Been doing a bit of traveling so I haven't had much time to share my thoughts on the R1S, but TL;DR - the best car I've ever owned.

Unlike a lot of folks here, I haven't had extensive seat time in a lot of cars. I tend to keep them for a while and so my auto lineage is basically 2000 Accord -> 2008 IS350 -> 2015 GS350 -> 2019 Model 3 Performance -> 2023 R1S with the 2018 Ody family hauler in the mix as well. I've had a lot of seat time in cars my folks owned and in-laws have owned, but in terms of cars with my name on the title that's the list. That being said, the R1S is by far my favorite one to date. I loved my IS350 and how it meshed great performance and interior. I enjoyed the GS but the carryover engine/transmission and dated infotainment sapped some of the enjoyment for me (great interior though). My 3P was definitely the most fun, but I'd say the interior did what it needed to do and I do still prefer more luxury. Enter the R1S. Stupid fast performance of the 3P, better interior than my old GS (and the EQS sedan I test drove), and an overall great ride.

Driving Experience:

835 HP, 908 ft lbs of torque, 0-60 in 3.3ish seconds (on the 20in AT tires) combined. Travel on the accelerator is a bit longer than I'd like, but this thing hauls and does it quietly and effortlessly. Where my 3P had more of a raw 'throw you back into the seat' acceleration, the R1S gets you going just as fast, but you're almost surprised when you hit 60 because it's so smooth. I usually run the truck on All-Purpose mode with the air suspension set on firm / standard height and while I still feel imperfections on the road, it's noticeably smoother than any of the cars I've previously owned. In Sport Mode, the R1S is surprisingly spry, but you definitely feel the weight when accelerating briskly. At the end of the day it's a 3.5 ton SUV. Aside from that, 1 pedal driving and brake regen is great. On par with Tesla from a smoothness and predictability standpoint. There is a more aggressive regen mode, but I felt that one bit too hard when lifting off the accelerator and quickly switched it back to standard. Efficiency is decent for a truck of its size. Over ~1,300 miles I'm getting 2.4 mi/kWh which is about 420 wh/mile in Tesla land. With the ATs my range is in the 270s in all purpose mode which is more than enough for me. I haven't had a desire to put it into Conserve mode yet but will probably do so during summer roadtrips.

My main complaints with the drive is that if I leave the suspension on Auto instead of manually setting, it likes to change it a bit too much. My drive to work is a 4 lane 55mph road with stoplights. Whenever I get to 60mph, it likes to drop me to a lower suspension for better range, but the road has a lot of stop lights so whenever I have to stop, it'll pop me back into the standard height. Also, Driver+ is not even close to FSD in my 3P. On the freeway, it does a decent enough job. Lane keep does its thing and cruise control is drama free, but I had gotten used to turning on FSD on my morning commute but Driver+ won't activate on unmapped roads. It also doesn't do lane changes, but I felt FSD was too aggressive with lane changes so I don't mind that too much.

From a driving perspective, Rivian got a lot of things right. I haven't had a chance to take it overlanding yet, but I'm trying to do a trip later this year to take it on some dirt roads for a bit.

Interior:

Interior-wise Rivian hit it out of the park. There are some little issues here and there - steering wheel could be a bit beefier, cup holders are just okay, and there are big spaces with no organization in the center console and under the main screen, but all of the materials are top notch and put together very well. Some owners have had their fair share of rattles, but mine has been really solid so far even when going down some crappy roads. The screens are just as responsive as my 3P and the menus are well organized. I'd love to be able to customize them a bit more, but for the most part everything I need to get to is 1-2 taps away.

My main issues with the interior are the front seats (sometimes) and the lack of pillar grab handles or running boards. I like the seats in the R1S, but I don't love them. The GS had more comfortable seats. The issue is that they made a design choice to have an admittedly nice looking line run through the upper half of the seats. It makes the seats look great, but when sitting in it, if I sit too straight, that line sits right under my shoulder blades and applies some odd pressure. It's not uncomfortable, just annoying and I haven't been able to find the right adjustment to eliminate it. Current workaround is to increase lumbar support and sit a little lower.

Aside from the seats, the R1S is a tall truck. At the standard ride height, my kids have to grab onto the door and the booster seat to pull themselves in. I do drop it into a lower setting for them, but don't like to use the included kneel mode because I don't like having it all the way down. I also don't need it on when the kids aren't riding with me. 2 easy solutions to help with this would be handles on the pillars and running boards or rock sliders. We had an Expedition rental last week that had both and the kids had no issues getting into it. There are some aftermarket solutions out there for running boards, but I'd like something closer to OEM as the installations are rather involved.

Build Quality:

I changed from a factory delivery to a Service Center delivery primarily because of the horror stories I read on the Rivian Forums. Luckily, my R1S is very well made. Panel gaps are good, interior is good, paint quality is solid, things that are supposed to open do, and things that aren't supposed to open don't. I only have 3 things that I've got a service ticket open for right now - car pulls to the right, leftmost driver vent doesn't move left/right, and when I open my frunk it rubs ever so slightly against the adjacent panel. There was a TSB for misaligned steering wheels that went out and although my VIN wasn't part of that, I wouldn't be surprised if they do the same fix to get it straightened out. Aside from those 3 things, I have been very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the car.

Service Experience:

Rivian needs to focus on opening more service centers. I have to drive all the way to Brooklyn to get service done and when booking service, the service appointment I booked in June was for a slot in September which makes sense because it's the primary center for the 7 surrounding states. I'm also hearing that oftentimes, the car will sit for a few days/weeks before it actually gets worked on which is also concerning. I'll update this part after my service appointment, but there's supposed to be a closer center opening Q1 of next year in NJ.

Overall, the Rivian is actually better than I thought it would be and I had high hopes for it. The company is doing a lot of things right in the cars that they're building, some things wrong in how they're servicing them, but I have high hopes and expectations for the brand in the future. Random pics below

 

Great review! This SUV seems very promising. In a few years down the line when it's time to part with our Sienna, this SUV, or whatever it's replacement will be will be on my list. And by than, they will be using Tesla's charging infrastructure, so traveling will be worry free

 

Great review and congrats again! Happy enough with our Lightning that we've no reason for now to consider a switch to the R1T, but I've been thinking about changing one of our SUVs to the R1S and this just makes me think even more about that. Enjoy!!

 

Thanks! I have high hopes (and a lot of stock) that Rivian will make it long term. It'll be interesting to see what happens when the R2s launch. Having had the car I think the current pricing is fair and the pre hike pricing is an absolute steal. If anything happened to my R1S I'd replace it with another one

 

First Class review Allenk!

Ok, I'm a little slow. Lol
I remember you posting a pic of the front a while back of your new ride but I thought it was a pickup truck, not sure why.

Now that I see the back and it's clearly a HUGE suv. Lol

Cool deal.🪂 🪂 🪂

 

Thanks! I was tempted to switch to the pickup when my R1S was supposedly delayed, but it would've been a tight fit in my garage and as my wife's question of 'why do you think you need a pick up?' was quite valid

 

promising? i'd say they've already delivered basically a home run.

 

Congrats Allen! Great spec! As always impeccable taste! Seriously love the Rivian and would definitely swing for it if I needed something this large. Its borderline perfection IMO.

Sidebar: Oh and Supercharged is so much fun! Hope yall enjoyed it there!

 

Excellent review and a no brainer at the price you got it for. I am still going to sit on the sidelines for a little while before I go fully electric.

 

I see a Rivian truck every once in a while out here. It's army green. Looks nice and is very unique. Wonder what real world range he gets..

 

The car itself is great, consistent quality, availability of service centers, and actual allocations of finished trucks need work.

Supercharged was great Let me know the next time you're in the area, we can grab a bite and take a cruise

Yeah sometimes it's just easier to have an ICE. We're keeping the Ody for that reason and will probably replace that with a hybrid when the time comes.

Unless you're flogging it at every light and cruise at 80+, I've found the real life range very close to the EPA range. Much easier to achieve than in my 3P and slightly easier than with my wife's 3LR

 

I heard a lot of reviews complain about the sunroof and how much heat it lets in. Any issues with this?

 

I only had it for a week before tinting the sunroof with Llumar Stratos. Before the tint I didn’t notice a difference between my 3 and the R1S and I never tinted my 3. I do feel a lot more heat coming from the windshield, but that’s probably more angle than anything else.

 

Nice!! Will have to write up my 1K mile thoughts on our R1S soon as well! Less inclined on the ride quality, think it's a bit too stiff legged and jittery compared to other cars we've had (same 20" AT set up as well). But overall quite happy with it so far too.

 

I definitely felt some skiddishness when taking the truck back from the service center especially at higher speeds, but the roads in NJ are in great shape where I'm at. On smooth pavement it has been really good.