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2 years ago

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Consumer Reports is out with its annual owner satisfaction survey, showing Rivian to be far and away the most-loved car brand according to owners. The rating comes soon after Consumer Reports strangely listed the R1S as one of its “least favorite cars we tested in 2023.”

Consumer Reports does an annual survey of its readers, with 330,000 responses from owners of all sorts of vehicles in the 2021-2024 model years. In the past, electric vehicles have ranked well in the survey, and this year is no different, with Rivian topping the list by a commanding margin.

In this year’s rankings, Rivian was the only brand, out of 29, to reach a satisfaction score of 5 out of 5. Six other brands got a 4 out of 5 score, with the biggest chunk of brands receiving a score of 3.

Beyond the satisfaction score, Consumer Reports also asked owners if they would buy from that brand again. In this survey Rivian again ranked the highest, with an 86% score, 9% higher than Mini’s 77% second-place score. And that 9% gap is a big one – it’s the biggest gap between places on the list, with other brands largely being clustered close together, only a percent or two away from each other.

This isn’t the highest “would buy again” score that Consumer Reports’ has ever had, as Tesla has ranked over 90% in the past. Tesla’s score is down significantly from its peaks, which could be a reflection of several factors – slipping service quality, annoyance with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s nonsense, or just simply a move from catering to a smaller and more evangelistic early customer base to becoming a mass market company.

That last factor probably does help Rivian in these rankings, as the company is still rather small, and thus will tend to have a customer base that identifies more fully with the brand and its early mission statements. It also helps that Rivian produces only two vehicles, so its brand score is more a representation of how good those two vehicles are, rather than an entire product line (which, for some other larger brands, might include a few good cars and a few stinkers).

When breaking down owner satisfaction into different categories, Rivian excels in most of these individual categories as well. Rivian shows up as one of the most satisfying vehicles in comfort (alongside several luxury brands), driving (alongside Tesla, sportscar brands, and a couple luxury brands), cabin storage (though well behind Ram), and ownership cost (fuel, maintenance, and so on – where electric cars and Asian automakers did well). The only category that Rivian didn’t rank near the top of is usability of the interface, perhaps due to the car’s heavy use of a digital touchscreen-based interface instead of analog controls.

It’s also true that Rivian’s vehicles have been exceptionally well-reviewed by, well, basically everyone. We loved the R1T and the R1S (Seth owns one, and loves it), and so has basically every other outlet. In fact, the earliest reviews were so good that when I talked to a fellow journalist about how positive they were, they expressed suspicion: “usually there’s at least someone who says something bad about a car, but I’ve heard nothing negative about the R1T.”

Well, except for Consumer Reports. The company’s Talking Cars podcast recently noted that the R1S was one of its “worst cars of 2023”. They stated that the car was too expensive, and was “undriveable” and “nauseating.”

The problem, to Consumer Reports, was that the throttle is too twitchy both on and off throttle. Letting off throttle for regenerative braking felt “lurching” and “unsettling” to the reviewers. They stated that they found it “odd” that owner satisfaction is so high.

So… why the disconnect?

So why would Consumer Reports’ reviewers have such a different take than Rivian’s owners, and than other EV reviewers as well? I think I’ve got an idea.

The issue here seems to be a matter of throttle response. Electric motors can respond more quickly than internal combustion engines can, so it’s possible to build an electric vehicle that responds much more quickly to throttle inputs. For inexperienced drivers or passengers, this can be jarring, especially in the beginning, as cars will feel much more twitchy for any driver with an unstable pedal foot.

If drivers are used to accelerating and coasting (which you shouldn’t do in a gas car anyway – the most efficient driving method is to maintain a steady level of throttle whenever possible), this can make EVs seem jerky. This style of driving is common in an ICE car, because outside of highly-tuned sportscars, ICE cars just don’t respond very quickly to throttle inputs. And the problem usually can be solved by more experience driving an EV, and recognizing that it’s important to have a steady throttle foot to reduce the jerkiness of the drive experience.

For exceptionally powerful EVs, this is even more the case, because smaller throttle inputs produce larger jumps in power. With the Rivian’s quad-motor setup, regenerative braking can also be very strong, and so letting off the accelerator quickly can produce a jarring braking motion.

Some electric vehicles moderate throttle inputs for this reason, either adding a delay or smoothing out inputs to make for more gradual acceleration and deceleration – both the Fisker Ocean and Chevy Blazer EV, which I’ve driven recently, do this. Frankly, I find the “delay” method to be the nauseating one – it means the car is making decisions, instead of me, and those decisions happen at a time that’s not predictable to me, leading to a jerkier ride. This was the worst spot, to me, in my reviews of both of those vehicles.

VW Group vehicles have a different method – they only allow for light regen off-throttle, and instead use blended brakes to engage higher regen when pressing the brake pedal, only activating friction brakes if you push the brake pedal deeper. But this means “one pedal driving,” which is so popular among EV drivers, is not really possible in these cars.

These solutions are different than the one Rivian has taken, which is to just give you strong regen all the time and let the driver have control over what the vehicle is doing.

The Rivian’s regen is adjustable, but less so than some other vehicles. Some vehicles like the Chevy Bolt have easily-adjustable regen by using paddles on the back of the steering wheel (and the Bolt’s is probably the best regenerative braking system out there all told). On the Rivian, you need to change the setting on a screen menu and there’s no way to turn it all the way off. This has in fact been an area of criticism for Rivians, as some have called for more adjustability to the regen system (and they’re probably right).

This strong regen does tend to shock newer EV drivers, or people who don’t drive EVs full time. But among the longtime EV owners I know, almost all of them prefer strong and responsive regenerative braking, and have learned to moderate their throttle inputs effectively to ensure proper command over the vehicle and also maintain a smooth ride. And I notice the same as a passenger in an EV – it’s usually a smoother ride when the driver is more EV-experienced than when they’re more used to gas cars.

So this could explain it – for a reviewer who doesn’t drive EVs full time, who has a lifetime experience driving relatively unresponsive gas cars before moving to one of the most torquey and responsive cars on the road today, the shocking difference in how quickly power is available could make it hard to adjust. Heck, I had this issue when I drove my Tesla Roadster to test out a Plaid Model S – despite being from the same brand, and the Roadster being incredibly responsive, the Model S still knocked me for a loop with ~4x as much horsepower as I was used to.

Meanwhile, for Rivian owners, who are used to their vehicles, they don’t see what the problem is. The vehicle responds as they expect it to respond, they’ve gotten used to it, and they love the instant availability of torque, the feeling that the vehicle is almost reading your mind as it’s electric motors respond more quickly than any big diesel truck you’ve experienced.

So, this is something to keep in mind for electric vehicle test drives in general – regen could be shocking to you to begin with, but if you take some time to get used to it, to get some practice moderating your throttle inputs in a way that you haven’t had to do before with most gas cars, maybe you too can reach a new level of satisfaction with your car – just like the Rivian owners in this survey have.

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Tesla is bleeding AI talent to a small new robotics start-up

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26 mins ago

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November 24, 2025

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Tesla is bleeding AI talent to a small new robotics start-up


Tesla’s AI and robotics divisions are facing a significant “brain drain” as a stealth startup called Sunday Robotics emerges with a roster of engineers from Tesla’s Optimus and Autopilot teams.

We are used to seeing Tesla executives leave, especially to other AI giants, as the competition ramps up and large compensation packages are being thrown around left and right.

However, this feels different. Sunday Robotics isn’t a Fortune 500 company poaching Tesla engineers with big packages. It is a tiny startup that just came out of stealth with a funding round that would be a rounding error in Tesla’s financials.

Sunday Robotics officially emerged from stealth today, announcing $35 million in funding led by Benchmark and Conviction.

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The startup, founded by Stanford roboticists Tony Zhao and Cheng Chi (Zhao previously interned at Tesla Autopilot), has recruited an impressive bunch of senior Tesla engineering leadership.  

The list of departures includes:

  • Nishant Desai: an almost 5-year veteran at Tesla’s machine learning team working on Autopilot and FSD.
  • Nadeesha Amarasinghe: The former Engineering Lead for AI Infrastructure at Tesla. He was responsible for the massive backend systems that train FSD and Optimus. He was at Tesla for moer than 7 years.
  • Perry Jia: A key engineer on the Optimus and Autopilot programs. He spent almost 6 years at Tesla and led the data engine programs. Now, he leads Data Operations at Sunday.

This isn’t just random attrition. Sunday Robotics has effectively poached a “full stack” of robotic and AI engineers from Tesla.

They also recruited other employees from Tesla, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see more join, as Jason Peterson, a talent recruiter for Tesla’s Optimus and Robotaxi programs, confirmed that he also left Tesla in September to join Sunday.

What is Sunday Robotics?

So, what are these engineers leaving Tesla to build?

Sunday Robotics is taking a different path than Tesla’s general-purpose humanoid. Their debut robot, Memo, is a wheeled domestic robot designed for household chores such as cleaning dishes and folding laundry.  

By ditching the legs (Optimus is bipedal), Sunday claims they can focus entirely on dexterity and reliability. The robot is trained on a massive dataset of 10 million behavioral episodes, which the company claims gives it a “ChatGPT moment” for physical movement.  

The most interesting technical divergence from Tesla is how Sunday collects data.

Tesla relies heavily on VR teleoperation suits to train Optimus. Operators wear motion-capture suits and mimic tasks in a lab. It’s high-fidelity, but it’s slow and expensive. Tesla now claims to also train just on video.

Sunday Robotics has a different approach this with a $200 ‘Skill Capture Glove’. They distributed these gloves to hundreds of ordinary people (“Memory Developers”) who recorded themselves doing chores in their own messy homes.  

This allowed Sunday to crowdsource 10 million episodes of real-world data, messy kitchens, weird lighting, and cats jumping on counters at a fraction of the cost of Tesla’s teleoperation labs.

The gloves also reflect Memo’s much less complicated hands, which can make them more reliable and cheaper.

Electrek’s Take

Elon Musk is telling anyone willing to listen that Tesla is ahead of the competition when it comes to “real-world AI” and robotics.

He claims that Tesla will start producing Optimus robots in the millions of units starting next year and it will eventually “end poverty.”

Not many people who are serious about robotics take these claims seriously.

Many other companies are developing humanoid robots, and Tesla shows no evidence of being ahead of the pack, while there are still many obstacles to make them useful at scale.

A company like Sunday has a less ambitious but more realistic approach that could pay off, and it is convincing some Tesla engineers to jump ship.


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Environment

Arkansas turns on its first-ever utility-scale wind farm

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47 mins ago

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November 24, 2025

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Arkansas turns on its first-ever utility-scale wind farm

Crossover Wind Arkansas first wind farm

Photo: Cordelio Power

Cordelio Power’s 135 MW Crossover Wind farm is officially up and running in Cross County, Arkansas, west of Memphis, Tennessee. It is now officially the first operating wind farm in Arkansas.

“We are proud to announce that Crossover Wind is now generating electricity as the first utility-scale wind project in the state of Arkansas,” said Nick Karambelas, Cordelio Power’s chief development officer.

The project will deliver 100% of its power to Microsoft under a 20-year power purchase agreement. Independent power producer Cordelio says Crossover will pay about $950,000 a year to Cross County and more than $50 million to local landowners over the project’s lifetime without disrupting farming practices.

“We’re especially thankful for the strong collaboration from Cross County officials, landowners, and the broader community, which has been instrumental in bringing this project to life,” Karambelas added.

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M.A. Mortenson handled the construction, and Vestas supplied 32 US-made V-163 4.5 MW turbines. Vestas will also handle long-term operations and maintenance.

Cordelio acquired the project in late 2023 from Steelhead Americas, Vestas’ North American development arm, which started development in 2020.

Read more: Solar and wind are covering all new power demand in 2025

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Your personalized heat pump quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here. – *ad


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Anker SOLIX C2000 Gen 2 power station hits new $679 low + PowerCore Reserve at $80, Mammotion RTK robot mowers from $649, more

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2 hours ago

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November 24, 2025

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Anker SOLIX C2000 Gen 2 power station hits new 9 low + PowerCore Reserve at , Mammotion RTK robot mowers from 9, more


We’re kicking off this week’s Green Deals with a continued Black Friday extravaganza – with this issue containing a mix of single-focus deals and massive roundups. Our headliner comes as part of Anker’s SOLIX Black Friday Sale, with the brand launching a 4-day flash sale on a small selection of power stations, including the latest SOLIX C2000 Gen 2 Portable Power Station at a new $679 low. Right behind that, we have a nice array of Mammotion RTK Robot Lawn Mowers at some of their lowest prices at Amazon and Wellbots starting from $649, as well as Anker’s popular PowerCore Reserve 60,000mAh/192Wh Portable Power Station at $80. There’s also EV charging lows from Schumacher, a massive Greenworks Black Friday roundup, Best Buy’s collection of daily deals, and much more waiting for you below. And don’t forget about the hangover deals from last week that are collected together at the bottom of the page in our latest edition of Electrified Weekly.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

Anker’s 4-day SOLIX Black Friday flash sale drops latest C2000 gen 2 power station to new $679 low ($820 off)

As part of its expanded Black Friday Sale, Anker SOLIX is offering 4-day flash savings on four different bundles, three of which are keeping the same low prices while switching up the FREE gear you’ll be getting with them, while one is actually dropping costs lower than before. That latter deal mentioned is on Anker’s new SOLIX C2000 Gen 2 Portable Power Station for $679.15 shipped, which also matches in price at Amazon. It’s been carrying a $1,499 price tag since launching at the end of October, with the discounts we’ve seen in its short time on the market having dropped costs to $799 and $749, until the brand’s Black Friday event first brought things lower to $699. Now, you can score it at an even better price, with $820 cut from the tag for a new all-time low rate. Head below for more on this unit and the others benefiting from this flash sale.

Not only does Anker’s SOLIX C2000 Gen 2 power station come as an upgrade from the legacy F2000 unit, but right now it’s even beating out that older model’s price by $120, making this deal all the better. This new model comes more compact and lighter than before with a starting 2,048Wh LiFePO4 battery capacity that can expand up to 4,096Wh with an expansion battery (which you can find bundled on the station’s landing page). There are 11 ports to choose from for your needs (5x AC, 3x USB-C, and solo TT-30R, USB-A, and car ports), with it providing 2,400W to 4,000W of max output when surging.

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There are six main ways to recharge its own battery, with an AC outlet or a gas generator putting it at 100% in 88 minutes, while utilizing its max 800W solar input gets you there in up to three hours. You can also use both AC and solar charging at the same time to hit 100% in up to 58 minutes, or if you’re driving, either use your car’s auxiliary port for up to 23 hours or the new 800W alternator charger for faster speeds.

Anker’s SOLIX Black Friday 4-Day flash sale offers:

As I mentioned, there’s the massive lineup of Anker SOLIX Black Friday deals that you can view here, with increased savings up to 70% off, free gifts, and more starting from $150.

father and daughter planting tree in yard while Mammotion YUKA Mini 500H robot lawn mower cuts grass

Upgrade your lawn care with up to 35% Black Friday savings on Mammotion RTK robot mowers from $649

During Amazon’s Black Friday Sale event, the official Mammotion storefront is offering up to 35% savings across various models of its robot lawn mowers, with prices starting lowest on the YUKA Mini 500H Robotic Lawn Mower at $649 shipped. You’d have to shell out $999 for this model at full price, which discounts have previously dropped to this same low rate twice before, while others kept costs higher at $779 or more. Picking one up here not only automates your lawn care routine, but you’ll be doing so with $350 cut from the tag at the lowest price we have tracked. Head below for all the other Mammotion robot models we’re seeing discounted for the holidays.

If you want to learn more about this model or browse the full lineup of offers we’ve collected from Amazon and Wellbots, be sure to check out our original coverage of these deals here.

anker powercore reserve power station on picnic table charging laptop and iPhone

As part of the ongoing Amazon Black Friday Sale, Anker’s official storefront is offering its popular PowerCore Reserve 60,000mAh Portable Power Station back at $79.98 shipped in both colorways, which matches the price we’re seeing directly from the brand’s website. Fetching $150 at full price and regularly seeing Prime exclusive discounts to $110, it’s during major events like Black Friday (as well as random windows throughout other months) that we often see it dip below $100 to either $90 or $80, with there having been a once-off drop to the $75 low back in July that hasn’t been seen since. You’re getting the opportunity to score it at the next-best price this holiday season, cutting $70 off the going rate and giving you quite the portable means to keep personal devices up and running.

If you want to learn more about this compact backup power solution, be sure to check out our original coverage of this deal here.

Schumacher level 1 ev charger in trunk of car
Promotional image of Greenworks tools in large garage/warehouse
Best Buy Black Friday deals of the day featuring an e-scooter, lawn mower, more

Best Fall EV deals!

Best new Green Deals landing this week

The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.


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