The BMW price gap is at least $10k. For those who go on 600-mile-plus road trips more than a few times each year and do not hunt, fish, camp, hike, etc., and prefer established Euro badging--maybe spending an extra $10k makes sense.
Subaru had made their entire business on ground clearance and good AWD. People all across the northern half of the country love the extra ground clearance and AWD in the snow and woods.
Go for it the BMW or the Volvo. That's great to have choice, but my point still stands, that the only reason you are shopping those vehicles is due to limited choices. Or do you believe 4Runner buyers considered a Volvo or BMW gas car first? What about Subaru owners? They shopping BMWs?
That's a very fair point in this discussion.
Hahaha, yeah, I figured it might at best case extract some text, or worst, drop into a work queue for some grunts to transcribe
but I guess maybe you'll get some feedback at some point?
Tesla doesn't give any significant amount of discounts but Rivian certainly does.
It's just a smart decision to offer it. They have a huge customer base that likes to go to the mountains in the winter. That rating is the difference between chain carry requirements or not.
It is true that actual off road ability is a minority (for the wider population, although. Vocal group on the forum) need or desire in this segment. The appearance of off road ability is a different matter.
Pretty much this. People want the APPEARANCE of a vehicle looking off-roadish. It’s easy money for the manufacturers. Throw on some off-road tires, give it extra inch of ground clearance, and throw on some extra plastic cladding. Then charge a few thousand dollars extra and soccer moms eat that
up 
We have zero need for offroad ability, but find R2 appealing for (among many other things) what I guess I'd call edge case resilience. This spring we've had an above-average number of heavy storms with enough water flow in the streets to discourage driving during the downpour and then make parking challenging for days afterwards in low-lying areas with ponded standing water. I will feel a lot better about driving R2 around on those days than our current pavement-only cars.
Exactly. Our Wrangler Rubicon looks amazing parked at Publix. Sometimes there's a LOT of sand in the parking lot!
What's dumb is that this ends up making the vehicle objectively worse at its main function of transport as the AT tires end up being noisier and less fuel efficient.Pretty much this. People want the APPEARANCE of a vehicle looking off-roadish. Hence we get stuff like this. It’s easy money for the manufacturers. Throw on some off-road tires, give it extra inch of ground clearance, and throw on some extra plastic cladding. Chage a few thousand dollars extra and soccer moms ear that
That’s how’s we get the CRV Trailsport and Palisade SXT. I’d argue that Rivian owners are probably more predisposed to off-roading than most, but would still account for an overwhelming minority of all Rivian owners.
Now this is one "offroad adjacent" feature we dig on, living in an area with a lot of flooding issues (2 blocks from the ocean, 2 blocks the other way to the ICW).
