Most first drives measure a car against rivals. This one measures it against a wheelchair, a child's car seat, and the awkward geometry of getting in and out. In a video Rivian lent the car for, Zack Nelson of JerryRigEverything hands the smaller, cheaper R2 to his partner Cambry, who drives with hand controls after a horseback riding accident at 18 left her unable to use her legs. The test is refreshingly practical. Can she transfer from chair to seat without help, break the wheelchair into pieces and load it solo, and fit a car seat behind the front door? The R2 passes some of these and stumbles on others, and the honesty about where it falls short is what makes the segment worth watching.
Accessibility almost never gets this much screen time in a mainstream EV review, and that is the value here. Cambry notes that in the US, rental companies can often supply a vehicle with hand controls fitted if you give them enough notice, a detail many buyers never learn. The headlights get the same close attention: the video says Rivian is the first company allowed to use adaptive driving beams on US public roads, a matrix system that lets you keep the high beams on while carving a dark tunnel around oncoming cars. That capability was effectively illegal in the United States for years. Federal regulators only cleared the way for adaptive driving beam headlights in a 2022 rule change, so seeing the feature on a sub-luxury EV is genuinely new rather than just a marketing line.
On the driving side, the video reports the R2 uses a semi-active damper setup rather than air suspension, which Zack says helped Rivian roughly halve the price versus the R1S while keeping about three inches more ground clearance than a Tesla Model Y. The four-wheel-drive performance version is quoted at a 0 to 60 time of 3.6 seconds, with the hosts claiming more power and torque than a Lamborghini Huracan. Rivian's universal hands-free driving is mentioned, with point-to-point navigation and a lidar-equipped variant said to arrive this fall or early 2027. The honest snag: the rear door does not open to 90 degrees, which made fitting a child's car seat a maybe rather than a yes.
Bottom line: Spec sheets will not tell you whether a car works for the person actually using it, and that is exactly the gap this review fills. The R2 looks like a strong, attainable EV, but the door angle is a real limitation for families and for anyone loading from a chair. If Rivian is listening, a few more degrees of door swing would matter more to these buyers than another tenth off the 0 to 60. Worth watching before you assume an SUV fits your life.
Commentary on a third-party video. Figures and claims are as presented in the source and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.