BigGreenR1S
Active Member
- First Name
- Craig
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2022
- Threads
- 1
- Messages
- 34
- Reaction score
- 58
- Location
- San Jose, CA
- Vehicles
- BMW X7
- Thread starter
- #1
Well, I finally got my test drive this weekend and after waiting a long 18 months I'm sad to say the R1S simply didn't live up to my (or my wife's) expectations.
Granted, this is from the perspective of having driven a BMW X7 for 4 years now (and currently) and a full size Range Rover for 5 years before that.
Here are some of the "low-lights":
Rivian gave me an address in San Jose to meet them for the test drive. I was fully expecting this to be Rivan's building, but instead it was a park across the street from a sketchy neighborhood with homeless people wandering around, and project cars parked on front lawns. After driving around in circles wondering how our GPS did us wrong, I finally saw a lone R1S on the side of the road. I hesitantly walked up to it and sure enough, there sits a young kid inside waiting for us. Like, do you think they could have been a little more specific in the e-mail that we'd be meeting some dude in a park in a sketchy neighborhood to go for a test drive....not a great start! Super unprofessional and kind of mind-boggling actually!
Outside walkaround:
- The walk-around of the vehicle was fine. I did notice a few minor panel gap issues but didn't bother pointing them out. It was green (not launch green) and the paint sparkles were pretty nice when the sun hit it. Can't deny it's nice looking from the outside!
- It had the 22" wheels, also nice. It had the Quad package.
Inside walkaround:
- The inside of the vehicle is where we were let down a bit. The way all the seats fold down with a loud *thunk* seems very unrefined for a vehicle this expensive and it's literally the very first thing the guy showed, as if that was a great "feature". "Thunk, thunk, thunk." ?? Every other luxury SUV in this class has electric controls to move the seats or at least a "soft open/close feel" rather than just thunking into place like a basic work pickup truck or something.
- The sound system was pretty decent and got loud but was also kind of unrefined with not much detail. It's too bad they pulled out the Meridian system (which was awesome in the Range Rover).
- No option for rear side window shades (not even manually operated), or a shade for the sunroof.
- Glass sunroof does not open at all...what's the point? We always crack our sunroof when parking outside on a hot day and it makes a huge difference without having to roll the windows down.
- Interior seats were reasonably comfortable front and rear, but my back started sweating immediately while sitting in the back seat in the "vegan leather" which was a surprisingly stiff and clammy vinyl. Back seat is not ventilated either. Putting an adult back there on a hot day with no window shades or sunroof shade seems like it would be a fairly torturous experience.
- No massage seat option.
- There is a display for the climate control in the back that the passenger cannot control (at least that's what the test drive guy said)...what's the point?
- Up front the seats were comfortable but even with the ventilation on (which was uncomfortably cold in the wrong places) my back was still sweating...maybe I was still just too hot from sitting in the back for only 5 minutes. At least your privates will stay cool. ?
- Overall the interior is nice and cleanly designed --the matte wood was nice, but it's still pretty sterile in a Tesla sort of way and also seemed "plasticky" everywhere -- definitely more of an entry level Volvo feel than a car costing $100k. Having come from both BMW and Range Rover, the overall interior quality is just not even on the same level -- this would be a serious downgrade from the X7 or a Range Rover where you are coddled in leather and soft-touch surfaces everywhere! The Sensafin artificial leather on the BMWs doesn't make your back sweat either and the ventilation cools you off evenly. And well, leather is there as an option if you want it.... I was really surprised here, the interior looks much better in pictures than in person where you definitely notice all the corners that were cut.
- No glove box, but hey, there's a sunglass holder under the passenger seat--I guess you could keep your paperwork there...
Test drive:
- Steering input and resistance seemed fine, similar to the BMW, but you could really tell the steering was electric and not "connected to the road" if that makes sense--now I understand why some of the car reviews call the steering "vague"--I don't really agree with that characterization but it's weird not feeling the road under you when you steer.
- I didn't really notice any weird noises as mentioned on the forums or in some reviews.
- It seemed peppy-ish driving around normally, but I felt like you really needed to lay into the gas pedal to give it some oomph, where there is then this latency of nothing happening and then bam, it's almost too much and the front end lifts up like you are about to take off in an airplane. I never really found a happy medium between peppy and sporty and didn't feel a ton of difference in throttle response in sport mode other than the suspension becoming unbearably stiff. I was very surprised how much you had to lay into it to get anything out of it--all of that (3.5s to 60) power seemed either on or off. Coming from BMW, the slightest modulation of the gas pedal with one toe gives you what you expect and you feel like you have all the power available to you at any time, especially in sport mode, which didn't seem to be the case with the Rivian. Granted, I didn't have nearly enough time with it and I haven't seen this mentioned in any of the reviews, so take this one with a grain of salt.
.- Yes, the regenerative braking thing is hard to get used to. It was set to minimum and seemed very aggressive. My wife commented that her foot would get tired from having to be on the accelerator all the time and not being able to coast in traffic when cruise is not on--I didn't think about that but it's a good point. I told her at least she'd save her foot by not having to use the brakes, haha.
- The blinker sound is kind of annoying and yet somehow also not really loud enough either.
Okay, so all of the above gripes aside, keep in mind this was all being extra-critical as in "is this the car we're going to sell the X7 for?" I was literally half-overlooking all of the above until...
The absolute deal-breaker was simply that it rides like a 90's pickup truck on the freeway, bouncing up and down and side to side and front to back. My wife was in the back and immediately said "is it as bumpy up there as it is back here?" Yep, it was. Not only could you feel every single bump in the road but it also had that feeling where after you hit a bump you can't tell if you are still hitting bumps or if it's still bouncing up and down from the first bump. Hands down, absolutely atrocious, unforgivable ride quality for a vehicle this expensive! I asked the guy if it had received the latest update and he said it did not...I have a hard time seeing how a "software update" could fix a suspension that badly dialed in, or how their engineers would even let that thing out of the factory to begin with! Granted, California freeways are tough test, they are pretty atrocious as well, but our neighbor's Subaru Outback rides better than the R1S!
As spec'd with the Max battery pack and a few accessories, I was happily prepared to spend nearly $108,000 on this vehicle sight unseen myself.... Thank god we saw it and drove it in person, because for equal or less money we can get a brand new fully loaded X7 with every option ticked, or another Range Rover, or a Porsche Cayenne, etc. Those 3 vehicles at the same price are literally all in another stratosphere from fit and finish and refinement perspective than this vehicle.
Overall, it seemed like it would be a great vehicle for an adventurous outdoorsy person in their early 30's splurging on their first "nice" car, but I have a hard time seeing how that person is also going to happily spend upwards of $100k on this thing!?
Hopefully this isn't a knock to the thousands of people here who love theirs, it simply just wasn't for us. My advice to anyone waiting for one is if you haven't driven it, be sure to schedule a test drive before pulling the trigger!
Granted, this is from the perspective of having driven a BMW X7 for 4 years now (and currently) and a full size Range Rover for 5 years before that.
Here are some of the "low-lights":
Rivian gave me an address in San Jose to meet them for the test drive. I was fully expecting this to be Rivan's building, but instead it was a park across the street from a sketchy neighborhood with homeless people wandering around, and project cars parked on front lawns. After driving around in circles wondering how our GPS did us wrong, I finally saw a lone R1S on the side of the road. I hesitantly walked up to it and sure enough, there sits a young kid inside waiting for us. Like, do you think they could have been a little more specific in the e-mail that we'd be meeting some dude in a park in a sketchy neighborhood to go for a test drive....not a great start! Super unprofessional and kind of mind-boggling actually!
Outside walkaround:
- The walk-around of the vehicle was fine. I did notice a few minor panel gap issues but didn't bother pointing them out. It was green (not launch green) and the paint sparkles were pretty nice when the sun hit it. Can't deny it's nice looking from the outside!
- It had the 22" wheels, also nice. It had the Quad package.
Inside walkaround:
- The inside of the vehicle is where we were let down a bit. The way all the seats fold down with a loud *thunk* seems very unrefined for a vehicle this expensive and it's literally the very first thing the guy showed, as if that was a great "feature". "Thunk, thunk, thunk." ?? Every other luxury SUV in this class has electric controls to move the seats or at least a "soft open/close feel" rather than just thunking into place like a basic work pickup truck or something.
- The sound system was pretty decent and got loud but was also kind of unrefined with not much detail. It's too bad they pulled out the Meridian system (which was awesome in the Range Rover).
- No option for rear side window shades (not even manually operated), or a shade for the sunroof.
- Glass sunroof does not open at all...what's the point? We always crack our sunroof when parking outside on a hot day and it makes a huge difference without having to roll the windows down.
- Interior seats were reasonably comfortable front and rear, but my back started sweating immediately while sitting in the back seat in the "vegan leather" which was a surprisingly stiff and clammy vinyl. Back seat is not ventilated either. Putting an adult back there on a hot day with no window shades or sunroof shade seems like it would be a fairly torturous experience.
- No massage seat option.
- There is a display for the climate control in the back that the passenger cannot control (at least that's what the test drive guy said)...what's the point?
- Up front the seats were comfortable but even with the ventilation on (which was uncomfortably cold in the wrong places) my back was still sweating...maybe I was still just too hot from sitting in the back for only 5 minutes. At least your privates will stay cool. ?
- Overall the interior is nice and cleanly designed --the matte wood was nice, but it's still pretty sterile in a Tesla sort of way and also seemed "plasticky" everywhere -- definitely more of an entry level Volvo feel than a car costing $100k. Having come from both BMW and Range Rover, the overall interior quality is just not even on the same level -- this would be a serious downgrade from the X7 or a Range Rover where you are coddled in leather and soft-touch surfaces everywhere! The Sensafin artificial leather on the BMWs doesn't make your back sweat either and the ventilation cools you off evenly. And well, leather is there as an option if you want it.... I was really surprised here, the interior looks much better in pictures than in person where you definitely notice all the corners that were cut.
- No glove box, but hey, there's a sunglass holder under the passenger seat--I guess you could keep your paperwork there...
Test drive:
- Steering input and resistance seemed fine, similar to the BMW, but you could really tell the steering was electric and not "connected to the road" if that makes sense--now I understand why some of the car reviews call the steering "vague"--I don't really agree with that characterization but it's weird not feeling the road under you when you steer.
- I didn't really notice any weird noises as mentioned on the forums or in some reviews.
- It seemed peppy-ish driving around normally, but I felt like you really needed to lay into the gas pedal to give it some oomph, where there is then this latency of nothing happening and then bam, it's almost too much and the front end lifts up like you are about to take off in an airplane. I never really found a happy medium between peppy and sporty and didn't feel a ton of difference in throttle response in sport mode other than the suspension becoming unbearably stiff. I was very surprised how much you had to lay into it to get anything out of it--all of that (3.5s to 60) power seemed either on or off. Coming from BMW, the slightest modulation of the gas pedal with one toe gives you what you expect and you feel like you have all the power available to you at any time, especially in sport mode, which didn't seem to be the case with the Rivian. Granted, I didn't have nearly enough time with it and I haven't seen this mentioned in any of the reviews, so take this one with a grain of salt.
.- Yes, the regenerative braking thing is hard to get used to. It was set to minimum and seemed very aggressive. My wife commented that her foot would get tired from having to be on the accelerator all the time and not being able to coast in traffic when cruise is not on--I didn't think about that but it's a good point. I told her at least she'd save her foot by not having to use the brakes, haha.
- The blinker sound is kind of annoying and yet somehow also not really loud enough either.
Okay, so all of the above gripes aside, keep in mind this was all being extra-critical as in "is this the car we're going to sell the X7 for?" I was literally half-overlooking all of the above until...
The absolute deal-breaker was simply that it rides like a 90's pickup truck on the freeway, bouncing up and down and side to side and front to back. My wife was in the back and immediately said "is it as bumpy up there as it is back here?" Yep, it was. Not only could you feel every single bump in the road but it also had that feeling where after you hit a bump you can't tell if you are still hitting bumps or if it's still bouncing up and down from the first bump. Hands down, absolutely atrocious, unforgivable ride quality for a vehicle this expensive! I asked the guy if it had received the latest update and he said it did not...I have a hard time seeing how a "software update" could fix a suspension that badly dialed in, or how their engineers would even let that thing out of the factory to begin with! Granted, California freeways are tough test, they are pretty atrocious as well, but our neighbor's Subaru Outback rides better than the R1S!
As spec'd with the Max battery pack and a few accessories, I was happily prepared to spend nearly $108,000 on this vehicle sight unseen myself.... Thank god we saw it and drove it in person, because for equal or less money we can get a brand new fully loaded X7 with every option ticked, or another Range Rover, or a Porsche Cayenne, etc. Those 3 vehicles at the same price are literally all in another stratosphere from fit and finish and refinement perspective than this vehicle.
Overall, it seemed like it would be a great vehicle for an adventurous outdoorsy person in their early 30's splurging on their first "nice" car, but I have a hard time seeing how that person is also going to happily spend upwards of $100k on this thing!?
Hopefully this isn't a knock to the thousands of people here who love theirs, it simply just wasn't for us. My advice to anyone waiting for one is if you haven't driven it, be sure to schedule a test drive before pulling the trigger!
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