Pherdnut
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Edit: one concern I totally blanked on added below before TEST DRIVE
Edit edit: Also forgot re-confirm the phenom of everybody who works at Rivian being absolutely jazzed about the brand, happy to the be there and very happy to answer questions. Nice folks.
TLDR: It is very good.
PRE-TEST DRIVE
First time I saw it in person. There were three trucks to check out on site demoing camping, storage, and materials but also different colors and all three of the LE/Adventure interiors. The trucks were just a smidge smaller than I would have expected even though I was well aware of their dimensions. This didn't bother me and made me feel better about driving them in a city. They are noticeably a smidge larger than a Taco.
As hoped, every interior felt like the world melting off my shoulders. The seats were very comfortable. The interior design promotes a sense of calm. There's just the right amount of space in the front seats all-around. It was hard to get out of the trucks when I started feeling like I was being an interior-hog. There were three on display, each with 1 of the 3 LE interiors. I got to the point of feeling like I was being an interior hog in all three of them.
I didn't test the rear seats. No kids. Friends shouldn't get too comfortable in my R1T.
I'm not a sound nerd but I noticed how good the sound was. R1T blasting of the Pixies' Surfer Rosa was beyond adequate. It was exceptional.
Every color I saw looked great. El Cap, White, Black, Forest Green, Blue (does not disappoint from the pics), and yes there was one yellow test drive truck that kept catching my eye every time it passed by. In person it inhabits a weird place between school bus and mustard for me. And every interior looked fantastic to me. Much better than the CG from the configurator. Not helpful, Rivian. Now I have to re-decide a dozen times over again.
Pictures don't do the 22" wheels justice. If I had no intention of trying out some off-roading, I'd be seriously considering them.
UX/UI - The main touch screen is very nice. Pretty responsive for the most part. Minor delays occasionally, when bouncing in and out of nav in particular. The UI is solid. Figuring out how to categorize everything would be challenging and finding my way to stuff did require a little, but not a lot of hunting. The physical context controls they do have on the steering wheel work well. Almost like a couple d-pads but with the up/downs being handled by rollers.
There was merch. Oh yes. Got a navy blue T-Shirt with a tiny compass logo. All I ever really wanted.
Minor criticisms:
* The physical controls work well but they feel a little cheap compared to the rest of the interior. Hop into any recent Mazda and turn a knob or press button. It's much nicer in terms of material quality and tactile feedback than rotating that plastic spikey cylinder or pushing the rockers.
* Paraphrased answer to questions about whether they were pursuing games: "We're focusing more on the outdoors and video games don't really align with that." This might have been somebody going off-script but just in case it's not, @Rivian, please be aware, there's no nature at the Jewel where I'll be hanging out and doing a lot of free level 2 charging if I can't get it wired up in my parking lot in Chicago. Even if adventure charging opens up by the lake, I won't be looking to have nature-gasms there while the truck charges in the middle of January when I'll likely be between camping trips. Games are a no-brainer in any EV that doesn't charge from near-0 to 80% in 5 minutes or less. Don't ignore streaming video either. Hopefully the hardware is up to both.
* Whyfor no have launch green, limestone and Canyon Red in the test drive fleet so we can see all the colors in person finally?
* Edit: It was kind of weird no power tonneau was shown. They were saying to reduce on wear and tear(?). This makes the question of whether the tonneau would be deployable if the motor dies even more important to me. Definitely prefer motor redundant doors and such.
TEST DRIVE
FD: I'm new to EVs and off-roading.
The co-pilot isn't just there to keep people from doing something stupid. S/he is also there to make sure you know that no really, the truck can actually do that thing on the course you're about to do.
Single-pedal driving is pretty easy to adapt to. And the truck has a lot of play in the accelerator where it counts. When you want to crawl it's easy. When you want to rocket you have to let it know, which is not hard, but hard to do by accident.
0 to 60 in 3 seconds the second time did not get old.
I forgot the steering wheel seemed a bit small the second I started driving.
The 4-motor factor is legit. They slowly upgrade the off-road tests to the point where you become aware of how rapidly the truck seems to adapt to changing circumstances. Big tipping on the roll and pitch axes and I didn't feel like I was in danger of the truck rolling over even once. Tests ranged from gravel, dirt, tackling big bumps with one side of the truck for a lot of roll, etc.
The finale is a maybe 45 degree hill up really rocky terrain and definitely a 45 degree dirt hill down. The crawl up was done at a few mph the whole way. This is where you really see that EV torque factor. It's moderately intimidating but they do a good job of building up your expectations of what the truck can handle up to that point.
This truck is nuts. Based on what I've heard people say about ICE off-roading, a lot of us are going to be noveaux off-road wankers who basically got to ignore a large swath of an entire skill-set because we started with R1Ts. But what I saw and did with this truck in my test drive felt a lot nuts.
The test drive trucks were SILENT. No safety noise that I could hear.
Minor criticisms:
* Really boring drive back to Chicago in my ICE SUV. Thanks a lot Rivian.
Edit edit: Also forgot re-confirm the phenom of everybody who works at Rivian being absolutely jazzed about the brand, happy to the be there and very happy to answer questions. Nice folks.
TLDR: It is very good.
PRE-TEST DRIVE
First time I saw it in person. There were three trucks to check out on site demoing camping, storage, and materials but also different colors and all three of the LE/Adventure interiors. The trucks were just a smidge smaller than I would have expected even though I was well aware of their dimensions. This didn't bother me and made me feel better about driving them in a city. They are noticeably a smidge larger than a Taco.
As hoped, every interior felt like the world melting off my shoulders. The seats were very comfortable. The interior design promotes a sense of calm. There's just the right amount of space in the front seats all-around. It was hard to get out of the trucks when I started feeling like I was being an interior-hog. There were three on display, each with 1 of the 3 LE interiors. I got to the point of feeling like I was being an interior hog in all three of them.
I didn't test the rear seats. No kids. Friends shouldn't get too comfortable in my R1T.
I'm not a sound nerd but I noticed how good the sound was. R1T blasting of the Pixies' Surfer Rosa was beyond adequate. It was exceptional.
Every color I saw looked great. El Cap, White, Black, Forest Green, Blue (does not disappoint from the pics), and yes there was one yellow test drive truck that kept catching my eye every time it passed by. In person it inhabits a weird place between school bus and mustard for me. And every interior looked fantastic to me. Much better than the CG from the configurator. Not helpful, Rivian. Now I have to re-decide a dozen times over again.
Pictures don't do the 22" wheels justice. If I had no intention of trying out some off-roading, I'd be seriously considering them.
UX/UI - The main touch screen is very nice. Pretty responsive for the most part. Minor delays occasionally, when bouncing in and out of nav in particular. The UI is solid. Figuring out how to categorize everything would be challenging and finding my way to stuff did require a little, but not a lot of hunting. The physical context controls they do have on the steering wheel work well. Almost like a couple d-pads but with the up/downs being handled by rollers.
There was merch. Oh yes. Got a navy blue T-Shirt with a tiny compass logo. All I ever really wanted.
Minor criticisms:
* The physical controls work well but they feel a little cheap compared to the rest of the interior. Hop into any recent Mazda and turn a knob or press button. It's much nicer in terms of material quality and tactile feedback than rotating that plastic spikey cylinder or pushing the rockers.
* Paraphrased answer to questions about whether they were pursuing games: "We're focusing more on the outdoors and video games don't really align with that." This might have been somebody going off-script but just in case it's not, @Rivian, please be aware, there's no nature at the Jewel where I'll be hanging out and doing a lot of free level 2 charging if I can't get it wired up in my parking lot in Chicago. Even if adventure charging opens up by the lake, I won't be looking to have nature-gasms there while the truck charges in the middle of January when I'll likely be between camping trips. Games are a no-brainer in any EV that doesn't charge from near-0 to 80% in 5 minutes or less. Don't ignore streaming video either. Hopefully the hardware is up to both.
* Whyfor no have launch green, limestone and Canyon Red in the test drive fleet so we can see all the colors in person finally?
* Edit: It was kind of weird no power tonneau was shown. They were saying to reduce on wear and tear(?). This makes the question of whether the tonneau would be deployable if the motor dies even more important to me. Definitely prefer motor redundant doors and such.
TEST DRIVE
FD: I'm new to EVs and off-roading.
The co-pilot isn't just there to keep people from doing something stupid. S/he is also there to make sure you know that no really, the truck can actually do that thing on the course you're about to do.
Single-pedal driving is pretty easy to adapt to. And the truck has a lot of play in the accelerator where it counts. When you want to crawl it's easy. When you want to rocket you have to let it know, which is not hard, but hard to do by accident.
0 to 60 in 3 seconds the second time did not get old.
I forgot the steering wheel seemed a bit small the second I started driving.
The 4-motor factor is legit. They slowly upgrade the off-road tests to the point where you become aware of how rapidly the truck seems to adapt to changing circumstances. Big tipping on the roll and pitch axes and I didn't feel like I was in danger of the truck rolling over even once. Tests ranged from gravel, dirt, tackling big bumps with one side of the truck for a lot of roll, etc.
The finale is a maybe 45 degree hill up really rocky terrain and definitely a 45 degree dirt hill down. The crawl up was done at a few mph the whole way. This is where you really see that EV torque factor. It's moderately intimidating but they do a good job of building up your expectations of what the truck can handle up to that point.
This truck is nuts. Based on what I've heard people say about ICE off-roading, a lot of us are going to be noveaux off-road wankers who basically got to ignore a large swath of an entire skill-set because we started with R1Ts. But what I saw and did with this truck in my test drive felt a lot nuts.
The test drive trucks were SILENT. No safety noise that I could hear.
Minor criticisms:
* Really boring drive back to Chicago in my ICE SUV. Thanks a lot Rivian.
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