The primary time a producer loaned me a car 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 a lot of them.
The 2025 Rivian R1T presents the most effective 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 residing with it are all stuff you’d develop accustomed to if you happen to owned it. None would make you hate your truck. If the R1T pursuits you, it is best to take a look at drive one with an open thoughts. You may adore it.
After every week of driving it, I feel I cherished it. However I cherished it the best way you’re keen on a superb teenager who nonetheless makes bafflingly dangerous selections (I’ve had greater than a kind of, too). You’ll be able to’t shake the sense that this factor could possibly be wonderful sometime … but it surely has to study a number of alarmingly staple items.
With a number of easy modifications, Rivian may have a traditionally nice truck on its palms. It doesn’t but, but it surely does have one you may get pleasure from.
My tester was an expensive 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 fantastic Forest Inexperienced with an inside scheme Rivian calls Driftwood, stuffed with muted grays, delicate bronzes, and plaid flooring mats that felt sudden 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 improbable traditional pickup silhouette and up to date it for the electrical period.
There’s nothing outlandish concerning the look — truck designers have perfected the form that will get most work carried out fairly nicely, and Rivian has stored to it. However rounded edges and a delicate inverted swoosh to the rear doorways make it distinctive.
Rivian’s signature tall oval headlights inform everybody in visitors what you’re driving with out wanting, nicely, “cyber.” My tester’s Forest Inexperienced is a shade truckmakers badly wanted to rescue from the Nineteen Nineties, and I’m so completely satisfied to see it again.
A Cabin With Character
Inside, the driftwood theme reveals actual consideration to creative element. Even the backs of the seats are textured elegantly, however designed to not appeal to mud.
Rivian is dedicated to a vibe of upscale personalization. Loads of luxurious automobiles lately 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 essentially the most pleasant this-is-not-particularly-important function is the cartoon graphics of the touchscreen interface, which present a playfulness you received’t get in a Ford F-150 Lightning.
A Container Retailer’s Price of Storage
The R1T incorporates a 54-inch mattress that could be a good rectangular prism — there aren’t any obstructions to forestall carrying plywood flat. It additionally options two commonplace family energy shops and a compressor nozzle, plus 4 helpful fold-away tie-down factors.
Below the mattress is a usable trunk house designed for a full-size spare if you happen to select one. The frunk (entrance trunk) is giant sufficient for a weekend’s price of baggage, with house beneath put aside for the charging wire.
There’s wasted house 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 by way of doorways from both facet — 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 method 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 operate 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 wish to open. The charging door is almost the identical form, so you’ve gotten solely a 2-in-3 probability of getting this proper.
The mattress rail buttons are a greater possibility, however different automakers put a button to open the car in your pocket. The most affordable car on the market in America as we speak, 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 Improbable Driving Expertise in Each Mode
Most autos able to any off-roading have a drive mode or two that works very nicely and some which might 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 can depart 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 wish 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 prospect to check the 4 off-road settings. I did alter the suspension, discovering “Agency” to be genuinely sporty whereas “Delicate” is sweet for filth roads with none of that marshmallowy wallow many off-roaders get of their softest settings.
Steering was essentially 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 appears like going to warp. That’s fully pointless — be happy 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 street as we speak.
One word for the old school: There isn’t any method to flip off one-pedal driving within the R1T. Rivian’s one-pedal driving system is nice. However if you happen to choose to make use of two pedals on a regular basis, this truck will drive you to unlearn that.
Some Baffling Selections
The sentence above beginning with “when you’re underway,” does so for a cause. 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 suitable touchscreen mirror to show that operate on. Then, two nondescript buttons on the steering wheel turn into mirror adjustment settings. That is by no means higher than having mirror adjustment buttons.
Adjusting the steering wheel place? Similar. Even beginning the automobile isn’t apparent — your secret is a card that have to be positioned within the cellphone charging tray to start out the car. Even finances automobiles have a tendency to come back with a key fob that may be anyplace within the automobile. Rivian’s system is way extra finicky.
Earlier than you drive a Rivian, a consultant teaches you tips on how to use the fundamental controls and palms you a written cheat sheet lest you overlook.
That shouldn’t be needed.
What’s Unsuitable Is Straightforward to Repair
The Rivian R1T is essentially the most pleasant-driving pickup I’ve ever encountered. It’s stuffed with pleasant bits of persona and progressive 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 person suggestions, the subsequent version of this truck received’t eliminate these and permit it to dwell as much as its full potential.
A key fob with a number of buttons on it may resolve all of this. Most automakers construct these even on financial system automobiles. If Rivian adopts that straightforward thought, this might simply be the most effective truck in the marketplace, although its worth will preserve it out of attain for many.
Cox Automotive, the guardian firm of Kelley Blue Guide and Autotrader, is a minority investor in Rivian.
