State of Charge has recorded a full zero to 100 percent charging session on the Rivian R2, and the shape of the curve tells you exactly how to use the car. The channel reports a peak of 225 kW, power held near maximum to about 36 percent state of charge, and 80 percent reached in roughly 30 minutes from empty. Then it falls apart. The video measures 11 minutes to go from 80 to 90 percent, another 11 to reach 95, and 46 more minutes to finish the final five percent. Total time from flat to full was one hour and 38 minutes, with 96.5 kWh added into a pack the host puts at about 88 kWh usable. Half the battery went in during the first 14 minutes.
The engineering story here is the R2's 400 volt architecture. Most manufacturers chasing faster charging have moved to 800 volts, and the video says Rivian instead gave the R2 the ability to draw more than 600 amps, around 630 at maximum, to hold the price of the vehicle down. The host argues that was the right call, estimating the alternative would have added somewhere between one and two thousand dollars to the car. The practical catch, which matters more than the architecture debate, is that very few public chargers actually deliver that much current, and the channel notes it had to travel to reach one, using an ABB unit at a Walmart site in Colorado Springs. Worth adding for buyers: the overwhelming majority of charging for most owners happens at home overnight, where none of this applies. Peak DC figures decide how a car behaves on a handful of long trips a year, not how it fits into an ordinary week.
The session was not clean, and the video is candid about why. The host reports that an adapter overheated at around 30 percent and triggered a thermal derate, which he says is exactly what a properly certified adapter should do, so he swapped it for a second certified unit and restarted. He estimates the interruption cost about a minute overall, and overlays his earlier 10 to 80 percent recording to show the two curves matching almost exactly, with that earlier run completing in just under 27 minutes against Rivian's quoted 29. One detail he highlights is a small rise in charging power between roughly 67 and 73 percent, which he says appears in more than a dozen R2 sessions he has seen and is programmed behaviour rather than an anomaly. His time-to-charge figures make the practical point sharply: the first ten minutes add about 11 miles of rated range per minute, the third ten minutes add about five, and after 40 minutes the car is gaining under two. On range, the channel reports 264 miles in its own 70 mph highway test against an EPA combined rating of 307 miles, and notes another reviewer recorded slightly less again. His closing advice is to treat 20 minutes as the sensible ceiling for a stop unless the extra range is genuinely needed to reach a destination.
Bottom line: The honest read is that the R2 charges well enough and Rivian spent the money in the right place. Twenty minutes on a decent charger gets you most of what the pack will usefully take, and that is roughly how long a coffee and a stretch take anyway. The number to actually worry about is not the curve, it is the 264 mile highway result against a 307 mile rating. Plan around real range, treat anything above 80 percent as an emergency measure, and this is a perfectly good road trip car.
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.