Donald Stanfield
Well-Known Member
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- #1
I've had my truck officially for one year at this point as I took delivery September of 2022. I'll start with the synopsis of my upcoming review. This truck is best described by me as a jack of all trades. There isn't one single thing this truck is the best at, but it's very good at so many things that I really don't miss it any of them. I'll discuss the things that are important to me and how the Rivian fits those needs.
First and foremost for me is speed and agility, on road performance. The Rivian is far and away the best truck at this, but it still isn't a sports car. If you want pure performance there are better, more fun choices. However my R1T has none of the typical drawbacks of a performance oriented vehicle. It's not tiny, there is plenty of room for storage and passengers. My R1 is enough fun on road that I rarely drive my motorcycle and that need for speed is satiated pretty well. After all my truck's acceleration is on par with my bike. Sure it's not the same as carving a mountain road in the open wind but I can get some of the same feeling every day instead of all of that feeling occasionally. Overall the capability of Rivian in this area is enough to make me not long for the sports car I wanted before getting this truck.
Next is capability as a daily driver. I put things like functionality, storage space and ability to carry small cargo in this category. I would argue that in this regard the Rivian is almost perfect. The only drawback is the size of the truck. It's hard to call it a drawback as the size lends itself to cargo carrying capacity so an improvement in cargo usually results in a less than ideal size for crowded parking lots or city driving. I think an R1S is probably close to the perfect balance of size and storage where the extra 17" of the T puts it firmly in the truck category in this regard and takes away from it's livability as a daily driver slightly. For me personally however, I still have some occasional requirements of a truck and the size is a compromise I am more than willing to make.
We are up to the truck tasks section of my review. I stubbornly refuse to pay for trash collection service as the local trash center is on my way to work. It's stupid, trash service costs like 50 bucks a month and would be way easier than dealing with garbage as I do now but regardless that's where I'm at. Having a vehicle that can haul trash without me having to smell it puts me square into truck territory. With that said I used to be a master level tradesman and as such occasionally have "real" uses of a truck. My R1 is big enough to haul all my tools for a basic job. I wound up updating mechanicals at a friend's house for free this summer and everything I needed fit in the bed for a complete overhaul of her system. I also have a 7x16' dual axle enclosed trailer that I've used to help my cousin move and I also use to haul my tractor to the dealer for service. The R1 tows this trailer as if it wasn't even there whether it be full of furniture completely or with my tractor and loader setup which is decently heavy. It is as capable as any other 1500 series truck if not more so for my use. If I had to haul over long distances the charging range would be a factor that would probably lead me to choosing an ICE truck but I do not need to do so personally so it's not an issue.
Lastly for me tech and comfort features. This truck has a really nice exterior and interior design. It's the sort of aesthetic I quite like and the design team at Rivian really seemed to capture the understated luxury of some of my favorite German brands. Unlike the typical American garishness that you'll find on something like a Cadillac, Rivian feels luxury similar to the Germans. The only drawback for me here is the "vegan leather". I get that Rivian has stated their ethos is sustainability and environmental responsibility but I think this is just a cop out to not provide decent seating surfaces and although the R1's are passable a good leather interior is significantly better. I think there should be an option to get true luxury seating materials and then the interior would be perfect for me. The wood trim and metal accents are on par with what anyone else is doing at the 100K dollar price point. That open pore wood is some of the best I've personally seen with how well the look and fitment of it is.
Another great thing about the tech and comfort are the cooled seats seem to work the best out of any car I've had with that feature. Additionally the monthly software improvements over the time I've owned the vehicle are impressive and I have no doubt that the quality of the truck's software stack will just keep getting better. I actually quite like the native interface and I don't miss screen projection at all. The GPS is decent and all the other features are pretty good too. Driver+ isn't the best, but no one is really so much better that it's worth worrying about in my view. All the self drive systems out there have some pretty major drawbacks now and no one has a really great one. The Rivian's was worse when I got it than my Audi and thanks to software improvements it's now pretty close to on par with Audi. I have no doubt in upcoming improvements to this as well.
Overall this truck has no right to be as good at so many different things as it is. I would venture to say there is no other vehicle in existence that gets as good of a rating in all these categories from me as Rivian does. It fits all my needs close to perfectly and I don't see a need to buy multiple vehicles for multiple roles with this truck. I have all I need. I plan on keeping this truck for a long time as of right now the only thing I'd replace it with is a new truck of the same model.
I edited a bit to clean up some grammatical errors. I'm sure I missed a few anyways.
First and foremost for me is speed and agility, on road performance. The Rivian is far and away the best truck at this, but it still isn't a sports car. If you want pure performance there are better, more fun choices. However my R1T has none of the typical drawbacks of a performance oriented vehicle. It's not tiny, there is plenty of room for storage and passengers. My R1 is enough fun on road that I rarely drive my motorcycle and that need for speed is satiated pretty well. After all my truck's acceleration is on par with my bike. Sure it's not the same as carving a mountain road in the open wind but I can get some of the same feeling every day instead of all of that feeling occasionally. Overall the capability of Rivian in this area is enough to make me not long for the sports car I wanted before getting this truck.
Next is capability as a daily driver. I put things like functionality, storage space and ability to carry small cargo in this category. I would argue that in this regard the Rivian is almost perfect. The only drawback is the size of the truck. It's hard to call it a drawback as the size lends itself to cargo carrying capacity so an improvement in cargo usually results in a less than ideal size for crowded parking lots or city driving. I think an R1S is probably close to the perfect balance of size and storage where the extra 17" of the T puts it firmly in the truck category in this regard and takes away from it's livability as a daily driver slightly. For me personally however, I still have some occasional requirements of a truck and the size is a compromise I am more than willing to make.
We are up to the truck tasks section of my review. I stubbornly refuse to pay for trash collection service as the local trash center is on my way to work. It's stupid, trash service costs like 50 bucks a month and would be way easier than dealing with garbage as I do now but regardless that's where I'm at. Having a vehicle that can haul trash without me having to smell it puts me square into truck territory. With that said I used to be a master level tradesman and as such occasionally have "real" uses of a truck. My R1 is big enough to haul all my tools for a basic job. I wound up updating mechanicals at a friend's house for free this summer and everything I needed fit in the bed for a complete overhaul of her system. I also have a 7x16' dual axle enclosed trailer that I've used to help my cousin move and I also use to haul my tractor to the dealer for service. The R1 tows this trailer as if it wasn't even there whether it be full of furniture completely or with my tractor and loader setup which is decently heavy. It is as capable as any other 1500 series truck if not more so for my use. If I had to haul over long distances the charging range would be a factor that would probably lead me to choosing an ICE truck but I do not need to do so personally so it's not an issue.
Lastly for me tech and comfort features. This truck has a really nice exterior and interior design. It's the sort of aesthetic I quite like and the design team at Rivian really seemed to capture the understated luxury of some of my favorite German brands. Unlike the typical American garishness that you'll find on something like a Cadillac, Rivian feels luxury similar to the Germans. The only drawback for me here is the "vegan leather". I get that Rivian has stated their ethos is sustainability and environmental responsibility but I think this is just a cop out to not provide decent seating surfaces and although the R1's are passable a good leather interior is significantly better. I think there should be an option to get true luxury seating materials and then the interior would be perfect for me. The wood trim and metal accents are on par with what anyone else is doing at the 100K dollar price point. That open pore wood is some of the best I've personally seen with how well the look and fitment of it is.
Another great thing about the tech and comfort are the cooled seats seem to work the best out of any car I've had with that feature. Additionally the monthly software improvements over the time I've owned the vehicle are impressive and I have no doubt that the quality of the truck's software stack will just keep getting better. I actually quite like the native interface and I don't miss screen projection at all. The GPS is decent and all the other features are pretty good too. Driver+ isn't the best, but no one is really so much better that it's worth worrying about in my view. All the self drive systems out there have some pretty major drawbacks now and no one has a really great one. The Rivian's was worse when I got it than my Audi and thanks to software improvements it's now pretty close to on par with Audi. I have no doubt in upcoming improvements to this as well.
Overall this truck has no right to be as good at so many different things as it is. I would venture to say there is no other vehicle in existence that gets as good of a rating in all these categories from me as Rivian does. It fits all my needs close to perfectly and I don't see a need to buy multiple vehicles for multiple roles with this truck. I have all I need. I plan on keeping this truck for a long time as of right now the only thing I'd replace it with is a new truck of the same model.
I edited a bit to clean up some grammatical errors. I'm sure I missed a few anyways.
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