I Spent Two Days With Gen-2 R1 Vehicles. Here’s My Thoughts as a Rivian Owner...

[Gerolsteiner]

Emotional rollercoaster but I’m okay with this.

I took delivery a year ago and I’ve had a fantastic experience and got the early bird discount. By the time I’ll even consider replacing it, it’ll hopefully be time for Gen 3 with a real sound system and 800V architecture to ship.

Sponsored

 

[CharonPDX]

On a positive note, Gen 1 will always have the best frunk space, if that is any consolation...

True of my old Tesla Model S, too. ?

 

[R1TS]

First of all, thank you for the EXCELLENT summary. Way easier than trying to pick through piecemeal updates and this is great clarity on what updates the gen 1 vehicles will get.

There’s a lot to like, but it’s very disappointing to read that the sound system still isn’t great and that the base system is worse than the current base system. Also, it’s ridiculous the gen 1 vehicles won’t get configurable interior lighting. They’re RGB capable and saying “no”, even if it wouldn’t match the abilities of the gen 2 vehicles seems like one of those stupid decisions that’s made to entice people to upgrade.

Wow, it takes effort to make the gen1 in-house speakers to sound even worse in the base system of the gen2. Great work, Rivian.

 

[Died4me]

"crappy suspension" - can you describe how bad it is on the 1st gen? Is it worse than a Toyota Highlander or Honda Pilot?

Oh yeah, it is worse than the new pilot for sure. It is hard to fathom given the fact it has expensive air suspensions. It was a major let down for me when I picked up my R1S. But again, it was a good deal for the original price prior to the price hike. How can you get a 800 hps car for high $60K after the $7500 tax credit for Aug 2022 reservation holders.

 

[Millertimr]

Regarding this, in Kyle's video at around the 1:42:00 mark Wassym clearly says it's coming to Gen 1 just lower quality.

He also just responded to the post to clarify and said he'd bring back the comments about RGB to the team.

 

[bd5400]

He also just responded to the post to clarify and said he'd bring back the comments about RGB to the team.

I wouldn't put much weight in that. The fact that owners wanted to be able to change the color of the interior lights is not news to them. Wassym is active on Reddit and it comes up ALL the time there, especially around each of the Halloween updates and if I remember correctly it was already acknowledged they were looking into it. The fact that they, at this point, have reserved it for the Gen2 vehicles means that it was an intentional choice and not something the team needs comments brought back to them on.

I certainly hope they do a reversal here, because it's very irritating that the lights are RBG capable and that Rivian put the work into creating the feature but has intentionally limited it to newer the newer vehicles.

 

[Died4me]

WOW, really?? Just to confirm, the ride quality of the R1S is worse than the new Honda Pilot? Why is everyone here on the forums so silent on this point? thank you for sharing!

I wonder if the 2nd Gen ride quality is better than the Honda Pilot...

Believe or not, it has gotten much better with the updates. But pilot's ride is still much better in my opinion.
It might be my personal take though. I wonder what other R1S owners think.

 

[NJDevFan30]

as Spotify, Tidal, Alexa (weird), and the WiFi hotspot are all moving under the Connect+ umbrella.

Excellent write-up!

Can someone enlighten me? If music options are moving to Connect+, is all we're left with FM and Bluetooth from our phone?

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Excellent write-up!

Can someone enlighten me? If music options are moving to Connect+, is all we're left with FM and Bluetooth from our phone?

Sounds to be the case, unless they have addition info coming. Connect+, however, is rumored to be only $149 annually. That's a lot of media options for the money.

Regarding the reduction in the frunk, in my R1S, I can fit 2 sets of golf clubs in there with plenty of room for other accessories.

From what I just saw in Out of Spec's 2 hour video, it's really just the compartment under that false floor that is smaller. What is above it looks to be about the same except addition of those two mesh pockets. So If you can fit two sets now above the floor now, you should still able to do so again. On gen2, under the flip up floor, you've got what is not much more space than the mobile charger, then a hump with an accessory tray on top.

 

[savethemanual]

Wow, it takes effort to make the gen1 in-house speakers to sound even worse in the base system of the gen2. Great work, Rivian.

I've read other reviewers that state the new Audio system is fantastic....guess we'll have to listen for ourselves.

 

[R1Tom]

Sounds to be the case, unless they have addition info coming. Connect+, however, is rumored to be only $149 annually. That's a lot of media options for the money.

I agree...I was thinking they were going to be about $30 a month, so $15 seems like a steal.

 

[onesoil]

I’d say there’s less light than the factory tint, but more light than a 10% tint.

I believe what @bd5400 was asking (and what I would also love to know) is whether or not “clear” mode lets you see the stars at night (or anything for that matter, in low light).

One thing I miss about a good old fashioned moonroof that opens is being able to see an unobstructed view of the sky when I want, while being able to block out intense sun when needed. If this roof accomplishes that, it will be one of the major FOMO “nice to have” items for me of this 2nd gen.

Thanks for providing such a comprehensive and thoughtful summary—while some longer-winded reviewers love to wax loquacious about all the “nerdy details,” I prefer your relative brevity and succinct, thoughtful, analytical assessments of products, design, and all the various things you delve into that I also (typically) share interest in and have aligned opinions on.

On a different note (and something I admit to bringing up to you due to your having audience with decision makers at Rivian from time to time, and what I perceive to be of like mind about the direction we feel Rivian should go): I wish there were a solid platform for Rivian to ingest owner-generated feature requests with a voting system that allow others to bump suggestions up to a threshold where Rivian engineers/designers would vet said concepts for potential feasibility, after which the ideas could undergo a second round of voting for prioritization. Basically a “let the best/feasible/most popular idea rise to the top” platform within the app for future software build integration.

I know devs are very busy with new product development, bug squashing, etc. but democratizing UI/UX/feature set improvement in an organized and intentional way would put Rivian in a class of its own in the industry, as far as I can tell. Rivian is already clearly invested in Kaizen-style iterative product improvement (at least regarding software design), so why not crowd-source the best ideas from the wider Rivian owner community for additional future content?

If well implemented, I could see this improving customer engagement, investment, retention, and trust while likely bringing new, novel ideas to the table that wouldn’t otherwise have any channels through which to trickle up to Rivian (currently existing on support tickets/forums/reddit/twitter/live events/etc.). There doesn’t seem to be a downside (other than time/money to administrate/manage), with plenty of potential upside.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

I've read other reviewers that state the new Audio system is fantastic....guess we'll have to listen for ourselves.

There is a lot of misinformation on the audio quality and subjective opinion based on emotional attachment to having a seemingly prestigious audio brand name assigned to the system (exactly what co-branding aims to accomplish, see my occupation). Take it all with grain of salt and let your own ears be the judge. But, know that you need to tune the system right. Any system needs to be tuned right to sound right. The baseline factory audio profile should have been made to err on side of neutral. It isn't. There are multiple threads on this, backed by instrumented testing. I would suggest reading those, then come up with your own preferred reference playlist and a listening source that you feel reproduces that playlist the best. This way, you have a reference target to aim for. And make sure your Spotify is set to stream highest quality available. That said, if you are the sort who is looking for block shaking bass, you'll never get it out of any Rivian sound systems. They are just not designed or spec'ed to be like that.

 

[Blakejakely]

I really thought they'd be able to knock down the starting price a bit. LFP is really nice, but $70k is still a hard sell for 270mi range and less options than before. They're really missing the work/business truck market. I'm struggling to see how this will help them move more volume in this market unfortunately, even though all the improvements (with the exception of the smaller frunk) look great.

 

[In The Mountains]

New Member, My wife has a T Model 3 LR which is too small for me but great for her.We live in the mountains and make use of the Forest Roads and Lakes for recreation. Looking at the videos available, no one has described the off road advantages between two motor and three motor options. We get monsoons in the summer and a dry dirt road may turn to mud latter in the day.

So my inquiry would be about rear lockers in the two and three motor R1 versions, looking for discussion on which would be the best for off road which would be 80% of my use. We also get snow several times in the winter, on average it sticks for a day or two, but a rare storm may shut us in for 10-14 days.

Sponsored