Even more observations from Rivian test drive / First Mile

[Friscorays]

Bummer about March 1, 2022.

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[sevengroove]

I expected to hate the on-screen adjustments for vents and mirrors but it was actually pretty easy to instantly pop into either setting and make changes.

Thanks for your impressions! Did you try doing any of the adjustments while in motion, or was it primarily while stopped?

 

[yizzung]

Thanks for your impressions! Did you try doing any of the adjustments while in motion, or was it primarily while stopped?

Stationary. It’s definitely going to be more of a pain while moving compared to just adjusting a manual vent but the screens weren’t buried and they were intuitive to me.

 

[yizzung]

An electric pet hoist will make somebody a fortune!

A winch on the bumper and a pulley on the roof… hmm.

 

[Bumble1978]

A winch on the bumper and a pulley on the roof… hmm.

Love that the....wheels...are turning... on this already. Yep, went there. lol

 

[wicked2112]

Got my test drive today, so here's yet another set of observations for those curious:

The good

1. It's fast as hell. I've seen some speculating that it won't hit 60 in three seconds and I will counter it by saying that it definitely hit 60 before I could count to three-mississippi. Not scientific but neither are their observations... That was uphill, in 20" ATs. I used to own a 911 and this thing would smoke me in that car.
2. There was almost no observable lag in the UI, as I've seen reported elsewhere. I have a 2017 Audi allroad that does both Carplay and Android. It was slick and moved seamlessly from screen to screen without a hitch, faster than in my current car. The nav looks very pretty. No telling how well it will actually navigate us through traffic and whatnot.
3. The interior is pretty gorgeous and tight. I'd easily put it on par with my Audi or previous BMWs. Seats are great. Super comfy. They clearly thought out the cabin and it shows.
4. I expected to hate the on-screen adjustments for vents and mirrors but it was actually pretty easy to instantly pop into either setting and make changes.
5. Love the storage options. Will never run out of places to put things and I own a station wagon, which has loads of storage.
6. Was worried about the glass roof but on a clear sunny day had no issues at all. Wasn't oppressive heat or light blasting into the cab.
7. Fun. Fun. Fun. It's going to be a blast to finally take ownership (someday).

The meh (*caveat, these likely weren't production vehicles so... YMMV)

1. Outside of the cabin, the build quality to me seemed more like a... well, I'm not exactly sure? I haven't owned a Ford or a Toyota but there were plenty of places on the exterior that just weren't anywhere near as polished as a BMW or Audi. This could be a conscious choice by Rivian (?) because, well, it's an adventure vehicle. My allroad (by comparison) will never go offroad. I think they hit BMW quality on the inside and (maybe) Ford quality on the exterior? Not a deal breaker for me but just an observation. Or maybe production-quality will be tighter.
2. Lots of plastic on the outside -- and I'm not saying that as a slight, because it has plastic in many of the same places as my allroad does -- that didn't seem super securely in place or had weird seams. In particular, the plastic doors for the storage on the gear tunnel doors were pretty janky. I could see these breaking down over time, especially considering that they also function as steps when the gear tunnel is open.
3. One truck had a squeaky gear tunnel hinge and the gear tunnel doors were kinda hard to close. On one of the trucks I had to slam it in order for it to close 100%.
4. While the Yakima rack integration is more seamless than I've had on any other car, I found it a little strange that you have to carry around a key to secure the pillars. Rivian has a locking mechanism inside the truck that secures the gear guard thingie, but they require you to manually lock the racks with a physical key. They had trucks set up with all four racks in place, which means you'd need to use a physical key to manually lock 8 different locks in place to secure them, then manually unlock in the same 8 places with a physical key to remove them. Why not lock from within using the same mechanism as the gear guard?
5. The exterior camera looking down the embankment was super fuzzy and low-res. Again, maybe pre-production but the video quality was bad. I don't think it's a deal breaker as you're not exactly using it to create postcards but seemed like a weird place for them to skimp given how nice everything else seemed. Even the two side cameras showing the front wheels had far sharper resolution.
6. [Edit] Bonus item: I have a feeling the power tonneau cover is going to be a mess. All of them were disabled, as others have mentioned, and I literally heard one of the guides saying, "yeah, we've disabled them because they have a tendency to get messed up when a bunch of people are futzing with them"... Or, you could interpret this as: they tend to get messed up after a few times of opening and closing them during normal use? I think if they could undo this feature they probably would but maybe it'll get ironed out before we get our trucks...

Other non-truck notes:

1. The staff, while friendly and energetic, typically knows far less than us weirdos. I didn't ask too many questions but even then managed to stump them several times. Some of it was pretty basic -- so, what exactly do you get with the offroad package? "hold on, let me look it up on my phone..." Ok then. What happens if you're using the nav and you run out of cell coverage? "No clue." Alright. Most of them have worked for Rivian for less than a couple of months.
2. There was no truck in limestone and no truck in whatever-the-red-is-called. The LA silver is VERY sparkly. (Too much metal flake for me.) Forrest Green had more metal flake than I expected but not too much. El Cap looked real nice.
3. One staffer told me they are headed back to Southern California for their next First Mile event. Maybe that's already known? I didn't know.
4. One staffer told me he's physically based in Orlando and is just waiting until they open the center there before he heads back east.

My top three paint choices are Forest Green, Glacier White and El Cap. Just as I was leaving, I snagged a pick of all three side-by-side. Still can't decide...

Concerning the Yakima Towers and Bars, this is a new system that doesn't have the capability to have an integrated locking system. With anything Yakima, you are going to have locks and keys for your racks and accessories. This will not change with the partnership with Rivian. As I completely understand the ask, there is nothing in the pipe at the moment to integrate the Rivian vehicle locking system with the Yakima produced bars and towers. Even if there was such a system, you would still have to have locks and cores for all of your accessories. My best advice is to get matching keys and cores so that you dont have to have multiple keys sets.

 

[yizzung]

Concerning the Yakima Towers and Bars, this is a new system that doesn't have the capability to have an integrated locking system. With anything Yakima, you are going to have locks and keys for your racks and accessories. This will not change with the partnership with Rivian. As I completely understand the ask, there is nothing in the pipe at the moment to integrate the Rivian vehicle locking system with the Yakima produced bars and towers. Even if there was such a system, you would still have to have locks and cores for all of your accessories. My best advice is to get matching keys and cores so that you dont have to have multiple keys sets.

Yeah, I've had Yakima (and/or Thule) stuff on the tops of my cars for 20 years, so I'm familiar with how they work. I also have a drawer full of keys that probably no longer match to anything I own... The integration is nice (see photo below) and arguably more elegant than the way my current towers mount to the rails on my Audi.

In the existing system, the lock mechanism is in the tower itself (just like all Yakima stuff) and the mounting brackets on the truck are just "static" metal attachment points (instead of a rail that runs the length of the bed or the cab).

My only quibble is that Rivian could have flipped this around, incorporating the locks on the truck-side and putting the static mounting hook in the towers. (They already do this today with the mechanism that secures the gear guard thingie. The cable is just a basic metal hook and the lock that "grabs" it is embedded in the truck.)

What that could have accomplished is: 1) a single place to lock/unlock all points of the rack tower system at once, via the car interface and 2) potential integration with the gear guard theft protection -- e.g. hey, someone is in the process of prying the racks off of your truck and trying to steal your cargo box!

It's not a huge deal. It's not like I'm currently popping these things on/off with any great frequency but with this truck you may move them more frequently from cab to bed to cab to bed... These towers are obviously custom made for Rivian -- unclear to me if they would fit on any other vehicle -- so could have been interesting to integrate more deeply.

 

[williescout]

I was at Sonoma Raceway yesterday with sun then overcast and I think all of the colors looked way better in-person than on the website, especially Launch Green. Without going into full impression, I walked away feeling like it was a $100K+ vehicle that I'm looking forward to owning.

 

[SeaGeo]

I was at Sonoma Raceway yesterday with sun then overcast and I think all of the colors looked way better in-person than on the website, especially Launch Green. Without going into full impression, I walked away feeling like it was a $100K+ vehicle that I'm looking forward to owning.

My wife and I definitely like most of the colors in overcast or rainy pics as well. The only one I'm uncertain about is the forest green when it's darker out. Seems like it just starts looking black in photos.

 

[wicked2112]

Yeah, I've had Yakima (and/or Thule) stuff on the tops of my cars for 20 years, so I'm familiar with how they work. I also have a drawer full of keys that probably no longer match to anything I own... The integration is nice (see photo below) and arguably more elegant than the way my current towers mount to the rails on my Audi.

In the existing system, the lock mechanism is in the tower itself (just like all Yakima stuff) and the mounting brackets on the truck are just "static" metal attachment points (instead of a rail that runs the length of the bed or the cab).

My only quibble is that Rivian could have flipped this around, incorporating the locks on the truck-side and putting the static mounting hook in the towers. (They already do this today with the mechanism that secures the gear guard thingie. The cable is just a basic metal hook and the lock that "grabs" it is embedded in the truck.)

What that could have accomplished is: 1) a single place to lock/unlock all points of the rack tower system at once, via the car interface and 2) potential integration with the gear guard theft protection -- e.g. hey, someone is in the process of prying the racks off of your truck and trying to steal your cargo box!

It's not a huge deal. It's not like I'm currently popping these things on/off with any great frequency but with this truck you may move them more frequently from cab to bed to cab to bed... These towers are obviously custom made for Rivian -- unclear to me if they would fit on any other vehicle -- so could have been interesting to integrate more deeply.

As I have worked for Yakima for many years, we have never had a system that integrates that way, and to my knowledge, no one in the market does. As I understand your ask, there is a lot that has to be designed for the system you are asking for and the cost. Though I never say never, we will have to see what the future holds.

 

[yizzung]

As I have worked for Yakima for many years, we have never had a system that integrates that way, and to my knowledge, no one in the market does. As I understand your ask, there is a lot that has to be designed for the system you are asking for and the cost. Though I never say never, we will have to see what the future holds.

Ha! Well, I'm glad that I didn't trash the system...

Like I said, I think it's really elegant as-is. I've had towers attached to rails and (in the old days) the towers that attached via metal clips (on a car that didn't have any rails). They all worked well. (Never had a set of skis fly off the top of the car!) This Rivian implementation is the cleanest I've seen. So, nice job.

In any event, the heavy engineering lift in what I suggested would be on Rivian's side. They'd have to build an electric, mechanical locking mechanism inside the car body at all eight touchpoints, which (a) would be expensive, to your point, and (b) would just be one more thing that could eventually go wrong. (e.g. power [cough] tonneau [cough] cover).

These bars are really nice, pop on/off easily, and look great. And I'm not just saying that because you work there.

 

[kneebuster]

As I have worked for Yakima for many years, we have never had a system that integrates that way, and to my knowledge, no one in the market does. As I understand your ask, there is a lot that has to be designed for the system you are asking for and the cost. Though I never say never, we will have to see what the future holds.

You may not know, or may not be allowed to answer, but are you aware of work on a set of pillars or a ladder rack to raise the bed cross-bars to roof height?

 

[wicked2112]

You may not know, or may not be allowed to answer, but are you aware of work on a set of pillars or a ladder rack to raise the bed cross-bars to roof height?

Currently, there is nothing planned from Yakima on that type of system. Sorry.

 

[Lyon]

Currently, there is nothing planned from Yakima on that type of system. Sorry.

Since I seem to have someone who might know the answer (and even what I'm talking about). Are the Rivian crossbars compatible with the T-slot mounting system?

Parenthetically, I've always really appreciated the SKS Lock system. Especially the way it's standardized across products. I've got one key that unlocks the rack, roof box and bike rack.

 

[wicked2112]

Since I seem to have someone who might know the answer (and even what I'm talking about). Are the Rivian crossbars compatible with the T-slot mounting system?

Parenthetically, I've always really appreciated the SKS Lock system. Especially the way it's standardized across products. I've got one key that unlocks the rack, roof box and bike rack.

Let me do some checking on this one specifically. At fist glance, I believe you can mount t-slotted accessories, but I want to make 100% sure.

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