because they don't have
billions of real world miles because they're only getting started, like in the last couple of years.
Well, I wonder if the data flywheels that Rivian and Tesla are, you know, generating and maintaining
and drawing from at some point become a revenue source because I have to think that
you could apply them to other things. Sell them to other manufacturers for training, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, because, I mean, it came up multiple times yesterday and today, this notion that we're going
to get to a point, I mean, RJ basically said once people get the, get a load of eyes off,
I'm in the car and I have rolled my seat back and I am typing on my computer, I'm working, I'm not,
now that time is useful. The time isn't really useful here. Okay, yes, our hands are off the wheel,
but you do have to, you're supposed to keep looking and it's going to give you grief if you,
you know, look away for too long and so on. And so this isn't the kind of thing that
makes people say, I'm not going to buy a car if it doesn't have this. They all say once you get that,
people are going to want that and the companies that don't have that are going to see a fall off
of 20 or 30 percent and those are the fall offs that led to bankruptcies during the whole COVID and
you know, the O8 downturn and so on. So he feels like, they feel like the L3, L4 halves
versus the have nots is going to be a huge divide and heaven help the have nots.
Interesting. What do you think? You buy it?
I mean, it doesn't sound ridiculous when you think about it. I feel the same way. I mean,
just the other day, you know, I was at a program on Tuesday and it was an hour drive to the
airport. I wrote the story, one of the stories from that program and uploaded to the CMS in
that hour I had there. Because you were driving. I was in the back. So if I could do that and I
didn't need, you know, A1 limo company to drive me, you know, that would be a valuable thing.
By the way, for those of you listening and watching, this is a classic Frank behavior
that puts the entire rest of the staff at Motor Trend to shame because Frank will
file the story before he gets on the plane home. Everybody else is riding on the plane
or wants to get home or like me, like weeks afterwards, trying to remember what the hell
they did and looking at their chicken scratch notes. So Frank Marcus is the man, the myth,
that's why I said the man, the myth, the legend. So you're saying you would, if you had level three,
which is hands off, eyes off, you would be sitting over here typing on your.
Well, it's L4 when you're sitting over there. Yeah, L3, still, you know,
with L3, you are at liberty to, you know, read and respond and everything else, all your emails,
all your, all that stuff, you probably more easily do video conferencing, these cars that
especially that have the camera up here, it makes a good image of you, you can participate,
all that sort of thing will also be valuable, but L4 is when it really, you know, takes off.
Okay. You mentioned when we were traveling and we saw the cool Rivian sort of lifeguard setup.
Do you think this R2 will pull from any of the Bronco, the Jeep, like the real off-roading
ice guys, or are you like, nah, they're not? You know, I mean, that's a psychographic question.
Now, why did we stop for a long time and let that Jeep ahead of us go for so far? No, no, no.
That was strange. A little strange. Are we still in Mad Max? Yeah, we're still in Mad Max.
Someone got distracted for a second. Right. Probably saw another pretty cargo bike.
That's something. Yeah. So no, you don't, you know, I, you know,
did they say who they're targeting? They give that the profile of the user or
talk about any reservation holders or not really. No.
You know, RJ talked at length about the fact that, you know, it's an unhealthy EV market where
half of the market is essentially two old cars with very typical, you know, silhouettes and
and use factor. He means this car and three. And the Model 3. Right. Yeah. It's like, why is it that
all the, you take all the electric cars, he said, you just do the silhouette and the, you know, and
he showed a graphic with a silhouette and the daylight opening of all the electric cars and
they all look alike. Like everyone is out there trying to make a better Tesla Model Y.
Why is that, that we don't, why isn't everyone going and chasing all of the other niches?
Why, you know, something different? Well, because it's not a niche. Like that's RJ knows why. Everybody
copied Model Y because for like two, almost three years in a row, it was like the world's
best selling car and every manufacturer in China built one within one to two millimeters because
of that. I mean, that's, that's why now we've got, you know, we're crippled for choice on a Model Y.
Why is there no option on a two door car? Hardly to speak of, you know, so Danny can, I mean,
why are there's always other form factors that would be nice if we had a choice in, you know,
and I get it in there. I understand. I also understand. That's what he has to say. This
look at this beautiful stretch of beach. By the way, I'd like to be surfing out there right now.
I get what he's saying, but I think, you know, Model Y and Model 3 succeeded for a lot of people
who look at a car as basic transportation point A to point B. And that's what, again, that's why
I think perhaps Rivian's mission of being the world's best EV off-roaders a little bit left
to right of the mark, right? Like build a really good EP that's really well priced, has all the
great features and then sure differentiate on off-roading or on-roading kind of experience,
but kick those basics first because nobody, I watched some of our Chinese friends take this Model
Y off off-roading and they're sort of ripping it for not being a great off-roader. I'm like,
that's great. Who cares? You know, like most people who have a Model Y are not taking it
on the Rubicon, right? Like right to a right job as Angus, you saw say. So yeah, I don't know.
Fun fact about the R2 design that we learned yesterday, you know, as always is the case,
they were working on the next car, you know, after the R1 was launched or whatever, and they designed
the R2 and they liked it better than the things they had for the R1S. And so they
upsized it to be the R1S, but the R2 design came first. So yes, they look similar, but
this is the OG, you know, as far as drawing boards go.
Who else did, so who else was there? You say RJ gave along
speachification and Philbin, James Philbin, their AI autonomy guy, was Jeff?
No, he was not there. I talked to him separately today.
Okay. So how about Hamoud?
Yes. Jeff, okay. He was.
Yes. He was Seem and yeah, Max Kos.
Okay. Any other surprises from the launch? Anything you came away with here? I didn't
expect that. That we haven't already talked about? Not too much.
Okay. How about timing? Did they announce like?
Spring, R2 in the spring.
And the first wave of shipments will go to probably friends of the brand,
investors, or doing the day that they mentioned?
They didn't mention any kind of phased roll out like that. They did say that they make,
the first 2000 are all in the family, but that's like before the customer cars, I think.
Okay. Let me chat real quick with our producer,
Brent. How are we doing on time?
We're at 53 minutes.
Oh, okay. I do kind of wish the R2 color palette were more vivid.
They showed us everything, some of which is off the record until March,
but some of the bright colors we've seen on R1, no, not at least in the first batch.
I heard them, I heard, I think we talked about it with Jeff that they're ahead of design,
that they would do a little bit more with special release colors from time to time.
In particular, like Johnny Lieberman's, his yellow apparently is very popular and they
want to bring that back, but it's going to have the obviously black, white, silver.
Yeah. I won't say that because that may be a large thing.
Okay. I don't know if this is kind of before that, but.
Okay. All right. Well, they did say another thing, if there are
you know, features that you desperately want,
flood Reddit with that stuff. The chief Reddit officer is constantly
on the prowl for the hue and cry for a new feature coming in through Reddit.
Reddit has become the common section for all of the internet,
and apparently they have taken feature requests there quite seriously.
Yeah.
So if you don't like what you're hearing or seeing from Frank,
or the story on MotorTrend.com.
If you're totally sad about those vent windows in the back,
go to flame reddit.
It's probably reddit.com slash
our Rivian slash R2 or something like that.
Okay. No other thoughts on Rivian. Let's close out as we navigate to a new port and then back
over to our starting point. Your concerns about this vehicle, about FSD camera-based
autonomy when it hits your part of the world, which is the greater Detroit area,
which is currently something like nine degrees and covered in snow.
We have got a polar vortex that's locked in there.
We're also, Detroit sits atop a salt mine. So we salt our streets just vividly.
It's so much salt. And that spray is opaque.
So these cameras are going to be fine. They're wiped by the windshield.
And we'll see how many times we have to refill the water fluid.
But all the rest of the cameras are not.
Now the salt mostly hits the front of the car, granted.
And so probably just as well, they got rid of that nose camera.
That'd be the one you'd be having to do all the time.
It also really gets the back of the car.
So, I mean, the backup camera almost becomes a nervous tick in Michigan.
When you walk up to your car from the back, you just rub that little lens on the way by
all winter because it's, you can't see out of it.
So I'm interested to see how these cameras hold up in that.
Also seeing through snow and fog and heavy rain and so forth,
I'll be very eager to see how all of that goes.
Okay. So I have done, we had some, as I'm sure you will find it hard to believe,
but we did have some really bad weather over Christmas.
Christmas time, sort of unprecedented rains. We had some fog.
We had really heavy rain. And I was FSD-ing and really doing not very safe things like
holding my phone like this. So while I was FSD-ing and recording for like minutes on end,
the car navigating in like crazy downpours and quite a bit, quite a thick fog,
probably the thickest fog we can expect in the Greater LA area.
I have those videos. Maybe our producer will cut in some of the footage while I'm
monologuing right now, showing that it's all on our SharePoint at work.
I've also off-roaded this car briefly with some dust in the air.
I haven't had a problem, even on like condensation like early mornings when there's dew on the car.
The car tells you when the cameras are occluded or if they're, they need a cleaning.
I've really only had to do it like once or twice. I have a little rag in the back and
I just go wipe off. It's usually the fender ones. A little bit, this, this B-pillar one,
I think doesn't get too much. It doesn't get hassled too badly. Oh, and here we are, Newport Beach.
So, taking the car there? I don't know if we'll let you.
We're going to go, I'm just going to navigate back to the supercharger, which is, do we have it in here?
Yes, sir. Reasons. Charging. What was it called? The...
What city was it in? Is it Irvine? Yeah. Irvine, yeah. Navigate to Tesla Supercharger
at the LA Fitness in Irvine.
This is Michelson. There we go. So, during this whole conversation, I have had my head turned
hard, staring directly at you. And it's not noticeable. It has not... No, we are stopped.
And if you... But I mean for the whole... Yeah.
Long way. Well, okay. So... They're not too worried about my head.
No, no, no. I'm glad. I'm glad you brought that up because actually I was, I was hanging out at
an event. Where were we? It might have been really in autonomy when we went up to their autonomy in AI day.
I mean, departing from a stop without me looking... Well, now it is saying please,
pay attention to it. Oh, okay. Yes, so it is. It's not all back.
It didn't beep or anything. No, no, no. And it would shut off. So, let's talk about that.
When I was at the Riving Autonomy Day late last year, I was hanging out with Kyle Conner and his
posse and we were talking about how good FSD version 14 is and also how a recent update.
One of his friends claimed that it was like totally allowing
her to be odd her phone for like 10 minutes at a time.
Which I started asking the guys at least. Anybody found this to be true?
I have not. It's a little uneven sometimes. I do. I'm a terrible human being. I sometimes
drive with a phone in my hand and I'm looking stuff up and it will tell you. It'll actually say,
it'll test you, say apply some steering pressure if it thinks you're not paying attention.
It will say, please pay attention to the wheel. It'll start flashing blue up here in the corner.
And then if you're bad, it'll shut the system off. And if you're really bad,
it will shut it off for the duration of your drive. You have to actually
stop the car, get out and get back in. Because it would be the cycle of the car.
You can't cycle this car because there's no button or key. So, I actually did it. I pulled off
and I just got my butt off this. I know from the door. And it thought I got out of the car.
And then it allowed me to come in on my way with FSD.
And I wondered if it was a mileage because we were going very slow.
But I felt like I was looking that way a long, long, long time. You'll see it on the video.
Yes.
And it didn't say boo. And then it left because to me, if we're going to go from a stop
and cross the intersection, it feels like you should probably be watching for that.
Well, so the system is in place. And I failed to mention the
Hardware 4 is about the exterior cameras. There is, Frank is correct, there is another camera
up at the top here just above the rear view mirror that is watching the eyes of the driver.
It is a very,
uh, seamless and, I think, non-intrusive system. Like there are, as we know, I was just in the
Subaru. The Subaru is constantly reminding me to put input in the steering wheel. It's not
sensing my hands are on the wheel. So I have to continually give it a jerk. Other systems
are much more, BlueCruise is one that's quite aggressive about watching your eyes and also
can't figure out certain situations like as we found out during some of our SUV of the year,
track of the year testing with that system. If you're drinking in the car with like a can of soda
and you bring the soda can up here so the concave bottom of the can is shown to the camera, it
starts flipping out. Like it does not know what the heck's going on because apparently it's not
like somebody wearing Polaroid sunglasses or looking away. It just freaks out. Suddenly it's
an insect. It's an alien behind the wheel. Well, and yesterday the light was coming in
and I did this and the mirror, the camera is in here and it's like, whoa, oh no, no, no.
Well, that won't do. So one of the things we talked briefly about is that you're sort of,
um, your gripe about Rivian is there because you're driving an R1S with universal hands-free
is it doesn't have resume. Okay, so it says, please apply slight turning forces. There you go.
All right, so the car just gave Frankie Q to apply some steering wheel input so it knows
that he's paying attention. It's really going to get taken. Because I've been playing with things
that sound right. So, yeah, no resume is just come on. That has been a basic function of cruise
control since, you know, the very beginning. Well, let me, I want to challenge you on this because
you represent, I think, legacy, again, 35 plus years in the business. You worked at
Chrysler back in the day. So you have this ingrained, right? Like Mercedes invent,
was the first to produce control in the car, right? With, I believe it was,
I didn't think so. I thought it was in the U.S., but I know. But it was, it was a stock. It's always
been like this. At the earliest days, a stock based, a little stock off the side and you could set,
resume, excel off of this little, you know, this stock with a rocker or using the stock itself.
My feeling is, because I just won the Mercedes S Class trip, all the manufacturers, all the legacy
guys, they feel like they need to iterate or evolve this control structure because of people
like you who have been driving your entire life with this. And this is what you know. And this is
how the world should work. But it involves like, I'm driving the car, I'm at the speed I want,
I hit set, I can accelerate or decelerate using that stock, or as you put an RES, resume, if I'm,
you know, doing something else and come back to this mode. But then you nowadays have to set
lane keep assist, you know, and probably adjust the following distance to the car ahead of you.
In this car, no stock for that. It used to be, you can triple tap and enter,
triple tap the drive mode, the gear selector, to get into FSD. But in reality, you just push this
button and it does what it does. You didn't have to do anything.
I don't need resume when I have this. Okay. Okay, but those cars are universal hands-free,
no point to point, whatever. So it's not doing the lights. It's not stopping me for a red light.
So here's a red light. I've set it at 50 because speed was 45. And now, you know, I've got to hit
the brake. I don't want to have to, am I going for 50 again? Okay, now I can reset it, either that
or just, you know, set it wherever and, you know, dial it up. It's way fuzzier than just resume.
Okay. Yeah. I'm with you. At this point, I don't care. But in the interim between now and here,
whenever one gets here, resume is a basic human right. Do you think like, I feel like there's a
cliff coming for those legacy manufacturers where they're going to have to abandon this whole stock
engaged setup and just go to like a one-touch? Because from a look, from a look, what is luxury,
right? What is, what time is luxury, right? Like the idea, just the simplicity, the intuitiveness
of just being, I'm in self-driving, the car's driving itself. I preset everything. We're,
we, I showed you that menu, right? We were in autopilot. We set the offset. We know, we know
how aggressive you want to be. We can just, we can just, you know, toggle between it. Sure. That's
it. So, and I, you know, another complaint I have or another deficit really rivian to a lot of other
folks, if we're honest, with a lot of cars now in their temporary hands-free L2 plus plus modes,
have automatic lane change. You signal lane change and it does it. I've driven, you know,
2,000 miles over the holiday in Iran. On Q it changed lanes without you having to do anything.
Well, this one, yes, it's perfect. I'm talking Rivian. Right. You know, universal hands-free
still won't do the lane changes except in places where they're absolutely certain that they have
lane fidelity over and above what the cameras can see. So if it's not, you know, and so I was,
because I was talking to, you know, James today and I'm saying, you know, I just drove down the
five. So like, this is, you know, 10 miles from your headquarters, you know, you ought to know
this road, but, you know, of all, and it only, I think funny thing was one time it did it. It gave
me a lane change to the left once when I signaled. Every other time I had to, you know, there's a
detent. I had to bump the car out of straight ahead to make a lane change. So, you know, they're a
little behind kind of everybody else on that. I think you shouldn't have to have lane fidelity.
You ought to be able to rely on your cameras to see that the lane is clear and there's really a
road there. And I just didn't understand what the problem was with implementing full automatic
lane change. Again, I, it's, I think for those who are listening to us or watching us that are
Tesla owners and maybe FSD users, a lot of what we're talking about is like, what are you guys,
like, what are you even, what are you even talking about? Like, I drove the BMW system that has
the automatic lane change, but the driver has to confirm by looking in the mirror.
Right. Isn't that nice? I don't know. Is that, I mean, it's also like, you know,
this car is changing lanes right now. It doesn't give a shit what we're doing.
Well, true. So, I mean, that's, that's where I'm like,
these all seem like, and again, I'm going to come off like the biggest Tesla home we're saying this,
they all seem to be like half steps on the way to where Tesla is already. Right? Like, this is,
I can't think of a system that's going to be better than what is what we're, what we've been
doing for the last hour. Right. From a smoothness, you know, we haven't even talked about like the
acceleration and the braking. It's been very human-like. It's not really, it's not super jerky.
I'm not car sick. Nope. Well, I don't ever get car insane. Yeah, I don't either. But, you know,
it's some of the stuff that I wish we had a situation. I was actually kind of hopeful because
we had a big piece of plastic floating in the air that this car would do something really slick
with that. But I've had it drive around like a swirling plastic bag, didn't exit the lane,
it just kind of, just kind of just jogged over a little bit. It's done the same thing. Oh,
you know, I love how you're watching. This is a right turn on red, 100% legal in California.
It's a busy guy, whether we had a four lane, one, two, three, four, five, five lanes in each
direction, making a right turn. No big deal. I mean, this is- Yeah, and there has not been one
point where I'm like, I would have totally gone in that lane because it looks like it's moving a
little faster. Right. It always did that. I knew it. I knew Mad Max mode is Frank Marcus mode.
Like this is like, I totally called it and I said, Frank said, I love this thing.
So yeah, I think in summary for me, we have to get this car to you guys in Michigan
while there's still terrible weather, which is assured through March probably.
I mean, sooner or the better because we're already in February. So I mean, if we're going to do it
this year, it really should be pretty soon. All right. Well, I'm trying to come up with a plan
where maybe I, as my wife will divorce me, FSD this car to you guys, maybe with Brent or more
Brian or somebody documenting along the way. Or if you want to go to, I mean, you know,
meet your half ways. And the half ways are always, we get a shitty drive and you get a beautiful one.
Yeah, we'll have to figure it out. But yeah, I'll see if we can get it done by the end of this month.
But I think you should definitely take the northerly route.
No, we wasn't out on I-40 or whatever. Okay. So then if we do that, should I
arrange a stop to put snow tires on it? Or is it too late in the year for that?
Oh, I mean, you know, snow tires wouldn't be, you know, wouldn't go unused in Michigan.
Okay. This thing's on, I mean, I say that Detroit is level. We're not on hills very much and whatever.
I've gone through the whole, this whole winter on the Ram on its all-season tires and it's been fine.
Heavy cars with good tread, probably going to be okay.
What about heavy cars on three pretty nice continental and one
cheap Chinese replacement tire on the rear right that I had to do last minute?
Well, that's another incentive. If we could set us up in the matches and if we're doing that,
might as well be snows. Okay. Well, we'll put a call in the tire rack and maybe,
I mean, the other thing to do is put a call in the MABS and go,
hey, you got a truck going back over there on Tuesday? Oh, yeah.
That's true. Okay. Okay. So we're about two minutes away from wrapping.
Any other thoughts? How'd you, how'd you overall drive here and hour, you know,
to change your mind? I only had to take over once, which, you know, you said,
you've got a lot of father trips without having to take over, but it was just the weird,
you know, four-way stop situation. So, and it wasn't, yeah, our lives were only, you know,
courtesy was at stake. I just want to point out the diversity of vehicles here. We have a,
is that a Gen 1 Maxima with a wing? No, two at least. Second Gen Maxima. And is that a,
that's a Nova? No, that's a 60s. Sevens. The Chevelle. The Chevelle. A brand new tire on the side
there. Still got the blue on it. Yeah. Sorry. It's a, oh, 68. It's got marker lights. American
rests. Okay. Those are, those are your touch points in those years. He's very proud, by the way,
that you were pointing at him. So, we made his day. Yeah. So, terrible weather, uninteresting cars,
and bad Mexican food or homerocks of California. Sorry about, sorry about it all. All right.
So, Frank Marcus is cautiously approving of FSD 14? I hope it has a converter in it,
so I can use my J1700 whatever garage charger. Yes, we have, we have an adapter for your
CCS adapter. But this will work for the normal one too? Yes. Okay. Level two. Oh, battery low.
Are we losing the cameras? Real. Does that mean they're done? We lost, we lost. Something
yours is working. We lost Frank's. We lost Frank's. There. I think on the middle one. Okay.
Note this. Yeah. It's the bottom of note. Note that it is pre-conditioned. Oh yeah. Okay. So,
other fun thing. Look, because we're heading to a supercharger, it's pre-conditioning the battery
for a fast charger. You know this kind of stuff, and it's going to likely, oh, that's the other
thing we didn't do. We'll remember to do this because we're going to do the same exact thing with
Johnny. When you get to your destination, it allows you, it will, you can pick park in the driveway,
park at the curb, like we're at a park, and in this case for a supercharger, it'll actually pull
you into the stall. Back you up, put you in the right spot. And we're at about a half. I might
actually sit here and go ahead and, you know, kind of top it up so I don't have to fiddle with it
over the next few days. Yeah, you can do that. I would like. The account is linked to me, so
you're fine. Okay. Well, if it's using my car, my phone is key, will it switch to my...
You didn't input your credit card, right? I did it before, yeah. It was my credit card for,
you know, Carl, the SUV of the year, two years ago. Maybe.
All right. So, we picked FSD version 14 as Motortrend's best tech, best autonomous or
semi-autonomous driving system. Is that accurate? Do you, do you now agree? Do you now understand
why I hastily assembled the staff and made them drive this one? Yes, I mean, it has not scared
me to death at all today. So, you know, I will, we can maybe resume this conversation after some
Michigan experience. Okay. All right, great. All right, so we are going to pull up to the supercharger
if it can find it. Are there stops on these? Yeah, there's a stop. Man, Max would not have stopped
there. Well, there is a stop. Well, there is, I guess. Okay. So, it is pulling around, ideally,
and we'll close it out at the, once it finds its way. Although, is it, is it, are we at the
right place? Oh yeah, there they are. It said second floor. Yeah, it kind of went the wrong,
around the wrong way. I think it's got to come around. This will be one thing we're going to do
with Johnny, which is try to do this test in parking garages, because parking garages are a
big problem for autonomous driving systems, because they get very confused about the floors.
So, here we are. Let's see whether it does not seem to be stopping. Where are we going? All right,
so here's, so there's your first strike again. So, Frank, you feel free to, unless you want to see
see if it'll go around again. No, no, I would, I would grab the wheel, because it's, now it's
making a lot. We got time for that. We got time for that, personally. All right. Now I want to go
around too. So, if you're a Tesla engineer, a shock, Eliswamy, or Lawson Fulton, our, our
SDV award winners, and you're watching with bated breath to see whether your baby system would
go all the way through perfectly, you failed. You were so close. You literally stumbled
at the finish line. All you needed to do was what I said you would do, which is reverse us
properly into one of these parking stalls, and you do not. So it works earlier today,
but not in the parking garage. Our producer, Brent, says that it worked perfectly at a
different supercharging station, not inside, not inside a parking garage. So I'm happy to
excuse that in this instance only, but I'm sure it feels differently. Good job, Frank. Parking
is there. Okay. Thank you so much for your time. Enjoy the vehicle as you drive it this weekend,
and thanks for all your reporting on the Vivian R2. Absolutely. Great. Stay tuned for another
video.
About this episode
Ed Lowe takes the wheel of a Tesla Model Y equipped with Full Self-Driving (FSD) version 14.2, joined by colleague Frank Marcus for a live test drive. They discuss Frank's previous experiences with Tesla's semi-autonomous systems and share insights on the Rivian R2 after Frank's first drive. The episode highlights the evolution of FSD technology, its capabilities, and the competitive landscape with upcoming systems from Mercedes-Benz and Rivian. Listeners can expect a blend of technical analysis and real-world driving impressions.
Original notes
In this special live-drive episode of The InEVitable, Ed Loh takes MotorTrend Technical Director Frank Markus on a real-world test of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) Version 14.2.2.3 in a Model Y — while diving deep into Frank’s first-drive impressions of the highly anticipated Rivian R2. This episode kicks off a new MotorTrend series on semi-autonomous driving systems, comparing Tesla’s camera-only approach against upcoming competitors from Mercedes-Benz and Rivian.
Topics covered include:
- Tesla FSD v14 real-world freeway and city performance
- Mad Max mode, lane changes, and aggressive California traffic
- Rivian R2 pricing, specs, suspension tech, and autonomy roadmap
- Level 2 vs Level 3 autonomy explained
- Vision-only vs radar/LiDAR debate Autonomy in harsh winter conditions
- The future of hands-free and eyes-off driving
- Does Tesla’s data flywheel give it an insurmountable lead?
- Is Rivian’s R2 the true Model Y competitor? And what happens when autonomy reaches Level 3?
Watch (or listen) as the system handles freeways, city streets, four-way stops — and almost parks itself.
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