R2 has Lidar!!!! First look at windshield notch location on R2 (with R2D2 wrap)

[savethemanual]

I don't know how Rivian is going to ship R2's without the lidar for the first half of the year. Who would buy a debut R2 knowing it will be shit before it's a year old?

Me! I have no interest in my R2 driving its self except the hands free when cruise control is set on highway...which it doesn't need lidar for.

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[BigSkies]

Me! I have no interest in my R2 driving its self except the hands free when cruise control is set on highway...which it doesn't need lidar for.

Did they confirm that Lidar will be shipped on all vehicles whether or not the autonomous driving package is selected?

I didn't watch the webinar, but I assume that they'll only attach Lidar to the vehicles with the $2,500 package selected, or sign up for $50/mo for a minimum amount of time..

Lidar ain't cheap.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Me! I have no interest in my R2 driving its self except the hands free when cruise control is set on highway...which it doesn't need lidar for.

Even if this is true, it's still a bad move. What do you suppose the resale value will be for the one without lidar compared to the newer model with it? You'll have a vehicle that's 8 months older than the lidar model but with a significant resale hit. Unless you're going to drive it until the doors fall off buying the one you know is obsolete is a bad choice.

 

[portdirect]

There aren't any lidar notches on any of the R2 units touring the country, right?

Not ones at car shows etc, but they have been visible on the test mules for some time.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Even if this is true, it's still a bad move. What do you suppose the resale value will be for the one without lidar compared to the newer model with it? You'll have a vehicle that's 8 months older than the lidar model but with a significant resale hit. Unless you're going to drive it until the doors fall off buying the one you know is obsolete is a bad choice.

Resale value is never an OEM's concern, especially on base models (which are usually the smallest percentage of total production).

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Resale value is never an OEM's concern, especially on base models (which are usually the smallest percentage of total production).

It IS a concern for buyers.

 

[captainjp]

I think they will all have the hardware, just not active customer-facing. If you look back at validation builds getting dipped, you’ll see that the space for the lidar module is there. Christ, that’s what set off all the speculation about LiDAR to begin with.

Gen 2 R1’s all had RAP cameras that were not active before the latest updates. I don’t see why the same won’t be done in the R2 case.

In order to build out the ground truth database that they’re banking on for self driving, they’ll likely have it on all R2’s to collect data.

 

[Nadus]

I watched the presentation earlier, and I'm more exited than ever to buy an R2. I can't wait until the configurator goes live so I'll know how much this is going to set me back.

I almost felt bad for Tesla engineers watching the presentation, thinking "we would've achieved Level 4 by now if we were allowed to use more than one sensor."

 

[Virtio]

Would have been really exciting if RJ did it Steve Jobs style by saying, "Oh, one more thing, the R2 configurator goes live today at noon!".

 

[Voronbrg]

I really hope there's a serviceable replacement glass for the lidar. I can only imagine how expensive replacing that will cost from a rock.

 

[electruck]

Would have been really exciting if RJ did it Steve Jobs style by saying, "Oh, one more thing, the R2 configurator goes live today at noon!".

meh, he's already played the "one more thing" card with R3.

 

[mkg3]

I really hope there's a serviceable replacement glass for the lidar. I can only imagine how expensive replacing that will cost from a rock.

They said the cost of LiDAR was just few hundred dollars so the replacement probably won't be so bad. Probably less than $1K WAG of course....

 

[savethemanual]

Even if this is true, it's still a bad move. What do you suppose the resale value will be for the one without lidar compared to the newer model with it? You'll have a vehicle that's 8 months older than the lidar model but with a significant resale hit. Unless you're going to drive it until the doors fall off buying the one you know is obsolete is a bad choice.

We don't even know if the lidar is going to be standard, it could very well be optional. There are many details yet that still need to be released which it sounds like they will have a special event early next year all about R2.

 

[mkg3]

We don't even know if the lidar is going to be standard, it could very well be optional. There are many details yet that still need to be released which it sounds like they will have a special event early next year all about R2.

The way they talked about needing to acquire millions of miles and LiDAR milage data before L4 can be achieved, it probably will be a standard equipment if nothing else other than collect driving data - very much like every Tesla is capable of FSD to collect data.

 

[Dark-Fx]

I watched the presentation earlier, and I'm more exited than ever to buy an R2. I can't wait until the configurator goes live so I'll know how much this is going to set me back.

I almost felt bad for Tesla engineers watching the presentation, thinking "we would've achieved Level 4 by now if we were allowed to use more than one sensor."

A viewpoint I hadn't considered till now, this is Rivian advertising that fact to the Tesla team, perhaps also hoping some of their best employees might defect.

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