With more cornering grip and better braking, are these all-terrain tires some sort of magic rubber?
Welcome to Car and Driver's Testing Hub, where we zoom in on the test numbers. We've been pushing vehicles to their limits since 1956 to provide objective data to bolster our subjective impressions (you can see how we test here).
Knobby all-terrain tires do not generally come with an on-road performance benefit. In fact, typically, it’s just the opposite, where improved off-pavement behavior means trading off on-road grip. But this common knowledge does not apply to the new and excellent 2027 Rivian R2, where the SUV’s 20-inch all-terrain tire option significantly out-grips the 21-inch street tire.
See all results for new 2027 Rivian R2 for sale near h3a 2n4
We were just as surprised as anyone when putting a second 656-hp R2 Performance—this one with the all-terrain tires, a $1000 option—through our testing regimen. These rollers resulted in its braking and cornering figures coming in substantially higher than the initial R2 we tested on its more street-oriented 21s. Wearing BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A+ tires, the R2 clung on for 0.84 g on the skidpad, versus 0.81 g with the Pirelli Scorpion MS Elect option. Under braking, the differences were even larger, with the all-terrain R2 stopping in 166 feet from 70 mph and 320 feet from 100 mph, improvements of 12 and 43 feet, respectively.
4 seconds at 128 mph), which is astonishingly quick for a brick-shaped small SUV.
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