The primary time a producer loaned me a automobile in order that I may evaluate it for a publication was in 2005. Since that point, I haven’t pushed each pickup truck manufactured, however I’ve pushed lots of them.
The 2025 Rivian R1T provides one of the best driving expertise I’ve ever encountered in a pickup truck.
It’s additionally among the many most irritating I’ve ever pushed.
The frustrations of dwelling with it are all belongings you’d develop accustomed to in case you owned it. None would make you hate your truck. If the R1T pursuits you, you need to take a look at drive one with an open thoughts. You would possibly adore it.
After every week of driving it, I feel I cherished it. However I cherished it the way in which you’re keen on a superb teenager who nonetheless makes bafflingly dangerous selections (I’ve had greater than a kind of, too). You possibly can’t shake the sense that this factor might be wonderful sometime … however it has to be taught a number of alarmingly basic items.
With a number of easy modifications, Rivian may have a traditionally nice truck on its fingers. It doesn’t but, however it does have one you would possibly get pleasure from.
My tester was a dear luxurious truck. This Tri Max version boasts 850 horsepower, 371 miles of vary, a 0-60 mph time of two.9 seconds, and an asking worth of $107,650 (together with $1,800 for supply). It got here in a stupendous Forest Inexperienced with an inside scheme Rivian calls Driftwood, stuffed with muted grays, refined bronzes, and plaid ground mats that felt surprising and funky. It’s the best-looking inside I’ve ever seen in a pickup.
Basic-However-Up to date Look
Designers have given the R1T a implausible basic pickup silhouette and up to date it for the electrical period.
There’s nothing outlandish in regards to the look — truck designers have perfected the form that will get most work finished fairly effectively, and Rivian has saved to it. However rounded edges and a refined inverted swoosh to the rear doorways make it distinctive.
Rivian’s signature tall oval headlights inform everybody in site visitors what you’re driving with out trying, effectively, “cyber.” My tester’s Forest Inexperienced is a shade truckmakers badly wanted to rescue from the Nineties, and I’m so pleased to see it again.
A Cabin With Persona
Inside, the driftwood theme exhibits actual consideration to inventive element. Even the backs of the seats are textured elegantly, however designed to not entice mud.
Rivian is dedicated to a vibe of upscale personalization. Loads of luxurious automobiles nowadays let you choose ambient lighting colours. However within the R1T, you don’t select inexperienced, orange, or purple. You select Glacier Fog, Pacific Sundown, or Twilight Path, named like inside home paints.
However the impact works. Maybe probably the most pleasant this-is-not-particularly-important function is the cartoon graphics of the touchscreen interface, which present a playfulness you gained’t get in a Ford F-150 Lightning.
A Container Retailer’s Value of Storage
The R1T encompasses a 54-inch mattress that could be a good rectangular prism — there are not any obstructions to stop carrying plywood flat. It additionally options two commonplace family energy retailers and a compressor nozzle, plus 4 helpful fold-away tie-down factors.
Beneath the mattress is a usable trunk area designed for a full-size spare in case you select one. The frunk (entrance trunk) is massive sufficient for a weekend’s price of bags, with area beneath put aside for the charging wire.
There’s wasted area in each fashionable pickup truck besides this one. Close to the junction the place the cab meets the mattress, there’s a roughly trapezoidal void enclosed within the bodywork. Rivian turned it right into a storage tunnel accessible through doorways from both aspect — a superb function I’m astonished nobody has constructed earlier than. This gear tunnel is sort of a truck trunk, separate from the mattress.
Bizarrely, there’s no solution to open it with the important thing fob. There’s no key fob. Rivian’s bank card key has no buttons, requiring you to open the gear tunnel from the touchscreen or buttons on the mattress rail. The touchscreen perform is especially irritating. To seek out it, you faucet a truck-shaped icon (as a result of everybody is aware of the truck icon in a truck opens doorways), then choose an icon formed just like the door you need to open. The charging door is sort of the identical form, so you might have solely a 2-in-3 probability of getting this proper.
The mattress rail buttons are a greater choice, however different automakers put a button to open the automobile in your pocket. The most cost effective automobile on the market in America at this time, the Nissan Versa S, comes with a key fob with a button that opens its trunk. This $100,000-plus truck doesn’t.
The worst Silicon Valley design treats all change as enchancment. In its quest to really feel contemporary and high-tech, Rivian has made key fobs worse.
A Implausible Driving Expertise in Each Mode
Most autos able to any off-roading have a drive mode or two that works very effectively and some which can be unsatisfying. Within the R1T, all of them really feel nice.
The day-to-day mode Rivian calls “all-purpose” is crisp, with a medium suspension setting that Goldilocks would love. You possibly can go away the truck in its default settings more often than not and luxuriate in driving it.
Higher but, modifications felt like actual modifications. In so many fashionable autos, drive modes are practically all the identical. However “Sport” right here makes you need to problem Porsches on observe day. “Preserve” stretches the vary (to 405 miles, Rivian claims) with out feeling disagreeable. A mid-Atlantic snowstorm let me take a look at it on unplowed roads, and the truck felt sure-footed.
I didn’t get the possibility to check the 4 off-road settings. I did modify the suspension, discovering “Agency” to be genuinely sporty whereas “Tender” is nice for grime roads with none of that marshmallowy wallow many off-roaders get of their softest settings.
Steering was probably the most direct and crisp I’ve ever felt in a pickup. And, with a sooner 0-60 mph time than a number of Porsche 911 trim ranges, hammering the accelerator seems like going to warp. That’s utterly pointless — be at liberty to accept two motors as an alternative of three — however Rivian has confirmed its level. When you’re underway, this can be the best-riding truck on the highway at this time.
One observe for the old style: There isn’t a solution to flip off one-pedal driving within the R1T. Rivian’s one-pedal driving system is nice. However in case you choose to make use of two pedals on a regular basis, this truck will pressure you to unlearn that.
Some Baffling Selections
The sentence above beginning with “when you’re underway,” does so for a motive. As a result of earlier than you’re underway, the R1T is a little bit of a Silicon Valley mess.
Adjusting the mirrors? You’ll want to seek out the correct touchscreen mirror to show that perform on. Then, two nondescript buttons on the steering wheel grow to be mirror adjustment settings. That is on no account higher than having mirror adjustment buttons.
Adjusting the steering wheel place? Identical. Even beginning the automotive isn’t apparent — your secret’s a card that have to be positioned within the telephone charging tray to start out the automobile. Even finances automobiles have a tendency to return with a key fob that may be anyplace within the automotive. Rivian’s system is way extra finicky.
Earlier than you drive a Rivian, a consultant teaches you the way to use the fundamental controls and fingers you a written cheat sheet lest you overlook.
That shouldn’t be needed.
What’s Fallacious Is Straightforward to Repair
The Rivian R1T is probably the most pleasant-driving pickup I’ve ever encountered. It’s stuffed with pleasant bits of persona and modern storage concepts.
It additionally falls sufferer to the worst excesses of present tech design. I can’t assist however surprise if, with a number of years of consumer suggestions, the subsequent version of this truck gained’t do away with these and permit it to reside as much as its full potential.
A key fob with a number of buttons on it may remedy all of this. Most automakers construct these even on economic system automobiles. If Rivian adopts that easy concept, this might simply be one of the best truck in the marketplace, although its worth will maintain it out of attain for many.
Cox Automotive, the guardian firm of Kelley Blue Ebook and Autotrader, is a minority investor in Rivian.
