Review: Rivian R1T and R1S

Two days after I pulled into Death Valley, California, to test the Rivian R1T, a sandstorm rolled through. Not quite biblical, more Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. So intense was the weather, cellular towers quit working and nobody was able to keep their eyes open long enough to find the slat-board general store that was providing refuge. Worse, we couldn't find the only saloon. It turns out these were perfect conditions for testing a rugged EV from a newbie brand looking to make its mark. 

Not long after my California sojourn, I was cruising around lush, forested upstate New York in an R1S, the SUV version of Rivian's truck. This model has its sights firmly set on Range Rover's customers, and it will arrive before the British brand even gets its first legitimate hybrid out of the gate.

The R1T starts at $73,000, and the R1S starts at $78,000, and the options add up fast. The loaner R1T that I drove was optioned up to a cool $90,000, but in truth the options were just gravy on an already stellar truck. You could buy the base-level model without any options or upgrades at all, and you'd still get all the best parts of the R1T. 

I put 1,300 miles on the R1T in all kinds of conditions—from Los Angeles rush-hour traffic to open highway, cold mountain roads to off-road desert trails. Later I drove another 100 miles on an R1T and an R1S through rural New York, finishing on a muddy off-road trail just to be sure. Here’s why it is, to date, the highest-rated EV I’ve reviewed.

Tent camping wasn’t going to happen the first night the sandstorm hit, obviously. Cruising on the last 30 miles of juice in the Rivian’s 300-mile battery range, I found Death Valley’s only charging stations—four slow chargers powered by an array of solar panels—and bunked down for the night. 

I never sleep well in cars, but with the driver’s seat leaned all the way back and the charging station pulsing slowly as it fed the Rivian’s batteries, I nodded off in no time. Automakers have gotten awfully good at creating synthetic leather that can be mistaken for the real thing. The R1T’s faux-leather seats could’ve fooled anyone, and even after several 12-hour days driving (and sleeping in) the Rivian, I never once felt a pang of discomfort.

R1T

Photograph: Rivian

I didn't spend much time riding in the back seat, but with a touchscreen for the rear-facing climate controls and a comfortable fold-down armrest, the second rows of both the R1T and R1S were as comfortable as the front seats. The R1S has a third row of seats for a total of seven passengers. There's no option for second-row captain's chairs (two individual seats) instead of the three-person bench. Both rows fold flat, as is typical, and should be expected in an SUV these days.

The standard trim features ash-wood interior panels. They’re available in two colors: brown and black. What impressed me most is that they weren’t covered in a thick layer of plasticky varnish, like the wood trim of most cars. The stain used on the wood is just enough to color it, and when you run your finger over the surface you can feel the wood grain. The carpeting is equally tactile and includes woven floor mats from Chilewich. They provided a nice, distinctive design detail, whereas most floor mats are plain old carpet or rubber.

You can store whatever you like in the pass-through gear tunnel that runs horizontally below the front of the truck bed. It serves as a second lockable trunk, in addition to the front trunk under what we’d normally call the hood in an internal-combustion-engine (ICE) truck. There’s plenty of room for a load of groceries in the frunk, and I carried around a couple of large duffel bags and a backpack in there with room to spare. There’s even a handy dedicated Bluetooth speaker with subwoofer, tweeter, and two mid-range speakers that stores under the center console and can be removed entirely from the cabin. If only all car manufacturers had such attention to detail.

The interior features ash wood paneling.

Photograph: Elliot Ross/Rivian

The user interface of the rectangular 15.6-inch touchscreen is the best of any all-screen infotainment center I’ve seen yet. It’s all the more impressive because a towing, hauling, off-roading, commuting truck like the R1T has so many more driving configurations than, say, the Polestar 2, which has a similarly industry-leading and intuitive UI, but is not as aesthetically pleasing or packed with as many driving screens and settings. The touchscreen interface is a weakness for many car companies, and it’s astonishing that they don't look at systems like this for valuable lessons. On the rear of the center console, back-seat passengers get their own 6.8-inch touchscreen to control the heating and air-conditioning.

Amazon’s Alexa offers a hands-free way to control simple interior options such as tweaking music and temperature settings, as well as to make phone calls, give weather forecasts, and answer banal trivia questions. What’s more interesting is that voice commands can control physical aspects of the truck, such as closing and opening the tailgate, charging port door, and front trunk.

Downsides? Not many. On the dashboard behind the steering wheel, next to the digital speedometer, there’s a digital representation of the road lanes and traffic ahead and immediately around the Rivian. It shows trucks, passenger cars, and pedestrians as avatars in relation to the vehicle, and it runs off an automotive-tuned version of the Unreal engine. Yep, the one used in many, many video games.

The touchscreen interface.

Photograph: Elliot Ross/Rivian

I didn’t find it terribly useful, although keeping track of merging cars behind the Rivian in bumper-to-bumper traffic very occasionally came in handy. The system also got confused sometimes by merging traffic ahead, while the faceless, rigidly walking pedestrian avatars reminded me of the creepy automatons from I, Robot. The system did a solid job of showing the Rivian in relation to the lane borders, though, which was handy in poor weather (like that sandstorm) at low speeds.

You also can’t turn off one-pedal drive, which slows the vehicle down noticeably when you lift your foot off the accelerator pedal. By effectively turning the electric motors into generators when the R1T decelerates, it recharges the onboard batteries every time you step off the accelerator. You can choose from two levels of regeneration: High or Standard. 

If you want to be able to coast by removing your foot from the accelerator, like in a gas-powered car, well, you can’t do that. It would’ve been a nice option. That said, it took me very little time to get used to one-pedal driving, and it does genuinely extend driving range. It was also an excellent off-road driving tool for when I had to delicately ease the truck into deep washouts and over rocks, rather than needing to work both the brake and the accelerator at the same time.

Having an accurate estimator of your remaining range is everything in an EV. It’s a hard thing to get right, as there are so many variables. Changes in temperature, weather conditions, driving style, speed, and traffic congestion can all throw a range estimator off. Yet the Rivian was remarkably precise on its range calculations at all times. I didn’t run into the problem of seeing the remaining mileage drop erratically or rapidly once I reached a 20 percent charge, which is a common problem with EVs, including the otherwise great Polestar 2 and Ford Mustang Mach-E.

There are three levels of battery pack available on the Rivian: the 260-mile range, the 320-mile range, and the 400-mile range. Choosing the optional off-road tires or the optional quad-motor slightly lowers the range of all configurations. My mid-range-battery truck, which had both options, was capable of about 305 miles per charge.

For the quad-motor version, you can only select the two larger batteries, which cost $6,000 and $16,000, respectively. Charging an EV battery to full and running it down repeatedly will age it more quickly, causing it to lose more of its capacity over time, just like a phone's battery. For occasional trips a full charge is fine, but for day-to-day driving, both the R1T and R1S give you the option to restrict charging to 75 percent or 85 percent to keep the battery from degrading as quickly. Handy.

Real-world range during my 1,300-mile journey was strong. Only significantly changing my altitude or temperature seemed to throw the range estimator into momentary confusion, which is expected and normal. Otherwise, if my driving conditions and speed were relatively steady, I could count on 30 miles of range slipping off the dashboard only after I’d traveled almost 30 real-world miles. Not every EV does that well, especially when you have a battery that’s supposedly capable of 300 miles on a full charge.

Because charging stations were so few and far between in and around Death Valley, I tended to charge to full every time I found a precious electric juice dispenser. I’d typically leave with 310 miles of range, then get close to an actual 290 miles before finding another charger. 

Rivian says the R1T and R1S are capable of charging at a peak of 220 kilowatts with the right fast charger. The fastest charger I found charged the R1T at 165 kilowatts, but I have to add that that was the charging station’s limitation, not the Rivian’s. 

Because of where I was, most of my charging was done at slow chargers powered by solar panels. I also convinced a few confused owners of RV parks to let me plug into one of their RV power outlets (the Rivian comes with an adapter). Driving near Lone Pine, California, though, I found a glorious fast charger that boosted me from a knuckle-whitening 5 percent charge to 80 percent in about an hour and a half.

Photograph: Elliot Ross/Rivian

There are a lot of driving modes selectable through the touchscreen. All-Purpose mode is what Rivian believes is best for typical do-it-all driving. Here, the Rivian runs in all-wheel-drive layout, sets the adjustable air suspension to Standard ride height (11.5 inches), and maintains a reasonably long-legged driving range.

Conserve mode is the most efficient, and it's the one I used most for city driving and highway cruising. It turns off power to the rear wheels so the truck becomes front-wheel drive. It also sets the ground clearance to Standard, but it’ll automatically lower the truck to Low (10.5 inches) at highway speeds to improve range slightly. You can, of course, manually select this clearance whenever you want.

Off-Road mode sets you to High (13.5 inches), but you can select Highest (14.9 inches) if you feel the need. Understandably, estimated range drops significantly. It was typical for my truck to lose 40 miles or more when I clicked into Off-Road mode.

Aside from the ride height, the major change in this mode is that it reduces the pedal sensitivity significantly, which is useful for low-speed, off-road maneuvers where you don’t want the truck bucking under sudden acceleration when you’re trying to deftly shift over pointy rocks and washouts.

Rally mode reduces the stability control to a light touch, and Drift mode turns it off completely. I’m not saying that I tested this mode on some unpopulated dirt roads by kicking out the rear wheels and sliding around corners, but if I had, I definitely would have noticed the sheer, unbridled fun it was to have at my disposal an impractical pair of driving modes just for the hell of it. Try them and they will leave you smiling. 

Crossing through the Sierra Nevadas, I took the opportunity to test out Sport mode for navigating the twisting mountain roads. Sport lowers the ground clearance to Low (10.5 inches) or Lowest (9.9 inches), stiffens the suspension, and heightens the responsiveness of the motor to accelerator pedal inputs. The floor-mounted electric batteries keep the R1T’s center of gravity down compared to an ICE truck, but it’s still a ride that can weigh up to a little over 7,000 pounds.

Later, I had the opportunity to drive an R1S equipped with slicker road tires on the twisty roads around Monticello, New York. Sure, the SUV had a slightly higher center of gravity with all that extra metal bodywork overhead, but thanks to those grippy performance tires it hugged corners more competently than an SUV should. The phrase “handles like a racing elephant” comes to mind. Like with the R1S, customers can order the R1T with either off-road or performance tires.

Slight movements on the pedal call forth surges of instantaneous power, and the Rivian is a fast truck. With the quad-motor Rivian packing 835 horsepower and 905 foot-pounds of torque, it can apparently reach 60 miles per hour from a standstill in three seconds. The dual-motor option offers up 600 horsepower and 600 foot-pounds of torque, which is still an extraordinary amount of power. I didn’t hook up instruments to measure, but the quad-motor truck certainly felt like it managed a three-second sprint from zero to 60 miles per hour.

There’s also a towing mode, the only mode I wasn’t able to test out. Depending on options, the R1T can tow up to 11,000 pounds and haul up to 1,760 pounds in its bed. It’s a midsize truck at 217.1 inches long in its only configuration: a four-door crew cab with a 54-inch-long bed. That’s comparable to the midsize Toyota Tacoma, Ford Ranger, Jeep Gladiator, or Nissan Frontier, and opposed to the full-size Ford F-150, Silverado 1500/GMC Sierra 1500, and RAM 1500. The R1T’s payload capacity is also similar to its midsize competitors, but its towing capacity is more than double those trucks. The closest is the Jeep Gladiator at 7,650 pounds of towing capability.

The 200.8-inch-long R1S's towing capacity, by comparison, is 7,700 pounds. Even though it shares the same platform and powertrain as the R1T, it's not uncommon for SUVs to have lower towing ratings than their pickup truck counterparts, thanks to shorter wheelbases and different powertrain tuning. It still compares favorably to the midsize SUV competition. The Jeep Grand Cherokee maxes out at 7,200 pounds of towing capacity, and the Toyota 4Runner can only squeeze out 5,000 pounds of towing, although the $69,000 Dodge Durango SRT tops the Rivian with an 8,200-pound rating.

The R1S is notably more nimble off-road than the R1T. I drove one of each, both with off-road packages, back to back over a muddy off-road course at the Monticello Motor Club as part of an official Rivian driving event.

It was easier to squeeze the shorter R1S between obstacles on tight trails than the R1T, and the R1S's shorter wheelbase (121.1 inches compared to the R1T's 135.8 inches) and shorter rear overhang gave it better departure and breakover angles for approaching steep sections of trail. For the breakover angle, that means less chance of banging the undercarriage on rocks, fallen trees, and other bits of the great outdoors as you drive over them.

Even if you do bang something, the off-road package comes with a skid plate that smoothly covers the entire underside of the truck, rather than the more typical piecemeal collection of individual skid plates that cover only vital areas. 

Both the R1S and R1T performed competently, thanks to a NASA control room's worth of electronic calculations and adjustments that the truck continuously makes to send the right amount of power to the right wheels at the right time. Even on thickly rutted mud trails up steep slopes, wheel spin was a non-issue, and both the R1T and R1S carried their considerable weight well. When necessary, the system intervened with a light but never overbearing touch. I could tell when it was stepping in to eke out every last bit of traction, yet it did so surreptitiously, flattering my off-road skills.

The optional camp kitchen slides out from the storage bay.

Photograph: Rivian

Among the usual options, Rivian has partnered with a couple of stalwart outdoor gear manufacturers. First up, and available to customers now, is a $2,600 Yakima Skyrise HD Medium three-person tent. With the crossbars that allow it to mount on a foldable platform above the truck bed, it costs $3,300.

The tent on my Rivian was broken when I picked it up, so I didn’t get to test it during this trip. I got some limited lounge time, though, in another one later at Rivian headquarters when I dropped the truck off. Although I didn’t get to spend a night in it, the tent was roomy for three to sleep comfortably, and the ladder was plenty secure and stable. 

Yakima is a popular brand of roof-top tent among overlanders who prefer to sleep away from the dirty and soggy ground. It can be set up and removed from the mounting brackets on the bed rails by two people easily, or by one person in a pinch.

The camp kitchen features two induction burners and hardware from Snow Peak.

Photograph: Rivian

There’s also a Snow Peak Rivian Camp Kitchen add-on, although it won’t be available to customers until later this year. I couldn’t test one in the wild, since there are no production units available yet, but I handled a demo unit at Rivian HQ. The unit consists of a 1,440-watt two-burner induction stove, and it comes with a 30-piece kitchen set of cookware and tableware made by Snow Peak. Everything is organized into slide-out trays, which keeps the kitchenware from shifting around while the truck is moving. My other WIRED beat is reviewing outdoor gear, so I'm familiar with Snow Peak, a Japanese manufacturer of beautiful titanium cookware (among other things). It’s very worthy stuff, and as cool as it gets.

There’s also a 4-gallon water tank integrated into the unit. The entire integrated stove, with drawers full of Snow Peak kitchenware, slides out of the gear tunnel. Despite its size, I had no problem lifting it off the tracks and carrying it around myself, although in normal practice there’s no need to do so. You slide the stove out, pop out the legs on one side, and start using it. 

The complete stove kit is impressively designed, but at $6,750 it’s enough to make you choke on that $15 artisanal buffalo jerky you bought from REI. Also, because the Camp Kitchen is designed specifically to slide out of the R1T's gear tunnel, it's unavailable on the R1S. The Yakima tent is available on the SUV, though, where it mounts to the roof rack bars.

Both Rivians score so highly here not only because they do one thing exceptionally well compared to any other EV before them, but because they do almost everything exceptionally well. 

The amount of information that has to be communicated to the driver through the infotainment system would be daunting if it weren’t so cleanly and intuitively designed. The range and performance from tarmac to dirt track is exemplary. The plush interior and clever storage solutions round out the small details that competing trucks—and even cars—don’t offer, but should.

Rivian plans to build a total of 20,000 to 25,000 vehicles in 2022. Both the R1T and R1S are for sale now, and either should serve you very well indeed.

Update, August 30 at 6pm EDT: This story was updated to reflect new pricing from Rivian. The company recently raised the base prices of both truck models and is only offering the Adventure trim package, which used to be available as an upgrade but is now standard.