The R1T is a cutting-edge, all-electric pickup with an impressively wide repertoire of capabilities. The 835-horsepower truck can accelerate with the ferociousness of a supercar, claw its way up and over boulders with the tenacity of a Jeep Wrangler, carve through corners better than many SUVs, and tow a trailer of up to 11,000 pounds, albeit for a relatively short distance before requiring to be recharged. Slotting in sizewise between a midsized pickup like the Honda Ridgeline and a full-sized Ford F-150, the R1T has a luxurious cabin and features numerous innovations, including a transverse storage tunnel between the cab and bed. All of these positive attributes enabled the R1T to achieve a very high road-test score in our testing.
But, all is not perfect. It takes concentration to drive the R1T smoothly thanks to its aggressive regenerative-braking system. Then there’s the interior controls: Far too much reliance is placed on the center-dash infotainment touchscreen, including what should be simple tasks such as adjusting the side mirrors and the air vents, which adds to driver distraction.
Still, what’s not to like about a luxury pickup truck that can instantly pin you back into your seat when you floor the throttle pedal, as it transfers all of its prodigious torque to all four wheels at once thanks to four electric motors? The R1T scorched from 0 to 60 mph in a sports-car-like 3.8 seconds. This is true eyes-widening stuff, as your brain has to work hard to compute just how ferociously fast the truck is moving down the road when you step hard on the accelerator pedal.
The quad-motor R1T with 21-inch wheels we tested has an EPA-rated driving range of 328 miles for 2023. It relies on a huge, 135-kilowatt-hour battery, and is capable of DC fast charging at a maximum acceptance rate of 200 kW, which is competitive. Of course, charging such a large battery on a 240-volt connector is a long process that takes 13 hours from empty. With its 11.5 kW on-board charger, those with a private home charger can benefit from installing the charger on a 48-amp circuit to maximize the charging speed.
Stopping distances are merely average, begging the question of whether the R1T is too speedy for its own good. We also found the regenerative braking system—which slows the vehicle when coasting and sends energy back to recharge the battery—to be annoying. The result is that any time you let off the throttle it slows the truck down abruptly, which is sure to make your passengers feel queasy. The sensation that the accelerator pedal is “tightly-wound” is even more evident at parking-lot speeds, or when you’re trying to back up or turn around; let off the accelerator pedal just slightly and it feels like the parking brake has been thrown on.
The R1T’s handling abilities are impressive for any vehicle, let alone a nearly 7,000-pound pickup, thanks to quick steering and very little body roll through corners. The steering effort is a bit light, and doesn’t deliver much feedback to the driver about tire grip or road texture, though. By virtue of its unibody construction, rather than the traditional body-on-frame design of most pickups, along with standard air suspension, the R1T stays steady, composed, and comfortable most of the time out on the road. The firmness of the ride only comes through on bumpier back roads, with some noticeably hard hits punching through into the cabin. The truck handles off-road situations impressively, too; it crawled up our boulder-strewn rock hill with relative ease, thanks to its height-adjustable suspension and the individual motor at each wheel.
We appreciate the R1T’s spacious driving position, which has an elevated seat height and lots of headroom. The wide front seats provided good comfort and support for some of our drivers. But others found them lumpy, with odd pressure points on the upper portion of the seatback. The rear seat isn’t as roomy as a full-sized truck, but even our taller testers found that they had good headroom, and just enough knee room. There’s good foot space under the front seats, and the slightly raised, stadium-style seat delivers ample leg support.
The cabin shows excellent attention to detail and exhibits a premium, high-tech look. We love the metal accents on the doors and seats, and the natural, untreated feel of the wood trim. There are plenty of padded surfaces throughout the interior, including super-soft micro-suede material covering the headliner and windshield pillars.
Plus, the truck is chock full of innovative features. There’s a rechargeable flashlight in the driver’s door; a rechargeable, removable Bluetooth speaker; an air pump in the bed, with a hose that can reach all four tires to air them up; a gear-lock cable in the bed that works with the central locking system; a large front trunk; a transverse gear tunnel between the bed and cab for added storage, and a powered tonneau cover for the bed.
But although the Rivian has many unique features, the company has oddly mimicked Tesla when it comes to the infotainment system and controls, including a lack of traditional, easy-to-use physical controls for the side mirrors, steering-wheel adjustment, and dashboard air vents. Nearly every interior function has to go through the oversized center-dash infotainment screen. Even the double-tapping of the gear selector lever on the right side of the steering wheel to engage the active driving assistance system—which is the combination of lane centering assistance (LCA) and adaptive cruise control (ACC)—is an obvious Tesla knockoff. It’s truly a sad state of affairs that we breathed a collective sigh of relief that the R1T at least has a traditional stalk on the steering wheel for the turn signals and windshield wipers, but such is the auto industry’s utter eschewing of physical controls that we never know which button or knob a carmaker is going to take away next. It’s also disappointing that Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, and satellite radio are unavailable on the Rivian.
Also, it’s important to keep in mind that the R1T is an all-new vehicle from a brand-new automaker, and there’s a high likelihood there could be some early production teething problems. In fact, we experienced some of those ourselves; our truck was delivered to our test facility with an inoperable power tonneau cover. So as much as you might wish to be the first one on your block to park an R1T in your driveway, the prudent buyer should probably wait a year or even two years to make sure all the bugs get worked out.
Automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic warning, lane centering assistance, lane departure warning, lane keeping assistance, adaptive cruise control, and automatic high beams all come standard.