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The surprise R3 and R3X got all the hype, but the boring SUV is the one you’re going to buy.
Rivian’s “one more thing” turned out to be the one big thing. At the end of its Orange County event to showcase R2, the $45,000 SUV meant to carry the EV brand into the mainstream, founder R.J. Scaringe rolled out a surprise (or two): The previously unannounced, even smaller R3 and the R3X, a “rally-inspired crossover designed for whatever you throw at it.”
Car internet was set aflame. Indeed, the R3X in particular looks like a 2020s take on the hot hatch. It echoes automotive shapes that have become endangered in our trucks-and-crossovers-only car market. Lustful posts ensued, leading onlookers to suggest Scaringe and company were taken aback that the immediate response to the R3s may have overshadowed the vehicle everyone had gathered in Laguna Beach to see in the first place.
Never mind the online thirst. It’s still R2 that matters.
There has always been a disconnect between car enthusiasts (which includes auto journalists) and the car-buying public. Passionate gearheads fall in love with quirky cars, fun shapes, and models that put the driving experience first, and evangelize those whenever possible. They cry out for more compact trucks and hot hatches; car shoppers go out and buy Toyota RAV4s and Ford F-150s.
Of course the obsessed cohort fell in love with R3. Look at that thing. With a big hatch and cool slant at the back when seen in side profile, it reminds me just a little of my collegiate 1994 Ford Escort hatchback, but powerful and nice. The R2, meanwhile, is expected. It appears to be exactly like the shrunk-down version of the R1S one would have predicted. That doesn’t inspire an outpouring of lust. But it is still important if Rivian is going to survive, much less thrive.
Despite the love from EV enthusiasts, Rivian is in a dark place as it teases its bright future. The company laid off 10% of its workforce two weeks ago in the face of flat sales numbers and hit pause on a billion-dollar Georgia factory that would build the newly announced models. It is far from a sure thing the startup will endure long enough to actually build these cars.
The R2 is the key. As a mid-sized crossover with a price starting in the mid-$40,000s, it is positioned in the same place as the Model Y — a vehicle that allowed Tesla to make the leap from selling a respectable number of Model S’s and X’s to selling the world’s most popular vehicle. Rivian must pull off a similar trick to go mainstream. Its R1Ts and R1Ss, which start around $70,000, were never going to sell at a high volume. R2 is the make-or-break ride.
Yes, its design is a little predictable if you’ve already seen the R1 series. So what? It still looks cool, and the kind of buyers who need to pick Rivian for the brand to survive choose their vehicles by practicality as much as aesthetics. If Scaringe can deliver range and cargo space at that $45,000 price range, and especially if federal tax credits for buying an EV still exist in 2026, then R2 is probably the Rivian they’ll pick.
That goes for me, too. Ever since the R2’s existence became known, I thought it might be my next EV after our Tesla Model 3. The moment R3 rolled onto the stage, I was sold by the retro shape and the idea of its price tag in the sub-$40,000 range and ready to change my mind. But I have a kid now. And a dog. And a space-eating stroller. And, like most Americans, I’ll probably talk myself into the bigger car.
So far, 68,000 people have been sufficiently impressed to spend $100 to secure a place in line for the R2. That’s a nice infusion of $6.8 million for Rivian, but a drop in the bucket compared to the billions that the company must spend each year to get the R2 online while still building enough R1s to stay afloat.
It also doesn’t tell us much about what’s to come. As InsideEVs notes, many people who paid to pre-reserve a Ford F-150 Lightning or Tesla Cybertruck didn’t follow through on the purchase once the vehicle came to market. I, for one, didn’t follow through on my own Model 3 reservation for at least a year, when I moved to Los Angeles and was ready to own an electric car. Most likely, a host of potentially interested buyers are in wait-and-see mode when it comes to R2 rather than feeling like they need to be at the front of the line.
Even so, there’s reason to believe R2 interest will last. The EV market will look a lot different by 2026, with many more models competing in the mid-sized crossover space that Rivian needs to win. But a Ford EV looks like a Ford, and a Rivian looks like the future. And if the R2 does its job, then the faithful may indeed get their electric version of the Lancia Delta.
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Did a battery plant disaster in California spark a PR crisis on the East Coast?
Battery fire fears are fomenting a storage backlash in New York City – and it risks turning into fresh PR hell for the industry.
Aggrieved neighbors, anti-BESS activists, and Republican politicians are galvanizing more opposition to battery storage in pockets of the five boroughs where development is actually happening, capturing rapt attention from other residents as well as members of the media. In Staten Island, a petition against a NineDot Energy battery project has received more than 1,300 signatures in a little over two months. Two weeks ago, advocates – backed by representatives of local politicians including Rep. Nicole Mallitokis – swarmed a public meeting on the project, getting a local community board to vote unanimously against the project.
According to Heatmap Pro’s proprietary modeling of local opinion around battery storage, there are likely twice as many strong opponents than strong supporters in the area:
Heatmap Pro
Yesterday, leaders in the Queens community of Hempstead enacted a year-long ban on BESS for at least a year after GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, other local politicians, and a slew of aggrieved residents testified in favor of a moratorium. The day before, officials in the Long Island town of Southampton said at a public meeting they were ready to extend their battery storage ban until they enshrined a more restrictive development code – even as many energy companies testified against doing so, including NineDot and solar plus storage developer Key Capture Energy. Yonkers also recently extended its own battery moratorium.
This flurry of activity follows the Moss Landing battery plant fire in California, a rather exceptional event caused by tech that was extremely old and a battery chemistry that is no longer popular in the sector. But opponents of battery storage don’t care – they’re telling their friends to stop the community from becoming the next Moss Landing. The longer this goes on without a fulsome, strident response from the industry, the more communities may rally against them. Making matters even worse, as I explained in The Fight earlier this year, we’re seeing battery fire concerns impact solar projects too.
“This is a huge problem for solar. If [fires] start regularly happening, communities are going to say hey, you can’t put that there,” Derek Chase, CEO of battery fire smoke detection tech company OnSight Technologies, told me at Intersolar this week. “It’s going to be really detrimental.”
I’ve long worried New York City in particular may be a powder keg for the battery storage sector given its omnipresence as a popular media environment. If it happens in New York, the rest of the world learns about it.
I feel like the power of the New York media environment is not lost on Staten Island borough president Vito Fossella, a de facto leader of the anti-BESS movement in the boroughs. Last fall I interviewed Fossella, whose rhetorical strategy often leans on painting Staten Island as an overburdened community. (At least 13 battery storage projects have been in the works in Staten Island according to recent reporting. Fossella claims that is far more than any amount proposed elsewhere in the city.) He often points to battery blazes that happen elsewhere in the country, as well as fears about lithium-ion scooters that have caught fire. His goal is to enact very large setback distance requirements for battery storage, at a minimum.
“You can still put them throughout the city but you can’t put them next to people’s homes – what happens if one of these goes on fire next to a gas station,” he told me at the time, chalking the wider city government’s reluctance to capitulate on batteries to a “political problem.”
Well, I’m going to hold my breath for the real political problem in waiting – the inevitable backlash that happens when Mallitokis, D’Esposito, and others take this fight to Congress and the national stage. I bet that’s probably why American Clean Power just sent me a notice for a press briefing on battery safety next week …
And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – They really don’t want you to sign a solar lease out in the rural parts of this otherwise very pro-renewables state.
2. Logan County, Ohio – Staff for the Ohio Power Siting Board have recommended it reject Open Road Renewables’ Grange Solar agrivoltaics project.
3. Bandera County, Texas – On a slightly brighter note for solar, it appears that Pine Gate Renewables’ Rio Lago solar project might just be safe from county restrictions.
Here’s what else we’re watching…
In Illinois, Armoracia Solar is struggling to get necessary permits from Madison County.
In Kentucky, the mayor of Lexington is getting into a public spat with East Kentucky Power Cooperative over solar.
In Michigan, Livingston County is now backing the legal challenge to Michigan’s state permitting primacy law.
On the week’s top news around renewable energy policy.
1. IRA funding freeze update – Money is starting to get out the door, finally: the EPA unfroze most of its climate grant funding it had paused after Trump entered office.
2. Scalpel vs. sledgehammer – House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled Republicans in Congress may take a broader approach to repealing the Inflation Reduction Act than previously expected in tax talks.
3. Endangerment in danger – The EPA is reportedly urging the White House to back reversing its 2009 “endangerment” finding on air pollutants and climate change, a linchpin in the agency’s overall CO2 and climate regulatory scheme.