Finished R2 demo test drive? Share your review / impressions

[Millbarge]

It's noticeable at a standstill, no music on, seats set to high etc. but in regular use while driving, not egregious. Compared to my wife's Mazda CX-5, the R2 is certainly louder but not intrusive IMO.

if it cools my butt, I don't care if it's loud.....

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[jdubea]

It’s all software driven. It senses inputs and triggers the software to do what it senses. I’m no expert at this but those on this forum have said it’s not a hard fix, just needs more refinement on the inputs.

For example, side to side clicks seems a little difficult to do bc it scrolls up too sometimes. So you can trigger the software to only scroll up if there isn’t an immediate side click movement right after. That’s the gist of it I think.

In software land, we call that debouncing.

 

[jdubea]

I would look into seeing if BMW have any UDE events in your area

Were you at the Lenovo Center event this weekend?

It was a welcome surprise to get to autocross an iX3 almost immediately after test driving the R2

 

[mellowthecat]

Were you at the Lenovo Center event this weekend?

It was a welcome surprise to get to autocross an iX3 almost immediately after test driving the R2

I was. The event was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Did you also demo the R2 and iX3 back to back? I thought I might be the only one

 

[rvnxyz001]

It's in the release notes. Things needs refinement for a new product, not unusual.

"Improved Haptic Halo Wheel scroll and click behavior"

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...ar-guard-launch-mode-wifi-hotspot-more.61276/

I don’t think this is something Rivian can completely fix with software. They can prevent a slight rotation from changing anything on the screen, but the wheel may still physically move under your thumb while you press it. That is what makes it feel awkward. Unless they can mechanically lock the rotation before the press starts, or redesign it with a separate button surface, they can probably only reduce the problem rather than fully fix it.

 

[emroch]

I don’t think this is something Rivian can completely fix with software. They can prevent a slight rotation from changing anything on the screen, but the wheel may still physically move under your thumb while you press it. That is what makes it feel awkward. Unless they can mechanically lock the rotation before the press starts, or redesign it with a separate button surface, they can probably only reduce the problem rather than fully fix it.

It's electromechanical, so they can prevent it from moving (or at least prevent it from moving much), the same way it resists and bounces back when you reach the top or bottom of a setting.

I don't think the issue is that it rotates slightly when pressing in/out/sideways, but that the software responds to that rotation. If the software ignored any scrolling action when it detected a directional press, I think the problem would mostly disappear. And increasing the resistance when the steering wheel is turned (and probably also ignoring inputs) would prevent accidental touches from doing anything.

 

[Jeremy3292]

It's electromechanical, so they can prevent it from moving (or at least prevent it from moving much), the same way it resists and bounces back when you reach the top or bottom of a setting.

I don't think the issue is that it rotates slightly when pressing in/out/sideways, but that the software responds to that rotation. If the software ignored any scrolling action when it detected a directional press, I think the problem would mostly disappear. And increasing the resistance when the steering wheel is turned (and probably also ignoring inputs) would prevent accidental touches from doing anything.

Yes, that is what I was trying to say. I'm not a software guy but I know people on here can explain it better than I could haha.

 

[rvnxyz001]

It's electromechanical, so they can prevent it from moving (or at least prevent it from moving much), the same way it resists and bounces back when you reach the top or bottom of a setting.

I don't think the issue is that it rotates slightly when pressing in/out/sideways, but that the software responds to that rotation. If the software ignored any scrolling action when it detected a directional press, I think the problem would mostly disappear. And increasing the resistance when the steering wheel is turned (and probably also ignoring inputs) would prevent accidental touches from doing anything.

I think that is why it will be very hard to get right. The moment you put your thumb on the wheel, a tiny accidental movement can look like the start of a scroll. Then if you press a split second later, the software has to guess what you actually meant. If they make the filtering too aggressive, it may start ignoring real inputs.

What is strange is how much effort seems to have gone into solving a problem that did not really exist. From what I have read, one person came up with the idea, and then the hardware and software teams had to do a huge amount of work just to make it usable.

It is a pretty extreme example of overengineering. A lot of complexity for a small "cool" effect, and the final result is still controversial.

 

[rvnxyz001]

Yes, that is what I was trying to say. I'm not a software guy but I know people on here can explain it better than I could haha.

My issue is not mainly whether the software mistakes a press for a scroll. It is the basic idea of using the wheel itself as a button in several directions.
A wheel naturally feels like something you rotate. Pressing a normal knob straight inward makes sense, but pushing or pulling the rim and nudging it sideways does not...

Even if the software recognizes every input perfectly, those actions are still not clearly communicated by the shape of the control.
Rivian even said scrolling was the obvious use, and then they figured out what to assign to push, pull, and side to side so they could add more functions without adding another button. That sounds like designing interactions around a cool looking object instead of designing the object around natural hand movements. I am not convinced it is good usability.

 

[Jeremy3292]

My issue is not mainly whether the software mistakes a press for a scroll. It is the basic idea of using the wheel itself as a button in several directions.
A wheel naturally feels like something you rotate. Pressing a normal knob straight inward makes sense, but pushing or pulling the rim and nudging it sideways does not...

Even if the software recognizes every input perfectly, those actions are still not clearly communicated by the shape of the control.
Rivian even said scrolling was the obvious use, and then they figured out what to assign to push, pull, and side to side so they could add more functions without adding another button. That sounds like designing interactions around a cool looking object instead of designing the object around natural hand movements. I am not convinced it is good usability.

It's no different then the Tesla scroll wheels on their cars just in a different, larger form though. They are used to go up, down, left, right, in, etc.

 

[racekarl]

My issue is not mainly whether the software mistakes a press for a scroll. It is the basic idea of using the wheel itself as a button in several directions.
A wheel naturally feels like something you rotate. Pressing a normal knob straight inward makes sense, but pushing or pulling the rim and nudging it sideways does not...

Even if the software recognizes every input perfectly, those actions are still not clearly communicated by the shape of the control.
Rivian even said scrolling was the obvious use, and then they figured out what to assign to push, pull, and side to side so they could add more functions without adding another button. That sounds like designing interactions around a cool looking object instead of designing the object around natural hand movements. I am not convinced it is good usability.

Counterpoint: it's more accessible/adaptive. You can perform nearly all the actions from behind using your fingers (as long as you remember the tilt is reversed). For people with thumb issues this allows them to operate the controls with their fingers, which is not possible when the controls are mounted only on the face of the wheel (as in the R1).

 

[iamnid]

It's no different then the Tesla scroll wheels on their cars just in a different, larger form though. They are used to go up, down, left, right, in, etc.

I was thinking the same thing -- the tesla scroll wheels do all of the same directions except for the one where you "pull" it toward yourself.

 

[emroch]

My issue is not mainly whether the software mistakes a press for a scroll. It is the basic idea of using the wheel itself as a button in several directions.
A wheel naturally feels like something you rotate. Pressing a normal knob straight inward makes sense, but pushing or pulling the rim and nudging it sideways does not...

Even if the software recognizes every input perfectly, those actions are still not clearly communicated by the shape of the control.
Rivian even said scrolling was the obvious use, and then they figured out what to assign to push, pull, and side to side so they could add more functions without adding another button. That sounds like designing interactions around a cool looking object instead of designing the object around natural hand movements. I am not convinced it is good usability.

Perhaps it would help if you didn't visualize it as a wheel, but as a disk mounted sideways. Grab it with your thumb on the front and first two fingers on the back, and now you've got a disk that you can rotate, slide, or tilt. The fact that it is accessible from multiple directions is what makes it different than a regular scroll wheel.

 

[rvnxyz001]

Perhaps it would help if you didn't visualize it as a wheel, but as a disk mounted sideways.

Yeah, I can see how it works if I close my eyes. I’ll probably need to wait for eyes-off autonomy

 

[SCSEV]

So just got done with the test drive of the R2. Love how it drove and how nimble it was to maneuver. Glass roof was fine with no excessive heat felt (temp ~90* F). The air conditioning blower was extremely loud. Both my daughter and I thought it was excessive. Very much a de contented R1. Maybe I have become spoiled with having driven a Maybe I have become spoiled with having driven an R1 S tri-motor with the ocean Coast interior the last two years. While there, we looked at the R1 T and really loved it. I personally have never seen one up close or sat in one. I am a bit conflicted now. I’m so used to the R1 content that I’m not sure I want to move to an R2. We will test drive the Tesla’s tomorrow and maybe go back and test drive the R1 T. Then I have a decision to make………..

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