As a European: nice, but why is it so BIG? How is that monster called "mid-size"? Why would one want to haul so many tons of extra metal around just to transport one's behind?
Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
161–170 of 353 posts
Re: Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
#162As a European: nice, but why is it so BIG? How is that monster called "mid-size"? Why would one want to haul so many tons of extra metal around just to transport one's behind?
when every car around you is even bigger than this, you’ll appreciate not driving a minuscule car in america.
it is terrifying
Re: Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Maintenance isn’t just about cost. It’s about the number of things that move and/or need fluids, and can fail/leak. It’s about dealing with service centers trying to upsell you on every little possible thing that could go wrong. When I take my EV in, it’s for one of two things: I need my tires rotated, or I need new tires. That’s it. There’s no “curtsy inspection” that comes back with literally 40 different things…
> I think you’re overestimating what all needs maintenance on an EV. I'm not doing any estimating, I kept a detailed spreadsheet of every dollar I put into the car, and am familiar with which items are common to an EV.
> and am familiar with which items are common to an EV.
This is the overestimating I was referring to. I think you’re either mistaken in what items are common to EV, or you’re overestimating the cost of those items.
There is only one thing that needs maintenance on an EV: tires.
Unless you’re saying that tires amount to 2/3 of an ICE vehicles maintenance. In which case you may want to shop around for more reasonably priced tires.
Re: Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, false. You can clearly hear when the combustion engine kicks in and it's indicated in the dash. I can floor it in electric mode and it still gets up to 60 in around 6 seconds, no gas involved. Hybrid mode is probably slightly faster but it's a very marginal difference. I don't believe your last statement because you've been wrong about everything else, and it doesn't make sense. Plugging it in is exactly as ea…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-... “ The researchers attributed most of the gap to overestimates of the “utility factor” – the ratio of miles travelled in electric mode to the total miles travelled – finding that 27% of driving was done in electric mode even though official estimates assumed 84%. ” Perhaps the rav4 prime @ 41ml max ev range is a better system than all the other low range…
So if you are too lazy to plug it in every night or your day to day driving exceeds the battery range you shouldn't buy one.
One of my neighbours has one but nowhere to plug it in. I have no idea why they bought it.
This wouldn't stop me from buying one.
Re: Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
#165I bought a new salad spinner recently, after having broken yet another one. I’ve had fancy brands like Zyliss and OXO. I’ve had cheap store brand models and cheaper Amazon MYSSNGVWL type stuff as well. Knowing they would probably break didn’t make it feel better when they eventually broke. Anyway the new salad spinner is large, heavy, with a steel pin into a brass bushing, has a metal handle and nylon gears in a seal…
Every car manufacturer has a catalog of spare parts you can order. I really don't understand what you're on about with your post.
Re: Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love to come in and buy a BYD with the exact same design flaws, but for 1/3 of the price. Sadly protectionism disallows me from doing that
Same here! American-made EVs ask for an incredibly heavy price tag and don’t deliver on the reliability of ICE or Hybrid cars a third of their price. It’s the primary thing stopping me from getting one as my next vehicle. I’m trying to shop around to replace my wife’s aging crossover and I really can’t find anything more attractive than a Prius or another Kia Soul. If we could get electric cars from the CN market it’…
I’ve had software issues on an ID4 and iX, but I’ve never had reliability problems. The cars always have just worked with no maintenance. Same with my model Y, minus any issues!
Re: Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think you’re overestimating what all needs maintenance on an EV. I'm not doing any estimating, I kept a detailed spreadsheet of every dollar I put into the car, and am familiar with which items are common to an EV.
> and am familiar with which items are common to an EV. This is the overestimating I was referring to. I think you’re either mistaken in what items are common to EV, or you’re overestimating the cost of those items. There is only one thing that needs maintenance on an EV: tires. Unless you’re saying that tires amount to 2/3 of an ICE vehicles maintenance. In which case you may want to shop around for more reasonably…
Not the person you replied to, but I'm not sure how you arrived here. Brakes, coolant, washer fluid, diff oil, gearbox oil, cabin air filter, wiper blades. Did you know EV motors can also require oil changes (at hundreds of thousands of miles, in fairness)?
Nice Michelins for my ICE have been something resembling 1/3 of service costs. Not 2/3 but not negligible either.
Re: Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
#168I really reality wish rivian create a better self-driving technology soon and make a proper competition to tesla. Rivian cars are so nice and well designed.
Personally I'm in no rush to have self-driving capabilities in my car for at least another decade or so. I'm pretty happy with the current ADAS systems found in most cars like adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, and collision avoidance - and happy to just see incremental refinements to those systems. At some point I want a self-driving car, but I'm happy to let Waymo and Tesla users test those systems for another…
Of course everyone has different needs. This is the reason why there are so many different makers and models. I commute a lot (100 miles a day) and tesla self driving is hard requirement. But almost everything else in car sucks compared to other cars. And compared to rivian it sucks big time. The moment rivian gets what tesla have now with fsd I will switch immediately. And some comments suggest rivian is working on that.
Re: Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
#169Do you really need a 0-60mph time of 3.0 seconds in a mommymobile?
Re: Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
0 mention of rav4 in this article which seems to be about European cars.
European registered cars. The RAV4 PHEV is a popular car in Europe so is assuredly well represented in this data set of 800,000 phevs.
It's an interesting article - thanks for sharing! The original report is worth reading too. [1]
I agree with the premise. The "utility factor" used to estimate fuel efficiency for PHEVs does not line up with real-world data, which effectively creates a loophole to avoid emissions regulations and keep selling gas guzzlers. This is a problem, and should be fixed.
In regards to which cars are most to blame:
> Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW account for the lion’s share of fines avoided over the past three years, together responsible for 89% of the total.
This is a recent trend where luxury carmakers are using PHEVs to circumvent emissions regulations. The latest BMW M5 [2], for example, is a PHEV with a monster 4.4L V8 engine. Car enthusiasts actually hate it compared to the old model because the hybrid system increased the weight by 1000 lbs. But making it a PHEV is probably the only way that BMW is still able to sell a V8. It seems kind of stupid all around.
The RAV4 PHEV is also a big, heavy (4,500 lb) car with a large (by European standards) 2.5L engine. But I would hesitate to lump it in with luxury cars from BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, etc. I would also hesitate to apply findings from a European study to the US market, where large gasoline cars are currently very popular (not that every discussion needs to be about the US - but the RAV4 is the best selling car in the US so it's important to that market). Not saying you're wrong about RAV4 PHEV emissions relative to the gasoline RAV4, just that the study you linked doesn't really support making any specific claims about that model. The report only mentions Toyota once, where it is lumped into an "others" category on a chart along with Ford, Hyundai, JLR, Kia, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Suzuki.
[1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-t...