The Rivian R1T is an Incredibly Fun Electric Pickup!

[Music] hey what's up mkbhd here this is a key fob and the key fob unlocks this which is the most impressive electric truck i have ever seen this is the rivien r1t so it's literally brand new it's just hitting the streets and for the next 24 hours i'm gonna drive it i'm gonna daily it i'm gonna live with it spend some time with it and then i'm gonna try to answer all the questions people have had about it that i possibly can and there are a lot of questions because this is a very hyped up vehicle this is maybe the most promising of any of the evs coming out of the startups you know we have all the old manufacturers of course making lots of promises to electrify their lineups but there's also a lot of really interesting stuff from the teslas and lucids and rimacs of the world this i think is the most interesting of all of them right now thanks in part by their background with amazon and ford so this is rivien's first consumer vehicle it's a pickup truck it's called the r1t so i've got it here in this sort of pacific blue color and the basic specs are this it's quad motors one on each 21 inch all-terrain wheel 314 miles of range 0-60 in three seconds flat which is hilariously quick for a pickup truck and then this is the launch edition with the adventure package which includes you know a lot of the most premium interior finishes it has the off-road upgrade and pretty much all the options so it starts at just over seventy thousand dollars and it can quickly jump up into mid 80s or 90 plus from there so definitely premium but it's packing a lot of stuff that makes it feel worth the price so number one what's good with this design right so rivien is a new company they don't really have a heritage or a design dna where they have to keep certain shapes in mind when designing their vehicle so really they could have made whatever they wanted and at the end of the day they chose this shape for a short bed electric pickup truck personally i do actually like a lot of the design here it's not completely crazy out of this world like a cyber truck but it's also not flying way under the radar like the f-150 lightning it's kind of somewhere in between it has a lot of modern shapes and modern touches and really the biggest feature that of course stands out looking at it is the bar tail light across the back which i love and the face the bar plus headlights across the front which definitely takes some getting used to but again i think it's pretty nice the headlights on each side are the most powerful and that's where the high beams are and everything but the entire bar light is functional and you definitely find that out pretty quick driving it at night like i did so that's cool and i also do like this blue color which is one of a bunch of colors that they have that i think are really adventurey and i gotta say this truck turns more heads than anything else i have ever driven i think a lot of it is the face but like more than any other electric car more than any mclaren more than any tesla all day people are coming up to it asking about it pointing at it it definitely makes a statement right now and someone on twitter told me it looks kind of like this truck is 50 years old and from the future at the same time i feel like that actually hits the nail on the head okay number two how's the interior so it's really good and also doesn't really look like anything else but if i had to describe it it's kind of like if someone combined the layout from a tesla with the wood and leather and metal type finishes from a volvo or something and then stuffed a bunch of extra features in it so this is the black mountain interior color so pretty much everything inside is matte black and it just gives me the impression that there's a lot of thought that went into a lot of the little things so like the back of the seats each one of them has a coat hook and a usb type-c port there's a wireless charger between the front seats there's also a bunch of hidden features in this interior too which i'll get to in a second don't worry space-wise though it is still it's a compact pickup truck for sure much smaller than say a full-size f-150 the panoramic glass roof definitely helps it feel more spacious when you're sitting inside and there's plenty of legroom in the second row which is awesome but from left to right i probably wouldn't put three people in this middle seat i think there's a video somewhere with three people on the back of the rivian and you know it's fine they all fit but probably wouldn't want to do that for a multi-hour road trip all right so number three if it's a small truck how's the storage so here's the thing it's small for truck but since it's an electric truck there's no engine under the hood no transmission running through the middle and it absolutely maximizes the space inside in every way so it's a small bed four and a half feet with the tailgate up plenty for me personally but smaller than some other trucks out there there's also supposed to be a bed cover that wasn't working on this early model i'm driving but that will give you about 29 cubic feet which can be extended a bit to a seven foot length when you open the tailgate since it sort of slides this extra piece down between the bed and the gate for larger items then there's also storage underneath the bed for an optional full-size spare but that space also has a drain plug in case you wanted to use it as a cooler or something then in the front there is a fully powered lift gate revealing a massive front trunk and again this this is so nice for a pickup truck there's more than enough room to fit several bags you can go grocery shopping with just the front trunk and the fact that it powers up and down like a regular trunk and even has this little button underneath the front headlights to open and close it to me it's so convenient that i kind of feel like i would use this more than the back like for covered locked storage this is great this is great for a pickup truck then inside the truck there is a lot of storage too there's actually no normal spot for a glove box which is funny it's just a leather paneling here but there's a huge amount of storage in this super deep center console where you can clip papers and stuff that would normally go in a glove box there's storage in the doors there's storage inside a little pocket in the front of the front seats which is kind of random but cool and then there are in fact pop-out cup holders in the middle between the front seats there's even the back seat of course for casual storage but also even more hidden storage underneath the back seats and then maybe the most iconic extra space on this entire truck the gear tunnel so that is this column of space with a cover on both sides that's right between the rear wheel and the back seats it's actually super cool i'm not sure what you'd specifically use this space for when it's empty you know you could fit technically a whole set of golf clubs in here or a couple backpacks or something you know it can definitely fit some larger duffel bags it can fit a human body you know we have to try a lot of you guys were asking on twitter but it's not just the space here that's useful there are power outlets inside of this tunnel on either side and the doors that open on either side are actually strong enough that they can support up to 300 pounds so you can sit on it you can even use it as a step to climb over and into the bed of the truck and there's storage inside those doors for even more stuff and in case whatever you're hauling here is precious you can actually access the gear tunnel from inside the truck from between the back seats you pull that armrest down and you can reach inside behind this cover into the middle of the gear tunnel to grab whatever stuff you have in here i've never seen anything like this in any other truck and yeah i love it so your grand total just for the spec sheet 68 cubic feet of storage in this compact pickup truck that's massive okay number four how does it drive well i know most people aren't buying pickup trucks just for the way they drive but if you do care about that this is an incredibly impressive truck to drive now like you saw this one's running on 21-inch all-terrain wheels so it's not even set up to drive like a sports car clearly but any time you combine quad motors totaling 800 plus horsepower with a world-class air suspension it kind of doesn't matter how much the thing weighs this truck absolutely hauls 0-60 in three seconds flat which is amazing it does taper off after that but that is a crazy fast time for a truck and it feels fast there's a couple of different driving modes to talk about most of the time you can just leave it in all-purpose mode and it can handle pretty much any daily driving the air suspension has a massive range of adjustment for how much clearance how much ride height you need and there's a couple options you can have a stiff or soft ride and you can turn brake regen to low or high which i've kept it on high as much as possible while driving because it is actually calibrated for one pedal driving which is awesome and stability on or off so yeah on the road it's crazy i know i said the number but just to say it again zero to sixty and three seconds flat that'll be in sport mode where you can also have the firm ride and the suspension really does turn extra firm and minimize roll obviously only having it for a day i couldn't take it to a track or anything but it's a it's a pickup truck i'll just say i've never had more fun driving a truck ever so great for highway driving has a pretty tight turning radius too for a truck which is partially due to the torque vectoring you get from having one motor at each wheel now there's also a conserve mode which is good for saving battery and maximizing your range if you're doing some sort of road trip stuff and it really does hunker down the suspension in the sport and conserve modes for the best aerodynamic efficiency and the firm ride but i'm sure that most people are most interested in the off-road stuff which actually has several versions has automatic rock crawl rally and drift mode casual now i didn't really get to really off-road in the couple of hours that i'm out here near the studio in new jersey but i did take it off on a dirt path that i would never take my car and it's a truck it handled it with ease with these tires as you'd expect and it was a pretty great demo actually of how the suspension can really go from very firm to very soft and adaptive and just absorb all the rocks and the terrain so this truck is capable of way more off-roading than i was able to throw at it the bottom is plated in metal and there are even more aggressive off-roading tire packages there's a great video from zach on the j-rig everything channel where he gets to put it through some rock crawling and the thing absolutely eats whatever you throw at it and it does it in silence too that's the thing i mean we all already knew evs were quiet but there's something about driving around through crazy mud or rocks in nature and not drowning out everything with the sound of the engine but just hearing the tires basically so off-roading was eerily quiet in a good way all right so number five what makes the rivien different from other evs or other trucks well the form factor is already pretty unique as a small pickup truck but they're also really leaning into this like adventure thing you're supposed to think of this more as an adventure vehicle than a normal truck and that kind of sounds cheesy at first but hey they're throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it to live up to that actually they're literally even throwing a kitchen sink at this thing so look all right in the driver's side door there's a flashlight that clicks away here hidden away and it's powered by one of the car's batteries matter of fact it actually has one of those exact cells inside and it just sits here wireless charging in case you ever need it and it's a legit super bright flashlight apparently the reason they did this is because there are 7776 of these batteries in the bottom of the truck and rj the founder just really wanted a nice number so the flashlight had to happen so the story goes either way that's a nice little addition then not only are there two full outlets in the trunk but there's also an air compressor that can go up to 150 psi and it comes with a 20 foot hose that can reach all four tires so you can literally inflate your tires with a built-in compressor on the truck or do whatever else you want with the air compressor it's just there anytime you need it and if you check underneath the center armrest there's a whole bluetooth speaker separate from the car sound system that just lives under there and wireless charges all the time too it's got a huge battery it's got lights it's got a usbc port to charge your phone it can easily be the centerpiece of a camping trip or whatever sort of adventure is happening around this car that's pretty sick i love that and then the gear tunnel of course is ripe for possibilities so it already has a full-size outlet inside and tons of space but then there's a 5 000 option on their site for a camp kitchen that expands to reveal a 1400 watt stove top a 4 gallon water tank a countertop and a 30 piece cutlery set just sitting in the back of your truck it's just it's very impressive that the whole thing just slots back into the tunnel when you're done using it and there's more that can fit back here and i'm sure there will be more third-party stuff to slot into the gear tunnel in the future it's super dope the cherry on top instead of a horn this adventure vehicle makes a locking sound inspired by nature all right so number six what's the charging situation right it's electric like i said 314 miles of range which is pretty decent so it's it's public chargers and home chargers only for now which it will happily route you to on the map which is good the spec sheet says it supports 200 kilowatts fast charging speeds i stopped at an electrify america station near the studio with around 35 battery left and while the station says it supported 150 kilowatts the car itself never got over 100 and was quoting me about an hour to charge the remaining two-thirds of the battery so this is part of the big early question with a lot of these evs as of right now they can't use the tesla supercharging network and this is supposed to be a vehicle you really want to adventure with so you really don't want to be thinking about how much range you have left you kind of just want to go drive off into the woods and not think about it so ideally this rivian adventure network that they're promising will start to get built up soon now if you're a day one customer getting a truck today that doesn't exist yet but they're planning on building a bunch of fast chargers at the most convenient locations for adventures and that'll kind of act like the tesla supercharger network for rivian charges fast you can monitor it through the app etc we'll see though it's getting built i'll believe it when i see it the best part though about charging the rivian uh is when you plug it in and it starts charging the led bar light at the front lights up green and starts pulsing it kind of looks a little weird on camera but it's it's great i thought i saw somewhere that it was actually going to act like a progress bar and sort of light up from left to right as the charge is completed but it doesn't do that maybe that would draw too much attention or maybe they'll add it with a software update but it does light up green but then you know what speaking of software number seven what is the software situation so this whole car it's got some screens inside the whole cars ui is made in-house by rivian there is no apple carplay there is no android auto it's just rivien software through and through i was optimistic that would be really great you know it's a california company i will say functionally it's very good and i think it's actually laid out pretty well you have the dock at the bottom for organizing things similar to tesla but it's not super responsive and especially when manipulating the map at all like the map is super slow and laggy but thankfully this is something that can be improved with future iterations and yes rivian is one of the car companies that will be pushing over-the-air software updates to all their cars which they can download using the built-in cell connection or wi-fi and that's nice to see plus it means they can add features later if they come up with more cool stuff as of right now it's pretty clear by how much is happening on this 16-inch touchscreen that they are pretty heavily inspired by tesla i mean i'm sure many former tesla employees who now work at rivien would agree but i mean it's the dock at the bottom like i mentioned they have a security camera mode not sentry mode it's called gearguard and it's you know a little more advanced because it can connect to a cable that comes with the car so if you tie something down and someone comes by and tampers with that cable it'll automatically record and set off the alarm but it's got that going the air conditioning the way the vents move entirely by software that's just like tesla even the single scroll wheel and pair of buttons on either side of the steering wheel is just like tesla and even the way you adjust the mirrors and the steering wheel quinn pointed this out in his video is exactly like we've been doing with teslas for years so plenty of inspiration here in the software department which is not a bad thing at all but i look forward to it getting better too so number eight speaking of tesla software there's a rivian driver assist feature called driver plus what is it what does driver plus actually do so from my experience it's just a pretty simple set of driver assist features like i've seen in lots of other cars it's not like any sort of advanced autopilot by any means but it uses the 11 cameras and radar and ultrasonic sensors all around the car to do adaptive cruise control lane keep assist cross traffic warnings emergency braking all the typical safety type stuff there is a full-on highway assist that will do all the steering and braking and acceleration for you on select highways you literally engage it just like a tesla you pull down on the drive stock all the way twice and that turns it on and it should keep that lane and turn the wheel for you and everything i was able to try it a few times and i noticed like it was very picky about when it would engage like many roads with turns on them at all it would just tell me driver assist was unavailable sometimes even on major highway straightaways if i wasn't in the middle of the lane on the straightaway it wouldn't turn on but once it does turn on it works and just keeps you going with traffic it can take light turns uh yeah it's fine it doesn't change lanes for you just so you know you'll have to disengage it change lanes yourself and then re-engage it but again maybe this can also be changed with a software update all right number nine how does it compare to the other options you know the other electric pickup trucks i think that's the natural question like all right the cyber truck is gonna happen the f-150 lightning is around the corner maybe the hummer too i guess so if you look at the cyber truck that's at least a year away but when that comes out if we give it the benefit of the doubt and they actually deliver what they say then at the same price as the rivian it should outperform it but it's also a much bigger truck with a very very different style it'll be a triple motor cyber truck at that price it'll do 14 000 pounds of towing while the rivian will do 11 000 pounds and of course cyber truck has the tesla supercharger advantage a longer predicted range and it has much much better software but also the yoke and a wildly minimal interior but the f-150 lightning might actually be a more likely comparison so they tow about the same the range is also pretty close about the same but again that's going to be a much bigger truck too physically speaking and yeah same with the hummer it's just ridiculously huge i don't know if anyone's crush shopping with that personally from the amount of fun i've had with this thing i would pick the rivian every time and i think it's the most promising for a bunch of reasons it's the most dailyable because of the size and the range and the comfort i love the powered frunk and the gear tunnel and it's just so much fun to drive i really have to cross my fingers for that rivien adventure network fit and finish also was excellent pretty much everywhere inside the truck except for this little plastic latch on the gear tunnel storage compartment that probably could have been metal or something but whatever and it seems like they're starting deliveries really soon i believe the first ones are out there in the wild already so here's the big one number 10 should you get it well this isn't a full review i've only had the thing for like 30 hours but look if you've got 70 grand burning a hole in your pocket and you're looking for a pickup truck to daily i would keep this one on the shortlist it's it's really fun now rivien also has an suv the r1s coming later it's got a slightly shorter wheelbase but essentially it's the same type of adventure vehicle without a truck bed that should be cool to see and it's just it's overall super cool to see real genuine competition starting to fill out the space you know i think someone asked on twitter if this is a tesla killer or something no not everything that comes out that's electric has to be a tesla killer the tesla truck isn't even out yet but electric trucks as a whole will benefit from really good ones coming out so they all boost each other up and i love that so the entire industry going electric just got a little bit faster thanks to this one thanks to rivian for letting me borrow this thing for a day i hope you guys enjoy this first look thanks for watching and i'll catch you guys the next one peace

Channel: Marques Brownlee

Views: 2,367,795

Rating: 4.9411483 out of 5

Keywords: Rivian, Rivian truck, Rivian R1T, MKBHD, Rivian pickup truck, electric pickup truck, electric truck, Electric truck review, Rivian R1T review, Rivian R1T vs, R1S, vs Cybertruck, Cybertruck vs

Id: A1uYhkMRLWg

Length: 21min 22sec (1282 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/avboden]

They seem great in reviews

The question is, and always has been, can they actually produce them in any volume with reliability. and service them once on the road.

Brand new vehicle, brand new company, brand new platform, brand new EVERYTHING, there's a lot to prove.

[u/twiggymac]

I think once people see the Rivian amazon vans rolling around (Which I'm convinced will not be vaporware with an R1T driving the blue origin crew to the latest rocket flight with Shatner and Bezos on site) they'll give these even more of a shot, honestly.

So far, they seem awesome, just have to hope they can break into that middle-upper level luxury truck scene.

[u/NSA7]

Rivian did a great job giving us a new alternative in the EV space. But I have to say, I’m more excited about the F150 lightning and Hummer EV than I am about any rivian product.

[u/abaybay99]

If you check out MKBHDs other stuff they did a real world EV road trip, which was interesting to see. The compared an Audi Q5 a Model S (Plaid) and the Mustang Mach E. The charging infrastructure for non-Tesla was a problem for the Ford so he has some valid points about the charging network.

Devil is always in the details.

[u/5GCovidInjection]

Although it looks like something straight out of GTA, I’m hyped about this truck because it seems to do everything actual truck buyers want. Function over form, if you will. Can’t wait to drive one in-person later on… hopefully

[u/neuma327]

What I’ve learned from motortrend and Reddit is that Rivian has an unreal marketing budget.

[u/ilkopo]

He keeps saying 21" wheels but the sidewall clearly says 275 65 r20.

Which is about 34x10.

I am not looking forward to shopping for cars based on who has a charging network in my area, manufacturers or gov need to figure out a set standard. Why can't this thing just use the tesla supercharger?

Software only vents wtf?

[u/DodgeTundra]

He should stick with phones

[u/Clareth_GIF]

This young man MKBHD has done really well for himself on YouTube. I’d love to hear his thoughts on a completely mechanical machine like the 997 GT3 and how he thinks that compares to the fantastic electric cars he often reviews.