On our first stop, we bring you inside our vehicle Design Studio, give you an in-depth look at motor development in our powertrain test lab and explore some of the unique technology under the sheet metal at our electrical lab in Silicon Valley.
Before development began, we had an idea of what R2 should be, but didn’t yet know exactly what it would look like. Our talented team of designers iterated on ideas while simultaneously working with our engineers to simplify and refine every aspect of the vehicle, ensuring it was not only beautiful to look at, but also efficient to build.
The all-new R2 platform has its own specially developed motor called Maximus. As with the motors used in R1 and our commercial vans, we developed Maximus entirely in-house to be smaller, more cost-efficient and simpler to manufacture. Before vehicle-level validation, we put Maximus—and all our motors— through extremely rigorous testing at our powertrain lab to correlate our models and gather data to understand how they will perform in the harshest conditions throughout their lifetimes.
The electrical lab is where we develop our advanced technology stack. Our streamlined, in-house zonal architecture controls everything from throttle performance to infotainment and autonomy. This integrated set of computer modules also allows us to constantly refine and implement powerful new features via over-the-air updates. And, because we designed every piece of the technology stack ourselves, we can innovate more and move faster than the rest.
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