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The Rivian R2 was designed and engineered differently than the R1. In the name of cost, both for Rivian to build and for consumers to have to pay, the R2 was designed through simplification. Except for one bit: the rear window wiper. That is one piece that is complicated.

Rivian Chief Design Officer Jeff Hammoud, told The Drive, “Yeah, that was something we spent a lot of time debating.” The reason? As the automaker’s CEO, RJ Scaringe put it, nothing like it existed today.

“Where we wanted to have a rear wiper on the drop glass, but we didn’t want it to sit on the body. And so you’ve seen probably cars that have wipers on the body, and then we also didn’t want to put it, we couldn’t put it, in the spoiler, because it was a pass through. 
And so, we actually hid it in that ledge, which is complex, because there’s not any wipers like that. So we had to develop and design a complete wiper system from scratch,” Scaringe said.

This led to challenges, according to Scaringe. “We had to design a way to deal with all the obvious challenges of that, let’s say, it fills with water, and it’s cold outside, how does it not freeze? So it sits in a heated trough. We had to design for ways for it to have a snow mode, so it pops up, it stays out,“ Scaringe said. He continued, “and if you’re in a cold climate, you can set it to pop up just so that there’s no risk of it getting stuck. So there’s a ton of work that went into that. We actually put out an image of it in a cold chamber testing, where the whole car is covered in ice, and the wiper’s still working.”

Hammoud told The Drive, “You can see on the version that doesn’t have it [referring to the wiper in the trough], attached to the glass [pointing to the base Standard trim]. You don’t have to worry about it because it’s integrated. So for this vehicle [referring to the Premium and Performance trims with the inset wiper design], because we have the pass through a spoiler, we can’t put it in the back of the spoiler, right? 
Because it just doesn’t work because it’ll wreck the pass through, which we need for aero. So the other option was we could attach it to the body. Aside from it looking bad, even if it’s attached to the body, you still need a way for it to get off the glass. “

Hammoud continued, “So, I think we came up with a really nice solution that’s very well integrated and hides it, and that way you can get full glass drop. 
And that way when you’re pulling things in and out of the vehicle, it’s not in the way. Because that’s the other problem with the ones that are attached to the body during the way when you’re pulling stuff out.”

But creating an entire rear wiper system from scratch was a hurdle. Scaringe noted, “There’s a whole team that had to work on that.”

“Sweat, nights, and weekends to get that to come together, but it was, as a finished product, what we hope a customer sees is they see it just, as a beautiful detail, and then they’ll [think], when they pull the thread, and they’re like, oh, wow, they’ve thought of you developing the trough properly and developing all the kinematics properly, but those are great details,” Scaringe said.

Scaringe closed the topic by saying, “Came out well. It was hard.”

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The Jeep Renegade left the U.S. market after the 2023 model year. Elsewhere, though, you can still buy one. Brazil, in particular, seems to love ’em. And not only can you still buy a Renegade in Brazil, but it looks to be much better than the one that left our shores years ago, because it’s gotten an exterior touch-up and interior overhaul.

I always find it interesting when certain cars are discontinued in some places, then go on to live their best lives elsewhere. The Renegade sold well out of the gate in the U.S., with Jeep moving well over 100,000 units in the tiny SUV’s first model year, 2015. (Its platform dates back to Fiat and GM products from the mid-aughts—yeah, it’s that old.) But deliveries quickly fell off a cliff and never recovered.

When the Renegade left us, it still had its goofy, squircle-y dashboard. The one Brazil is getting, however, may as well be a new car on the inside.

Hey, that’s a stylish-looking dash, with nice materials in this Willys-badged model, and a larger screen fitted with Stellantis’ latest infotainment. You still get physical climate controls, too, so that digital expansion hasn’t come at a loss elsewhere.

Outside, the latest Renegade continues the model’s slow descent from upbeat to angry to downright unamused. Jeep’s once-cute-ute looks absolutely tired of everyone’s bullshit now, with a furrowed brow atop a restyled grille that picks up some of the Wagoneer S’ three-dimensional cues. Jokes aside, I think this is the best the Renegade has looked yet.

I’m not going to say that the Renegade left us before it should’ve, or that it needs to come back; Stellantis has the data to know what American buyers want, and the Renegade wasn’t it. Yeah, maybe more investment would’ve gotten more buyers on board, but, in the U.S., at least, really small cars have always been a bit of a hard sell. Plus, today there’s the whole tariff upheaval to contend with, and all of these are made in Italy, China, or—you guessed it—Brazil. The new Compass has taken so long to make its way over here for similar reasons.

The Renegade, though, persists. Even in Europe, which received the newer Avenger some years back, it remains an option for subcompact SUV buyers. And good for the little Jeep. It’s good dating advice, and it also rings true for cars: No reason to waste time on people who don’t appreciate you.

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