The Best Electric Car Ever Made - Rivian R1S Review

I have owned by all-electric rivian r1t for about six months I've been off-roading and rock crawling and camping it has been the adventure vehicle for me that they advertise it to be but it's an electric truck and thus fairly Niche so enter this the all-new rivion r1s and SUV that targets all of America it's built with the same DNA and on the same platform as my truck and thus all of the marketing is this vehicle forwarding up streams and climbing mountains but let's be honest here how does it fare at Costco and how do you fare when you hear about our sponsor lttstore.com this is not a meme Linus Sebastian is paying the actual human currency to talk about a few of my favorite LTT store products first up we've got the backpack this thing comes with a warranty and it's got a bunch of really really nice features it's one of those backs that doesn't feel or look that big but you can just fit like unlimited things inside here I've taken it camping I've taken it on multiple airplanes and it's been fantastic you've got a bunch of cavities for laptops and tablets and all the things you can think of you've got a nice single huge compartment which I feel most like laptop focused bags don't have and then you've got a nice front pocket that fits Chargers batteries and other convenient things the other thing I love from LTT store is something they don't talk about that much probably because only nerds want it but I think it's pretty freaking awesome that's the workshop jacket now this thing is designed to be worn in workshops and boy does it do the task this heavy canvas not only makes see a really warm in a cold shop but it is fire and it is water resistant liquid you pour it on this thing it's like goodbye look at that it just rolls right off it's the best thing ever I love that it's got more Pockets than you can think of you can put tools in here and pens and holders and do you know what's the best part about it it dresses down so or dresses up I guess so if you want to wear it just out a night on the town it doesn't look like a weird nerdy Workshop jacket oh last thing I love it has gussets when you're reaching over into something most Workshop jackets you're like man you're all constrained no this thing lets you breathe and move it has gussets what more could you want lttstore.com [Music] if you are driving down the road and you saw one or both of these vehicles in your rear view mirror you'd be forgiven for mistaking one for the other the s for the T the T for the S because in reality from the B pillar forward they are absolutely identical not just inside the cabin driving it but also the componentry underneath it's not really until you get to the back of the r1t short cab that you notice the differences the r1s exchanges the very generously sized four and a half foot truck bed four well a third row an extended cab and a powered lift gate with an unpowered manually operated tailgate in theory this vehicle holds more people maybe even more things but it does so feeling smaller because it quite literally is the total vehicle length is about two feet shorter in r1s over r1t and the wheelbase is 14 inches shorter what this means is that the r1s feels a little bit more agile it feels a little smaller and it also has a narrower turning circle make no mistake these cars are not small they do not feel small they are large vehicles that weigh over six thousand pounds but what we will discover is if the changes in the r1s are worth it for the majority of people that don't feel like they need to own a truck or haul things or do truck things can electric cars even do that anyway now before we talk the all-new third row let's talk the redesign second row watch your head this pillar is very low to the ground ask me how I know it hurts now once you're inside the car it's actually really comfortable I am tall I am six foot four and you can tell that even though the driver right now is six one I have several inches of leg space and I have several inches of Headroom where this is even better than the r1t is that you can actually adjust the seat position laterally and also your seat back position I can recline like these and it's very very comfy I could sit here for hours without any issues it's way more comfortable than an airline seat now that does come at the expense of some of your rear passenger comfort in that third row but ah no big deal they're probably just kids right so I'm a little kid and I want to get into the back how do I do it well there's just this easy little button I push the seat back folds forward and the entire chair slides it's nice I can climb in no problem the issues start when I want to put the seat back to its original position this is something that even most adults will struggle with here's the thing if you pull the seat back which is what most people do in most Vehicles it will only lock in its forward most positions this is insanity no one would want to sit like this so what you've got to do is move the seat bottom with one or both hands and it is really heavy I cannot emphasize this it is very very heavy because it's spring loaded once you slide that back you've then got to use your other hand to recline the seat back into the first lock position then move your hand to the handle and then recline this to a reasonable position for someone to want to sit there it's something that is completely impossible to do from the third row because well you can't reach your little arm through and unfortunately there is no pull string that allows you to do that on the 60s 40 split you can do it on the right side of the vehicle with the single chair but on this side no chance it's confusing okay this is gonna suck okay oh it's not back okay wow this is miserable if you are maybe five foot two you could get away with sitting back here but that's about it I might be thinking hold on this the seats leads forwards and backwards maybe second row passengers could sacrifice some comfort for the third row and that's true but remember when I said this first position would be insane for anyone to sit in uh that's actually okay it's reasonable but if I put this in a position that would be tolerable for second row passengers I'm already borderline again but remember I'm six foot four so there may be passengers that are five six five seven with shorter second rep passengers that could get comfy in this configuration for this size of vehicle it's really a shame that that's the problem because everything else back here is a really comfortable save for the Fairly flat not padded seat I have a lot of Headroom I have my own air vent it doesn't have its own zone of climate control it shares whatever the second row is doing but I've got USBC I've got a nice cup holder I've got my own armrest it's not bad it's just tight oh seat belts and by seat belts I mean car seats there are isofix points back here for every single one of the four chairs there's not for the middle here but everywhere else you've got isofix and that's cool however this bolster this wheel well is so huge and then this threshold is so massive that getting a baby back there even a toddler in a booster seat you're not in for a good time plan on keeping your baby seats up here in the second row of course with any third row the question becomes how much of my precious cargo space is being taken up well quite a bit but you can actually do a very reasonably sized Costco haul in one of these vehicles if you happen to need more space well you've still got that very spacious front trunk found on the r1t with that and this combined you're probably at the average cargo space of a full-size SUV not a midsize like this which is very nice but if for whatever reason you find yourself needing more room the r1s is more than happy to accommodate like most SUVs you can push this button or this button to release the second row with a mechanical latch goodbye and you can of course release the third row two however it's not quite as easy you've got to reach forward pull this manual latch and then shove the seat forward push forward pull shove I've got long arms so it's easy to reach but if you're short you might find yourself needing to kind of get onto the tailgate in order to do that there is one thing that's a little less than desirable however the third row is not flush with the rest of the cargo area rivian did probably realize this was less than desirable and they added a little lip here that you can take this cargo cover place on top and then slope down it's not flat but at least it's flat adjacent for you to be able to roll things up inside and climb inside and maybe even sleep because with the new rivian camp mode that totally levels the vehicle I've gotten a couple of viewer questions saying hey can you sleep inside here with the tailgate up in the lift gate down well you can and it's actually really comfortable I think you'd have to be six six maybe even six seven before you started to feel cramped in here it's very spacious it's quite wide you could reasonably sleep two maybe even two people and a dog or a child or baby no not three adults if there's anywhere I can point to and say that's where they cost cut it would be in returning folded flat seats to their home position we've already talked about the second row it's kind of annoying it works mechanically and it's a little heavy but it's fine automatic second row seats are not common even in Ultra Luxury Cars what are becoming more increasingly common are automatically returning to home third row seats those are not present on the rivion r1s you've got really got two options you can pull the handle that locks them into position and unlocks them reach with your arm and if you're six three six two you'll probably be fine or you can climb in through the cargo area and then pull the handle pull the seat up and then the head rest up this is not ideal for anyone that isn't pretty tall again in the mid 70 to 80 thousand dollar price segment third row automatic seats are becoming standard not even an option this car is about a hundred thousand dollars it really should be here and it's not convenient to do manually at all luckily say for this one exception cost cutting is not going to be something you'll find pretty much anywhere else on the r1s now you do lose the gear tunnel in favor of a third row but everything else that the truck has you've got here you've got the Bluetooth cam speaker you've got the indoor flashlight you've got loads of power options two 120 volt 15 amp AC Outlets you've got three 12 volt DC Barrel plugs capable of 180 watts each you've got eight USBC PD plugs located throughout the entire cabin you've got an air compressor it's not in a bed it's in the back of the cargo area but this is fantastic for blowing up ah see for blowing up balls for blowing up bicycle tires and of course the tires on the vehicle itself because when you're going off-roading you can air down and then when you get back on pavement you air back up it's a great idea you've also got these cool little cargo hooks which are adjustable and allow you to well strap things down that you've got hanging out the back of your tailgate there's even on the second row a ski and lumber pass through which has a very clever design wherein there's this little Peg that pops out to lock the seat back in when you drop that it folds back to get out of the way and then represents itself when you're closing the seat it's really really clever now I did get a question from a viewer asking if you could transport four by eight sheet goods and the answer is kind of but not really unfortunately the design is such that it's only four feet wide right here not down here what this means is that in order to fit a sheet you've basically got to have the tailgate up and when the tailgate is up the lift gate can't go down the liftgate actually can't go down anyways because it locks into the tailgate so this would just be rattling around in the back so could you fit a four by eight sheet yeah but you'd have to have this open you'd have to have this up and you wouldn't really be able to use the cargo tie down points you're probably sticking to two by fours instead of four by eights if you're willing to Shell out 450 extra shekels you can get a blow up spare that fits in the cargo area now it's not the full size spare that you get on the R1 T but it's better than nothing you can inflate it to 60 PSI using the onboard compressor which is Handy it looks absolutely ridiculous when you put it on the vehicle because it is so small and it's limited to 50 miles per hour maximum again this is just for emergency uses only but it's better than having to call roadside support which is what you'll find on a lot of nicer SUVs that don't make room for any spare whatsoever now the scissor jack that it comes with sucks don't ever use this I got a flat in my r1t and it took me nearly an hour to lift my vehicle up because it is so heavy to spin that thing go to Harbor Freight spend 130 on an air hydraulic jack you've got an onboard compressor your life will be way better I also spent forty dollars on these little aluminum lifting pucks now the rivian comes with a plastic one but I don't think it's very good it's designed to be used with the scissor jack this vehicle can only be lifted from a couple of different points because of the battery pack you can't puncture it that's just like a Tesla but where Rivier goes even further than Tesla is that the entire underside of the vehicle is covered in plastic even the lifting points and so to get access to anything you need a pry tool or a screwdriver and I have been leaving the lttstore.com screwdriver in my car I've had a screwdriver in my car for a couple years now but the reason I love the LTT store one is that it's got a lot of different bits it ratchets so nicely and yeah I've been using this everywhere in my car in at home in the office I've got three of them and I have two more on order I bought them they didn't even pay me to talk about this part but I just this is such a fantastic screwdriver the hand feel and it's good just go buy it or don't I don't care they didn't pay for this part of the video driving on regular Pavement in all-purpose mode feels excellent now it will get better or slightly worse dependent on your Wheel and Tire selection in my truck I'm running on the 20-inch ATS they feel like truck wheels and it feels trucky I'm running on the 22 inch tires and wheels on the r1s and this feels excellent it is very softly sprung it's not quite as harsh as what you get from most uh you know performance oriented SUVs like the BMW X5 or the Porsche Cayenne but it's not so vague and fluffy like a Genesis gv80 for example that it feels like you have no wheel feedback no Road feel it's it's nice now you will get some noise in the cabin and that is frankly just wind noise I wouldn't say that it's particularly better or worse than any other non-porsha German vehicle BMW's probably got a slight Edge but it really comes down to the fact that there just is no other noise other than wind and so that's what you will naturally hear but it feels good the cabin is nice and it drives frankly like a dream oh and it's fast and when you put it in sport mode and disable stability control this car is just unruly fast it has got 835 horsepower making 908 pound-feet of torque this 7 000 pound vehicle gets up to speed like it's a feather now when you get into turns the vehicle Dynamics will start to reveal that this car is a very heavy car now make no mistake it feels a lot lighter than it is that's thanks to the hydraulically cross-link suspension of course the um individual Motors that apply torque vectoring to compensate for oversteer and understeer but no matter what kind of Wizardry you try to achieve this vehicle is going to feel large because it is it's no Porsche Cayenne in a canyon but the fact that we're even comparing them should be a miracle because this vehicle pay weighs over one ton more than the Porsche and when you put your foot down it smokes it it is unruly fast I love this car and despite its weight you can throw the back out of it if you punch out of a corner you ready here we go it should not be legal to have this much fun well it's not rivian is comprised of many Tesla engineers and it shows the moment that you try to enable their Lane keep assist software which is the exact same as Tesla's a double press of the drive stock the lane keep assist software is good it keeps you inside the lane it doesn't perform Lane changes yet although that is alleged to be coming and there's a really nice Hardware Suite you've got a driver monitoring system that will eventually allegedly allow you to drive hands-free right now there's just a capacitive sensor so rather than have to wiggle the wheel like you do in a Tesla you just gently press which is nice you've got Corner Radars a forward radar and cameras all around the vehicle's perimeter it frankly reminds me of Tesla autopilot Circa 2018. wherein it works but don't expect it to perform Miracles it doesn't really even like handling Junctions it'll do it if I force it to but it doesn't prefer to and that's really where this thing is different from autopilot is that there is one big exception it can only work on mapped roads if the road has not been mapped by rivien it will not function this is a very large departure from Tesla autopilot and frankly one that I would accept if the lane keeping was perfect but it's not autopilot has a big leg up still and when it's time to peel off the pavement you put it in off-road all-terrain that puts it at its second highest suspension articulation and it makes things very soft and soft they are now look it doesn't feel like we're on asphalt but given that this is a fairly poorly maintained Road and we're going 40 miles an hour it's shocking especially considering that we are using the 22 inch wheels wheels frankly very ill-suited for this job when you have the 20-inch ATS like I have on my r1t you can go a lot more aggressive with it you can start climbing up stuff and you can really climb up a bunch of stuff now you're not going to out Jeep a Rubicon because you have independent front suspension still but you can certainly hang with the Broncos of the world and it has a very very nice job because you've got a motor on each wheel that gives you independent variable torque vectoring there's no lockers there's really no skill involved at all you just push the go pedal and it goes now the hardcore off-roaders May dismiss electric vehicles for that reason but I think that it's a great to own one if it encourages you to take your car where you've never taken other cars to be in nature how is that not a good buy it's awesome is the rivien r1s A Better People Mover than a Cadillac Escalade no it isn't is it better in the canyons than a Porsche Cayenne it's not it's a better off-roading than a Jeep Wrangler no not that either probably better than a four-door Bronco but not better than a Jeep Wrangler but it does all three of those things and not only does it do them but it does them well really well better than any singular car can do those three tasks it is truly a one car car it's the best electric vehicle I've ever driven and it's frankly not close and it's one of the best cars I've ever driven period in history if this is the first that Riven has to offer things are looking really really bright and I can't wait to see what they do next I love my r1t and I'm pretty sure if you get one you'll love it too stay snazzy [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you

Channel: Snazzy Labs

Views: 216,555

Keywords: snazzy labs, quinn nelson, snazzyq, rivian r1s, rivian r1t, rivian, rivian vs tesla, model x, model y, rivian suv, rubicon, wrangler, jeep, offroad, canyon driving, porsche, best suv, cayenne, escalade, yukon, ev, best ev

Id: sQpSM4rl8kQ

Length: 20min 33sec (1233 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 20 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Squashmoen]

I loved your original video on the R1T, and I was glad to see the R1S got the same treatment!!

Question building on one portion of the video. When you are talking to the feasibility if fitting a 4’x8’ sheet in the back, you talk about the lift gate flopping around and the tail gate up as a support.

Question being, are you actually able to drive the vehicle without the lift gate latched to the tailgate/ with the tailgate lowered as well? I have heard that there is a software lock if both aren’t closed.

Been a fan of your videos for a long time. Keep up the stellar coverage!!!

[u/Thecallofrhino]

Hi smazzylabs guy. Liked your review of that litter robot so I got my cat one. She attacks it every day now and I have to vacuum litter off the floor.

Which EV has been your favorite so far?

[u/chickaladee]

Really cool video! Thank you for demonstrating the inflation and installation of the compact spare!

[u/seanocono22]

Hahaha. We had a post in this sub within the last week commenting on how much better the Rivian culture is than the Tesla bro culture. Reading through the comments on this thread, I have to disagree… this type of behavior exists everywhere.

In regards to the video, I think SL did a great job. I especially appreciate the spare tire section. I haven’t seen anyone else showcase that before, and it is tremendously helpful for prospective buyers. SL had some great tips with the Harbor Freight jack and aluminum pucks, too. Those are sincerely appreciated.

My only criticism isn’t with SL, but with Rivian. I think it would have been preferable to see the R1S tested on 20s, so SL could give a more direct comparison. I also would have loved to see that inflatable spare mounted with the 20” wheels and tires; and actually seen a driving demo with that solution. For those of us who plan to take the R1S off-road, that would have been useful information.

[u/miggadabigganig]

Awesome review, and thanks for taking the time to respond to comments. You da real MVP. How do the driving dynamics compare to the R1T (body roll, etc)? I know you were on sport tires with the r1s but it would be interesting to know.

[u/Arson_Shark]

Hello fellow 6'4" bearded man from Utah. Thanks for demoing laying down in the back, that's one of the big selling points for me with the r1s.

How is the driver seating position? I find myself hunched over in other EVs trying to see out the windshield.

[u/aegee14]

Great video. First time watching this guy.

Having been able to sit in a R1S myself recently, I can confirm this guy’s gripes with the second row seats and the third row space. For a now-$100K SUV, it’s puzzling that that there’s not an easier electronic way of utilizing the 3rd row space. This isn’t LX, X7, RR, GLS type of luxury if that’s something you’re looking for. Also, overall, interior space is not any much different from the Model X, which almost everyone likes to complain is small.

Having said that, I’m sure the R1S drives just as nicely as the R1T with its quad motors and strong electric powertrain.

I think the R1S sits in a good middle tier electric SUV space for now. Once the cheaper brands like KIA and Hyundai come out with their 3-row BEV SUVs, and the luxury brands come out with 3-row BEV SUVs, there will be competition.

[u/Nitsy_]

Great review!

I noticed that you were releasing the third row / returning the third row to its home with the tailgate down. I would think it would be much easier when the tailgate closed, isn't it?

[u/franksmartin]

Nice job, Just fyi

Vehicles are not identical from front on exterior - whole roof is different color and S has chrome trim.

There is NOT a climate zone in the second row. It uses the front left and right temperature settings in back.

The frunk bottom is removable to add space.