@Julian @BlkGS
Made the long-ish drive to Toronto yesterday morning. Had scheduled a Demo Drive with an R1S at the service center there. Was ~2.5hrs north of us, and involved ~30min wait to get across the border into Canada. Drove the Rivian. Had lunch. Then drove home. 7-ish hours out of the house for ~45min with the SUV.
Now, I need to preface the interaction with "I googled the shit out of this thing" before I got there. So I already knew, and it was fresh in mind, how to operate most of the interface, most of the controls, and had a really good idea about the capability. Moreso, likely, than any other vehicle I've ever considered buying. I mean, I watched an hour long video that walked through the ENTIRE user interface on both screens Saturday morning. It's absurd really.......However, before I could bring myself to plunk down any cash, especially for something that retails for almost $100k, I had to drive one. I had to know if there were blind spots, if the seats weren't comfy, if the steering wheel blocking the dash screen was really an issue or not. How does it park? How does it "feel". All of those things aren't possible to understand through reviews, and online research and all of that. I have NO idea how someone spends this kind of money on something sight unseen. SO......on to my thoughts.
This is going to be long, I'm wordy, sorry in advance. I'll try to put a TL;DR at the bottom.
We drove a Gen 1 R1S. Blue with the 21in street tires. No idea what size the pack was. had 70% charge when we showed up. Drove it like 30km and used 1% I think. I didn't pay a ton of attention to that part honestly. Couple things really stood out to me beyond what normal reviews can tell you.
The good.
- Holy god it's effing fast. I don't know the HP, but it jumped off a stoplight fast enough to scare the wife into screaming. Was pretty absurd.
- One pedal driving is neat. Was interesting to drive around town without using the brake pedal. Will take some getting used to, but overall it was pretty good.
- The driving presence was interesting. Felt like a "small Tahoe". Large hood and high seating position was very different from my lowered Q7. It didn't feel as big and hard to park as a Tahoe, but it wasn't nearly as nimble as the Q7 is with it's 4WS.
- Overall quality felt pretty great. It's on par, from an initial take, with my Audi. The doors shut solidly, the console didn't creak or squeak. Trim panels seemed to fit well and were well attached. Materials were good to great regardless if they are real or not.
- It was a pleasure to drive overall. Felt premium, rode premium, and looked the part. Tons of power available, all the tech worked as expected, and it presented as a generally nice car. It felt more like a $75-80k car than my buddies Model 3 Performance.
- Air suspension was FAST. Not like old school hydraulics fast, but it raised/lowered in just a few seconds when adjusted. The Audi you can't hardly notice/feel. The Rivian was very quick and responsive.
- The interface in general was really good. I thought I would hate the giant screen, but it grew on me pretty quickly. We pulled into a covered coin wash to try and find somewhere dark, and turned the screens way down. No idea how this will work for me on a dark highway at night, but it's not as harsh as I expected for certain.
- The "dealership experience" was phenomenal. There was ZERO, and I mean ZERO discussion on price, income, or any of the other crap involved with working a deal to buy one. I was met by an enthusiastic employee that just wanted to show me the vehicle. He didn't care how much money I made, or if I was financing, or any of that crap. I seriously can't convey how refreshing this part of the experience was. Answered questions, made good observations, and was generally great to be around. This part was amazing, best experience with an OEM in my 43 years on this planet.
The bad
- The seat is pretty terrible. There is a style line that lands just under my shoulder blades. I'm unsure if this would cause any pain during a long road trip, but it was noticeable right out of the gate, and over ~30min in the vehicle, it never went away. I'm 6'2" tall with a long torso, so I suspect this doesn't affect many people.
- One pedal driving is hard to manage while turning and parking. lead to a kind of jerky experience. I suspected this would go away over time, but it wasn't immediately intuitive. Kind of like driving a jetboat I think. it's not bad really, but very different than what I'm used to.
- The roof doesn't open. WTF kind of poor decision is this from an "adventure" style company like this. Huge miss IMO, but I think I'm squarely in the minority here. Either way, I can't decide if this is a deal breaker for me or not. It very well could be.
- Suspension was VERY stiff. Even on the softest setting available, it was harsher than I liked. I'm told the Gen 2 SUV's have significantly improved this. It was OK for me, but likely too stiff for the rest of the family. Didn't notice a big change between settings either.
- Whos dumbass idea what it to adjust the vents on the screen? Seriously, this is a HUGE miss IMO. It took forever to find a setting I liked, then when I wanted to move it again I couldn't do it while moving because of the super stiff suspension and bouncy city streets. This is beyond a dumb decision IMO. Likely not a deal breaker though.
- No android auto......I've gotten used to that interface, would have been nice to keep it. Not a deal breaker, but a bummer in general I think. I'm sure integration with charging stops and other systems is the hold back here, but still. womp womp.
- No dealer network to rely on. There is a service center about 35miles from me here in Buffalo, but I'm not sold on the support there. Lots of horror stories mixed with a lot of great service stories as well. Not sure how to feel there.
Overall, I came away with mixed feelings. I was expecting to come home and be all "I have to get one right now", but I'm not. I'm also not coming home with a "Screw that, no way" attitude either. It's a good SUV, and I think it's likely worth the money. They're offering some really great lease deals right now, which has me leaning that way. $1k/mo is high, but I can't touch any other brand new SUV with these features (EV or not) for that money. Tahoe/Yukons are going to be in the $1.5k/mo lease. New Sequoia as $1.4k on the website this morning. So, getting a premium SUV with a 3rd row for this price, honestly isn't a terrible deal IMO, EV portion aside.
I'm going to go drive a Silverado EV, as well as a Hummer EV before I decide where I'm going to land. Might drive a Lightning as well. I don't think I want the Kia EV9 (based on styling and experience recently with the SanteFe's interior), and I don't want a Mercedes EV either. Would consider an eTron (like a Q8 or similar), but no third row and rough depreciation doesn't help it. Not much else out there in EV's that can tow. Kind of want to stick to an SUV over a pickup, but the Silverado or Lightning might sway me one way or the other.
Speaking of towing. I'm looking at the 2nd Gen R1S with the Max battery pack and the Dual Motor Performance on 22in street wheels. They claim a 410mi range, so about 328 usable with 20% reserve. Assume 50% range while towing and we're around 164mi of what I'm calling "round trip boat range". With our move to Buffalo, that will get us to most of the lakes around here on a single charge. There is DCFC on the way to all of them except lake Erie (which is only 6mi away), so I think the move has helped on that front. Also range has come up, and infrastructure has improved since we had these discussion 2yrs ago when these trucks were first coming on the scene. Also, the only major road trip we plan on doing is Buffalo to Louisville. ABRP says we can make that in 9hrs with 2 stops for charging at ~30min each. That's pretty spot on with what we've already done about 6 times this year, so I don't really see that as a major inconvenience. Again, improvements in range and infrastructure are breaking some new and old roadblocks here.
TL;DR. I demo drove a Rivian. Customer experience was great. I didn't love it so much I have to order one today, I also didn't hate it enough to say "now way".
