Rivian may be all in on robotaxis and autonomy, but it’s still got human drivers — and EV buyers — to win over. The pricey R1S SUV and R1T pickup brought Rivian A-list media attention and cult-hit status, but the company faces a critical next step. The 2027 R2 is Rivian’s bid for mainstream success, scaled-down but not dumbed down.

We drove a R2 Performance model from the streets of Park City, Utah, into Wasatch Mountains’ twisties and then off-road trails, an idealized triathlon for the do-it-all driving that Rivian intends for its adventure-minded customers. In its newly attainable price range, the R2 proclaimed itself as a class of one: a muscular electric SUV that’s legitimately capable off-road, but whose technology and sheer ingenuity feel a full generation ahead of anything from legacy automakers.

That dual-motor R2 will meet buyers beginning June 9th, starting from $59,485 in “Launch Package” form, with up to 345 miles of range. That compares with R1S models that range between $79,000 and $124,000, out of reach for many people who’d otherwise long to own a Rivian.

That price will dip as low as $46,485 for a single-motor Standard version — but not until summer 2027 — with 350 horsepower and a roughly 275-mile driving range. Don’t bother marking your calendar: A Standard Long Range appears an easy choice for $3,500 more, boosting range to about 345 miles, enough for another critical hour on highways before a recharge. That version should arrive earlier in 2027. If you can’t wait until then, a dual-motor R2 Premium will ask $55,485 for 450 horses and up to 330 miles of EPA-estimated range, arriving later this year.

Rivian says the R2’s autonomy stack will add hands-free, point-to-point driving to its Universal Hands-Free (UHF) system by year end. The company will charge a one-time $2,500, or $49.99 a month, for that “Autonomy Plus,” versus $99 a month for Tesla’s competing Full Self Driving (Supervised). The Launch Package includes Autonomy Plus for the vehicle’s lifetime.

I say no rush. The R2 is too good to let the robots have all the fun.

Testing UHF shows how far Rivian has come and how far it must go to meet its autonomous promises. Today’s UHF allows impressive hands-off driving on highways, in selectable Mild, Medium, or Spicy form. It’s when you depart the off-ramp that things get dicier.

In contrast with, say, General Motors’ Super Cruise, which cautiously warns drivers and disengages when it can no longer safely process the scene, UHF becomes overconfident to the point of obliviousness. In the worst example, UHF warns us that a traffic light or stop sign is approaching, well in advance. But if a driver fails to intervene — and there are no stopped cars ahead to adaptively slow your pace — the Rivian will simply barrel through that busy intersection or stop sign, at whatever cruising speed you’ve set.

Yes, people are naturally attuned to paying attention in city and suburban driving. We also know drivers can get distracted.

Rivian says an over-the-air updated UHF will begin to halt at traffic lights and stop signs in the coming months, before its rollout of point-to-point driving. At Rivian’s tech hub in Palo Alto, I had a recent demo of point-to-point, in an R1S that navigated hands-free through neighborhoods with smooth, soccer-parent aplomb. The system can’t get here soon enough.

From a look at this boxy backwoods explorer, you’d never imagine it’s barely an inch longer than a compact Honda CR-V, 1.5-inches wider, and 0.4-inches taller. That’s before you stack on cool accessories like a Rivian-designed rooftop tent. The R2 is also 15 inches shorter than its three-row R1S sibling. And it feels right-sized and right-priced, whether for city and suburban dwellers, campers, or owners who might take on a 4x4 trail.

A human-driven sprint through the Wasatch Mountains raises our heart rates, but it’s not the altitudes. The R2 scampers from 0–60 mph in a fierce 3.6 seconds. Where the R1’s electric power steadily tails off after 45 mph, the R2’s new “Maximus” drive unit brings a power curve that’s wider than a broadsword. Rivian cites a 50–70 mph burst in a supercar-worthy 1.55 seconds. Freeway dawdlers won’t know what hit them. The R2 rushes like a bullet train down Utah backroads, its motors spinning up 656 horsepower and 606 pound-feet of torque.

Max Koff, R2 chief engineer, has been with Rivian since its Mainstream Motors heyday in Florida in 2009, founded by a newly minted MIT PhD named RJ Scaringe at just 26 years old. Koff talks about his new baby’s technical and existential challenge: how to hit that middle-class price point and still deliver the full Rivian experience. The R2, Koff says, “is the culmination of all our learnings before.”

The R1’s second-generation architecture eliminated 1.6 miles of wiring. The R2 strips out another 2.3 miles. (Is there any left?) Five control modules were merged onto a single powerful chip, including vision from five onboard radars and 11 cameras.

The R2 keeps the original’s hunky two-box SUV shape, with a Rover-esque low beltline and generous glass areas. At a lunch stop, Scaringe says his Rivians sacrifice some of the range-boosting aero of eggier-shaped EVs like the Model Y, but pay it back with a more-capable stance, airy cabin, and excellent outward visibility. Those bona fides come in handy on a challenging off-road trail in Wasatch Mountain State Park. On slippery ascents, a brainy electric powertrain is the cheat code for sensing and quelling wheelspin almost before it starts.

Rivian may add a dedicated hill-descent function. But regenerative brakes, in driver-selectable strengths, manage even steep downhills with no need to brush the brake pedal. A reasonable 9.6-inch ground clearance and 19.7 inches of water-fording depth can’t touch the R1S’s respective, maximum 14.7 inches and 39.4 inches. But the R2 only scrapes its well-shielded battery case over one rocky crest, in terrain that most owners would never tackle. In more foreseeable situations — a forested two-track, a cottage driveway, the urban jungle — the R2’s smaller footprint and tighter turning circle offer real advantages.

This SUV keeps the Rivian clan’s friendly-robot face. Our test model’s “Catalina Cove” option suggests a luxury scented candle, but actually describes a handsome, oceanic blue exterior paint for $2,000. You don’t get the R1S’s two-piece split tailgate, but the rear glass rolls down to let in the outdoors, or allows for carrying longer gear.

At a Park City hotel, Rivian engineers walk us through outdoor displays that recall a yard sale of Rivian technology. A body-in-white flaunts a 23-percent-stiffer unibody chassis. That saves 200 pounds versus the R1S’s body-on-frame platform.

The Maximus motor’s internal oil cooling routes nonconductive fluid through the live stator and rotor. In Conserve or All-Purpose driving modes, dual-motor R2’s power rear wheels exclusively until wheelslip summons front-wheel assistance. (R1’s take an opposite, front-wheel-centric approach). A pleasingly rear-biased Sport mode brings a 40/60 percent torque split, the front wheels contributing full-time. The compact motor trims another 60 pounds.

An 87.9 kilowatt-hour battery sharply downsizes the R1’s 108.5- or 140-kWH packs, while trimming costs. Yet the battery still delivers healthy range, in part because the R2 is nearly 2,000 pounds lighter overall, at about 5,000 pounds. Each enlarged battery cell carries six times the energy of the R1’s. And there are 90 percent fewer of them, with 768 space-saving cylindrical cells versus an unwieldy 7,776 in the R1.

On road or off, Rivian engineers acknowledge one cost-saving compromise. The R2’s conventional suspension — front MacPherson struts, steel springs, and anti-roll bars — can’t match the sophistication of the R1’s height-adjustable air springs and hydraulically cross-linked suspension. That solution brought McLaren-style supercar tech to an electric SUV. The R1’s two-chamber dampers allow separate, precise tuning for compression and rebound as wheels traverse the road surface; the R2’s single-chamber, semi-active dampers are excellent, but must respond equally to both.

I was hoping the R2 would feel not just smaller and lighter (it does), but more agile than its burly bro. The R2 steers confidently, soaks up bumps, and bolts out of mountain curves with seismic force. But with fewer tech arrows in its quiver, the R2 doesn’t command the road as well as the R1S, or offer the same bandwidth of operation from pavement to the most hardcore trails. The R1S’s breathtaking Copperfield-like illusions — seemingly levitating through curves, body roll near-disappeared, in a Lexus-like theater of isolation — mostly stay offstage in the R2. Body motions on pavement become more pronounced, as in many off-road-capable SUVs, and there’s more jounce and occupant head-toss over bumpy trails.

But it’s all relative. Drivers coming from conventional SUVs will still marvel at the R2’s electrified speed, grace, and near silence. One all-terrain benchmark, the air-sprung Range Rover Sport SV, outhandles this R2 on pavement and matches the Performance model’s 3.6-second sprint to 60 mph. But that racy Rover guzzles premium gasoline, starts from $152,000 — 2.5 times the R2 Performance’s price — and its onboard tech is relatively primitive.

The R2’s cabin offers Rivian’s familiar dual-screen layout, nearly devoid of analog switches, but with welcome improvements. A redesigned steering wheel ditches fussy, dinky roller switches for two haptic “halo dials” that you spin, push, pull, or tilt to manage functions. The vertical, knurled-metal dials are better suited to larger hands or winter gloves and change physical feedback based on what you’re controlling.

If those sound like a Wheel of Death for people who pine for traditional switches, rest easy. Only the most churlish knob-twiddler might complain about a single right-hand wheel click that calls up a temperature control on the driver’s screen. A second click, and there’s your fan speed, a finger already on the dial to adjust either function up or down. Hands remain on the wheel, eyes on the road. It’s different, sure, yet as easy as reaching for a dashboard button. As with an R1, there’s a learning curve, but it’s mercifully brief. Rivian introduces its dynamic dials via an onscreen primer in huge animated block letters, befitting a child’s picture book. So no crying, please, unless it’s over vent controls that still reside onscreen. The dials make mirror adjustments, a royal pain in R1 models, much easier.

The rest is managed through a center touchscreen, cozily reclined into a dashboard nook, whose clarity, speed, and comprehensive functions feel on par with leading Chinese EVs. The cabin doesn’t quite match the Shelter-magazine style of top R1S models, but the simulation is persuasive. This is a winning interior for a $55,000 to $65,000 SUV, and we hope single-motor models don’t pinch pennies.

Rivian’s uncluttered California vibe is in full effect. Sustainable materials include upcycled birch trim for a “Coastal Cloud Signature” interior (for just $1,000); Rivian’s latest, convincingly supple animal-free leather; and a headliner formed from reclaimed ocean plastic. For sculpted, supportive rear seats, Rivian claims a class-best 40.1 inches of head- and legroom.

Early next year, new R2s will lay more groundwork by integrating a windshield-mounted lidar and the Rivian Autonomy Platform (RAP). Its module pairs two Rivian super chips, designed in-house. Each amasses 800 TOPS of AI compute power, nearly quadruple that of today’s Nvidia chip. (Critically, Rivian assures customers the R2’s they buy today, along with second-gen R1S and R1T models, will enable full point-to-point features, even without lidar and the RAP.)

For this vertically integrated automaker, the future-looking hardware and software underpins a critical strategy to bring Uber robotaxis to market in 2028, followed by truly autonomous consumer cars. Scaringe and James Philbin, Rivian’s autonomy chief and Waymo’s former software leader, are dead-confident that Rivian will help revolutionize the industry.

Over lunch in a Utah state park, the executives said autonomy will become a must-have for every car buyer. Self-driving cars will be the next smartphones. Those gadgets also sparked rampant skepticism and anxiety, before even tech-averse senior citizens adopted them.

That’s the rub for Rivian. The measure of the R2’s success will be how well it broadens its appeal beyond the EV-savvy and the tech-adept. When your grandpa asks if the R2 is the best bet to tow his boat and secure his fishing lures, you’ll know that Rivian is well on its way.