Out of Spec Reviews judges an electric car as a road tripper with one number: charge for 15 minutes from 10 percent, then drive at a constant 80 mph until you are back at 10 percent, and see how far you got. A 2026 Rivian R2 Launch Edition managed 92.8 miles. The charging half of that was the good half. The video reports the car held 600 amps from 10 percent all the way to roughly 32 percent, peaked near 229 kW, and took on 48.3 kWh inside the 15 minute window, moving from 10 to 59 percent at an average of 193 kW. The driving half was not the good half. It averaged 2.2 miles per kWh.
The charging figure comes with an asterisk that runs in the R2's favour. The test used a 600 amp site, and the video says the car actually requested 650 amps during the initial handshake, so the first third of the curve was limited by the hardware in the ground rather than by anything in the car. That matters for how the result ages. US fast charging hardware is being upgraded quickly, including the forecourt conversions we covered yesterday, and the host says Rivian is planning 650 amp cables for its own network. A car that is charger limited today gets quicker as the ground catches up, which is an unusual position for a 400 volt vehicle to be in, and it is the part of the R2 story Rivian arguably undersold after taking plenty of criticism for not going to 800 volts.
The efficiency result is the story. The video puts this R2 at 87.9 kWh usable on a 400 volt architecture with a rear primary drive unit that decouples the front motor while cruising, running 21 inch tyres in a square 255/55 R21 fitment set to 44 psi cold. It returned 2.2 miles per kWh at a GPS verified 80 mph. Two days earlier the same channel ran a Model Y Performance through the identical test and reported 3.29 miles per kWh, but only around 103 miles overall, because its charging was much weaker. The host calls the two cars opposites and places the R2 in his acceptable band of 75 to 100 miles, alongside a first generation R1S at 87 miles, rather than the 100 to 150 band he treats as a good road tripper.
A couple of things are worth flagging about the test. The car was borrowed from a viewer who runs a Rivian-focused channel, had just over 1,000 miles on it, and had its 20 inch all-terrain tyres swapped for the 21 inch road setup before the run, so this is the best case rubber. The video is also sponsored by the charging network whose station was used for the session. None of that invalidates the numbers, and the channel is open about all of it on camera, but it is context a reader should have. The host says he preferred the Rivian's trade-off anyway, on the grounds that charging speed holds up in cold and wind while efficiency does not.
Bottom line: Rivian made a defensible bet and then buried the good news. The charging performance here is genuinely strong for a 400 volt car, strong enough that the infrastructure is the bottleneck rather than the vehicle. The problem is that 2.2 miles per kWh at motorway speed hands most of that advantage straight back. If you road trip occasionally and mostly charge at home, none of this will bother you. If you drive long distances at 80 mph regularly, wait to see what the standard trim and the smaller wheels do before you commit.
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.