Rivian R2 Extra Features, Other Variants, and In-House Lidar?

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Rivian is now producing its new, more affordable (semi-affordable), more mass-market model, the R2. We now have a bit more news coming out about it to go along with this launch.

The R2 has me both excited and nervous. It’s a potentially very popular model that could boost the EV market, EV competition, and the speed of EV adoption in the US. However, it’s also still quite expensive, so it might not have the effect that’s desired, reach the scale Rivian is targeting, or truly help the company succeed and become profitable. We’ll see. Is there enough hype and interest in the R2? Is there going to be enough consumer demand for the model?

Rivian R2 Launch Package Comes with Complementary Features

The R2 Standard is supposed to start at $48,490, but this is not the launch model of course. Neither is the $53,990 R2 Premium trim. The launch model is the R2 Performance, and a limited number of initial orders will come with the Launch Package. This package adds $2,500 worth of features at no extra cost.

One of the added features is Autonomy+, which will be provided for the lifetime of the vehicle. That features includes Universal Hands-Free capability on 3.5 million miles of US roadway.

You can also get a complementary paint upgrade at no additional cost, including a special Launch Green color. That includes the key fob getting a Rivian Green anodized coating.

Another feature the Launch Package includes is the tow package, which provides 4,400-pound towing capacity. That beats the 3,500-pound towing capacity of the Tesla Model Y with its tow package.

The R2 Performance is expected to come with a full-charge range of 330 miles.

Other R2 Variants

News is also out that Rivian is going to offer some undisclosed additional variants of the R2.

“There are other variants of R2, which we haven’t shown,” CEO RJ ​Scaringe told Reuters when the news agency asked about pickup truck version of the new model. “What ​we’re building in Georgia allows for different variations,” he added. But that’s all the detail we have.

In-House Rivian Lidar?

The last story of the day on Rivian is that the company is considering making its own lidar sensors, sort of. Rivian is apparently discussing lidar production with the help of Chinese companies. Following in the footsteps of Tesla, the company recently announced it would be producing its own chips. Tesla, of course, doesn’t use lidar, but Rivian is planning to take it this next step forward when a version of the R2 with lidar comes out.

Chinese companies are leading in low-cost lidar production, getting the cost down to a “low hundreds of dollars price point,” and Rivian is considering creating a joint venture with one of them to produce lidar in the US.

“Think ‌of ⁠it as finding a way to structurally ingest the technology,” Scaringe said. “The advancements in terms of going from the early lidars that I think a lot of us have seen — we see them here — to these much more advanced solid-state lidars, those advancements didn’t happen in the United States. Those advancements happened in China.”

Though, Rivian isn’t the only company going down this route. “A number ⁠of different car manufacturers are thinking about how they could do that either together, or at least through a shared alignment to say, hey, let’s develop production capacity in the United ​States for this, or at least outside China,” Scaringe added.

So, it’s not exactly an in-house play, for now, but the company is looking to get more control over and investment in the lidar production process, and bring it out of China to avoid tariffs or monopolization concerns. We’ll see where this leads.