Motor Trend Review: The 2022 Rivian R1T Is the Most Remarkable Pickup We’ve Ever Driven

[CabinCrusher]

lots of reasons, lol. Like 0-60 in 3 seconds. While there will be lots of around town driving I would never call it puttering in the Rivian.

Besides, with electric, unless I'm road tripping, I'm not super concerned with efficient driving anymore.

Right!?! - actual convo with the Mrs on why I’m getting an R1T
ME: … you can drift, you can do this cool thing called a tank turn, and it goes 0-60 in 3 seconds!
MRS: yeah, but how often are you going to use those features?
ME:
MRS:
ME: every time you’re not in the car. ?

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[R1TFTW]

If you think you don't ever need to use your wipers even in serious rain then THAT is ignorance.

I don’t think that I never need them. I can see how you might interpret my statement that way. But I only use them once in a while, even in down pouring rain… It doesn’t matter how hard it is raining… it matters what your visibility is. If I can see fine I don’t use my wipers… that simple. When I do use wipers, I do not need them going at a rapid rate to clear the water… that actually makes visibility worse for me, hence my dislike for auto wipers.

 

[eggpaul]

Gear tunnel is looking really nice without the shuttle. Now I'm wondering if I want the shuttle or not. Just don't know how much space the shuttle would take up. I asked CS and they didn't have the information, and of course said they will when production starts. ugh

 

[godfodder0901]

Gear tunnel is looking really nice without the shuttle. Now I'm wondering if I want the shuttle or not. Just don't know how much space the shuttle would take up. I asked CS and they didn't have the information, and of course said they will when production starts. ugh

Couple that with the fact that it won't (easily) be user removable, and it is a tough choice.

 

[DaveA]

Great info, thanks. You make a good point about messing around with the integration of the sound system into the Rivian platform. I'm used to cars that have essentially useless integrations, like the old OEM nav systems that you have to update by buying a CD and loading it =D

That really hurts….(goes out to trunk of 2005 Acura TSX and reassures navigation disc player) ?

 

[AndroidAppBundle]

I have grown bitter with Rivian over the delays and I love to pick on them; so take this with a grain of salt.

But is anyone else disappointed in the view count of the MotorTrend review? Just 50k views - and video has been up for more than a day now. Not sure if this says more about the MotorTrend video or the R1T. Doug Demuro can post a video of -any- vehicle, and have more views in like 60 minutes.

I know, you know, we know...how significant Rivian is; the second pure-EV brand to begin "mass producing (luxury) vehicles". Only Tesla has come before them, and succeeded. We've been watching hype build about the Rivian brand for a decade now. We've watched the R1x models get delayed years. We've watched Rivian make national news with their IPO announcement. We've watched Rivian go through round after round of fundraising with all the majors.

All this....for 50k views. As a Rivian reservation holder; this sucks. I want there to be demand for Rivian. I want there to be consumers who want this vehicle. I want resale values to be good. I want service centers to appear in more places than just Seattle, Palo Alto, Austin and Portland. For this to happen; I need many consumers to share my passion.

The fact there are more reservation holders than there are YouTube views for the first real review of the R1X model sucks. I was expecting at least...a million views in 24 hours. Or well past 1 million.

 

[Friscorays]

Bummer about March 1, 2022.

 

[AndroidAppBundle]

True. But it still speaks (to an extent) about the real interest the public has about the brand (Rivian).

There is a 2 week old... 10 hour long video of Dodge vehicles racing around...that has 335k views. That just is weird. Like who even?

Maybe....it doesn't hurt as bad seeing that the Model S Plaid video only has 40k views (and is 5 days old). But by now... everyone has seen the Plaid, and seen Marquees Brownlee review it a month+ ago.

In two weeks time, if the R1T video can't beat the 2023 Nissan Z with 304k views; I will be really interested to watch the view count of other YouTube channels reviewing the Rivian brand.

I simply can't believe there wouldn't be a video of a vehicles first review (a vehicle with such significance) with not even 1 million views.

https://www.youtube.com/user/MotorTrend/videos
One can peruse the view counts on Youtube and see that Motor Trend doesn't generally get a huge number of views.

Perhaps the video Motor Trend also posted yesterday featuring turbodiesel 2021 GMC Yukon Denali offers an apples to apples comparison: that video is currently at 9.6k views while the Rivian first drive video is currently at 57k.

There is plenty of interest in Rivian and that will only snowball once more presumably glowing reviews are released and people actually start seeing production versions out on the streets and think to themselves "oh my god what is that?"

 

[RWerksman]

True. But it still speaks (to an extent) about the real interest the public has about the brand (Rivian).

I think this speaks more for the societal importance decline of Motor Trend. (and Car and Driver, Road and Track) My father and grandfather had subscriptions to each. I did for a while as well, but I haven't picked up their magazine or read any of their content for years now. Maybe their "Car of the Year" award or something. This Rivian article is a bonafied scoop for MT. Good for them.

I also think this reflects VERY negatively on the Rivian Comms / PR department. (what else is new?) MT was probably a bad pick for this. The MKBHD video on YouTube for the F150 Lightning has 6.3 MILLION views. The Unbox Therapy Lightning video has 2.5 MILLION views.

 

[flabyboy]

I have a feeling with all that instant electric torque we should all put some money aside for tires. well at least if you plan on driving it like I do.

This is the biggest complaint my friend with a Model X has. The tires have needed changing every 15-20k miles. He blames the increased torque and the regen braking

 

[flabyboy]

Never had an issue with dirty buttons but my experience has always been that touch screens collect fingerprints and always look dirty (I was pleased to see that Rivian will at least have a mode to facilitate cleaning).

I'm not anti-touch screen. Quite the contrary, I think they aboslutely have their benefits but that doesn't mean that everything needs to be through the touch screen. Adjusting the vents for example, is something both my wife and I do one or more times on almost every trip and appreciate being able to simply reach down and adjust the vent without ever taking my eyes off the road. And for my wife who is visually impaired, the touch screen is simply not accessible. Can't wait to see how or if adjusting the vents works with Alexa.... "more to the left, now up a little, no a little more back to the right, now up a little more".

Thought I had read that their will be memory settings for the vents, which would be very helpful IMO

 

[kanundrum]

I think this speaks more for the societal importance decline of Motor Trend. (and Car and Driver, Road and Track) My father and grandfather had subscriptions to each. I did for a while as well, but I haven't picked up their magazine or read any of their content for years now. Maybe their "Car of the Year" award or something. This Rivian article is a bonafied scoop for MT. Good for them.

I also think this reflects VERY negatively on the Rivian Comms / PR department. (what else is new?) MT was probably a bad pick for this. The MKBHD video on YouTube for the F150 Lightning has 6.3 MILLION views. The Unbox Therapy Lightning video has 2.5 MILLION views.

I would argue the demographics of Motortrend probably match up with the price point of the vehicle. MKBHD and UnBox Therapy target audience originally was the folks who probably uber or dont even own vehicles. In any case I think Rivian probably did what they believed was the most "STABLE" of reviews but the fact they it was limited to only 1 source and not multiple exactly like Lucid says what Kyle Conner Quoted:

 

[AndroidAppBundle]

I would have went with Marquees Brownlee or Doug Demuro. They both will let brands provide....editorial guidance and direction.

So they will gloss off the imperfections; highlight the strengths - which is what a brand is going to want before letting Rich Rebuilds completely tear apart the vehicle.

I think this speaks more for the societal importance decline of Motor Trend. (and Car and Driver, Road and Track) My father and grandfather had subscriptions to each. I did for a while as well, but I haven't picked up their magazine or read any of their content for years now. Maybe their "Car of the Year" award or something. This Rivian article is a bonafied scoop for MT. Good for them.

I also think this reflects VERY negatively on the Rivian Comms / PR department. (what else is new?) MT was probably a bad pick for this. The MKBHD video on YouTube for the F150 Lightning has 6.3 MILLION views. The Unbox Therapy Lightning video has 2.5 MILLION views.

 

[AndroidAppBundle]

But yeah, if I were RJ; I'd probably let marketing/communication staff see themselves out.

That MotorTrend video is a flop. The view count is just offensively low. Not even every reservation holder has watched the video. That is bad sign. If it isn't the choice of the MotorTrend channel; does that mean it is the (lack of....) demand for R1X vehicles?

We'd rather this be on marketing/communication department and MotorTrend channel than the lack of demand. At least that is what I want it to be.

 

[DaveA]

I think this speaks more for the societal importance decline of Motor Trend. (and Car and Driver, Road and Track) My father and grandfather had subscriptions to each. I did for a while as well, but I haven't picked up their magazine or read any of their content for years now. Maybe their "Car of the Year" award or something. This Rivian article is a bonafied scoop for MT. Good for them.

I also think this reflects VERY negatively on the Rivian Comms / PR department. (what else is new?) MT was probably a bad pick for this. The MKBHD video on YouTube for the F150 Lightning has 6.3 MILLION views. The Unbox Therapy Lightning video has 2.5 MILLION views.

But we’re just trying to get Launch vehicles out…you let the cat out of the bag too early and let everyone know about this truck and orders can’t be fulfilled for several years…what’s the point? It’s a niche vehicle…doesn’t need to be blasted out to the masses until the more affordable models exist. We know Rivian likes to operate at a slow burn until ramp up to max capacity.

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