R2 (Esker Silver) Road Trip Report

[Jtg11]

All, I took delivery of my Esker Silver R2 with 20/AT wheel/tire option on last Wednesday 7/8/2026 and promptly took a road trip over the weekend from Dayton, OH to Madison, WI (about 1000 miles round trip) for my nephews wedding. I have Gen 1 R!T and Gen 1 R1S, so all my comparisons are to my Gen 1 vehicles.

A couple quick observations.

• - R2 drives great, smooth and quiet.
• - Universal Hands Free was really good. My wife, who refuses to use anything but basic cruise control on the R1, even used the UHF and was starting to get a little confidence. Lane change on command was a little aggressive for my liking as it was pretty harsh and quick making it a bit jerky on the recentering in the new lane. I found myself initiating the turn signal and then taking over for a more smooth lane transition for the comfort of my passengers. I will say that it is a seamless takeover and does not fight you when you take over.
• - Averaged about 2.7 m/kwh on the highway driving between 75-80. I did not monitor this too closely, but the one current drive average on highway stated 2.7
• - Did not have my CCS1 to NACS adapter yet, so used Tesla surperchargers and one IONNA. Superchargers were a bit slow maxing out at about 180 kw. Never saw above 180 kw, even at low SOC, on a Supercharger. IONNA when straight to about 210 kw.
• - Mapping and Navigation, with this early build, was a little buggy. I expect this to get all fixed quickly. Routing was not great … much worse than my R1s, so something is different with the R2 build. While charging, I constantly had to end trip and replan to get SOC at arrival of next destination. There were a bunch of other similar small buggy stuff going on as well. I am a very experienced EV road tripper, none of this was a big deal. I expect all this to get fixed quickly since the R1 is really good Can chalk it up to the early build of the new software stack.
• - Plenty of room for all of our stuff and one of my nephews (25 year old, 6’1” 190 lbs) rode along in the back seat and was very comfortable.
• - Only issues were some missing functionality in the software that we know is coming quickly.
• - I had folks at multiple charging spots ask me about it, so awareness is pretty high.
• - My Daughter, driving her 2021 Model Y, made same trip at same time except from Cincinnati, so on the way home, basically drove together the whole way to Indianapolis and the stops and times were basically identical.

Overall, really impressed with the R2.

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[Mos Eisley]

Thanks for the details! Could I beg you for some exterior pics of your Esker Silver? Still can't make up my mind and there's virtually no recent and real-world pics of the Silver.

 

[SANZC02]

All, I took delivery of my Esker Silver R2 with 20/AT wheel/tire option on last Wednesday 7/8/2026 and promptly took a road trip over the weekend from Dayton, OH to Madison, WI (about 1000 miles round trip) for my nephews wedding. I have Gen 1 R!T and Gen 1 R1S, so all my comparisons are to my Gen 1 vehicles.

A couple quick observations.

- R2 drives great, smooth and quiet.
- Universal Hands Free was really good. My wife, who refuses to use anything but basic cruise control on the R1, even used the UHF and was starting to get a little confidence. Lane change on command was a little aggressive for my liking as it was pretty harsh and quick making it a bit jerky on the recentering in the new lane. I found myself initiating the turn signal and then taking over for a more smooth lane transition for the comfort of my passengers. I will say that it is a seamless takeover and does not fight you when you take over.
- Averaged about 2.7 m/kwh on the highway driving between 75-80. I did not monitor this too closely, but the one current drive average on highway stated 2.7
- Did not have my CCS1 to NACS adapter yet, so used Tesla surperchargers and one IONNA. Superchargers were a bit slow maxing out at about 180 kw. Never saw above 180 kw, even at low SOC, on a Supercharger. IONNA when straight to about 210 kw.
- Mapping and Navigation, with this early build, was a little buggy. I expect this to get all fixed quickly. Routing was not great … much worse than my R1s, so something is different with the R2 build. While charging, I constantly had to end trip and replan to get SOC at arrival of next destination. There were a bunch of other similar small buggy stuff going on as well. I am a very experienced EV road tripper, none of this was a big deal. I expect all this to get fixed quickly since the R1 is really good Can chalk it up to the early build of the new software stack.
- Plenty of room for all of our stuff and one of my nephews (25 year old, 6’1” 190 lbs) rode along in the back seat and was very comfortable.
- Only issues were some missing functionality in the software that we know is coming quickly.
- I had folks at multiple charging spots ask me about it, so awareness is pretty high.
- My Daughter, driving her 2021 Model Y, made same trip at same time except from Cincinnati, so on the way home, basically drove together the whole way to Indianapolis and the stops and times were basically identical.

Overall, really impressed with the R2.

Nice write up, thanks for sharing.

Curious were any of the Superchargers V4? I find on my trips in the G1 R1S that I get fewer messages about session slowed by charger and higher speeds on the V4 chargers.

 

[DaveA]

Congrats, but my question is how you snagged an Esker Silver one that had an 8-12 week lead time.

 

[Jtg11]

Nice write up, thanks for sharing.

Curious were any of the Superchargers V4? I find on my trips in the G1 R1S that I get fewer messages about session slowed by charger and higher speeds on the V4 chargers.

One was a v4 cabinet, still maxed out at about 180 ... although I may have been a bit higher SOC on that one.

 

[junglebird]

Some have speculated the Esker Silver might have a lot of glare on the hood. Did you have any problems with glare?

 

[Mos Eisley]

Congrats, but my question is how you snagged an Esker Silver one that had an 8-12 week lead time.

FWIW it's no longer listed as delayed on the build website.

 

[DaveA]

FWIW it's no longer listed as delayed on the build website.

Must've been too many people waiting on that color to hold back any longer.

 

[Jeremy3292]

One was a v4 cabinet, still maxed out at about 180 ... although I may have been a bit higher SOC on that one.

Non-Tesla vehicles are limited to 500 amps on all superchargers no matter the version. IONNA can provide 600+ amps on the Alpitronic units to R2. This is why IONNA will always charge a little faster when the SOC is very low, at least until Tesla allows for more than 500 amps to non-Tesla vehicles. Once you're north of 30% or so they're the same. R1 cannot take more than 500 amps so it's a non-issue for them.

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