So, both a Gen1 and Gen2. Currently a few thousand miles into the Gen2. I haven't noticed the HVAC through the steering wheel. It's been surprisingly quiet in cabin.
Thanks! And I will also miss the door lock sounds. Something very satisfying about it
For what it's worth, I don't feel the vibration in the wheel most of the time. It's only when the compressor ramps up right as I'm getting in (if it's hot)- maybe 30-60 seconds and then it's gone for the rest of the drive. But yes -there do seem to be differences between vehicles.
Great post! Funny I saw very similar items.When I was about to order my gen 2 vehicle there were A LOT of questions about details that nobody had the answer to. So here's a deep dive.
I recently picked up my new Gen 2 R1S. But before I did, I drove a Gen 1 loaner R1S for about 2.5 weeks, and I did 700 miles in that time. If you want the back story, you can check out this thread.
Thanks to the large amount of time spent back to back, I noticed a lot of differences between generations. Many of which have never been talked about online. So here’s my list of differences between the 2. I’m sure I’m missing some, so if you know of any more, let’s add them to the thread!
Physical Components
Suspension
Stalks
- Within a few minutes of getting in the Gen 1, I could tell why people complain about R1S suspension. Not rough, but very rebound happy and bouncy for lack of a better description. That being said, it wasn’t enough to ruin the experience for me. I did have a passenger in the 3rd row get motion sick from it, though.
- The Gen 2 is noticeably smoother. The primary vibrations and bumps are much more smoothed out, and the rebound/bounciness is much reduced. Still feels like a Rivian, but very much more controlled, smooth, and steady.
Heat Pump
- Highway assist on Gen 2 is activated by pulling the stalk towards you instead of pushing down. I don’t have a preference either way.
- The buttons on the end of the turn signal stock (used for washer fluid and turning on the rear wiper) have an added tactile indentation on gen 2, to help you find the correct button by feel.
- The stocks in gen 2 feel notchier. Not sure if they have a firmer mechanism or if they just feel different in the gen 2 because it’s new.
- Temperatures have started to drop here in Utah, instead of 90s -100s we are now in the 80s - so keep that in mind with my comments.
- The new heat pump compressor seems to generally run at a lower RPM than the gen 1 compressor. So it’s slightly more rumbly. On the inside of the cabin it’s slightly less audible than gen 1, but only slightly.
- If the goal was to make the compressor less noticeable from the inside of the cabin, I’d say Rivian failed. Now instead of vibrating the floor, it vibrates the steering wheel. The noise level inside the cabin is almost the same, just with a lower frequency “buzzing”. I would like to point out, however, that relative to other EVs the vibration and noise are not extraordinary. Every heat pump tesla, and ford EV I’ve driven vibrate and buzz in a similar way - so it’s not like Rivian did this worse than everyone else.
- Most of the hubbub around compressor noise on either gen seems overblown to me for 2 reasons. 1 - it’s not anything substantially different from other EVs (at least in my experience). 2 - you really only ever feel/hear the compressor for the first few minutes of the drive when it’s cooling the cabin to start, or when you’re fast charging.
- The larger complaint with the new system seems to be the exterior noise level. So I did some semi-scientific testing. Both tests were on days in the 80s, with the AC set to “Lo” in manual mode with the fan maxed out. The Gen 1 had more compressor sound, the Gen 2 had more fan sound. Gen 2 was maybe a couple decibels louder, but nothing significant. Whatever issue they were having with early build Gen 2s and unbalanced fans, they seem to have figured out.
Heat Pump Video
Door Handles
Door Lock Video
- While the exterior electronic door handles do feel less premium than the gen 1 mechanical ones, they do not by any means feel cheap. They are nicely weighted, and do not squeak like the early builds. In fact, I had multiple passengers that didn’t realize that it was an electronic handle until I pointed it out.
- The interior buttons likewise do not feel cheap. They have a decent amount of throw, along with a nice tactile bump in the travel. Much more premium feeling than Tesla’s door buttons
- Along with the new electronic latches you can now toggle the child locks from the screen.
- Gen 1 made a nice “Ca Chunk” door lock sound, but it appears that the new electronic gen 2 latches did away with that
Wind/Road noise
- This is one of those areas that is noticeably better, but also not a massive change. Definitely less road noise in gen 2, but not a huge deal
Lighting
Segmented Light Bars
Headlights
- This has been talked about a lot so I won’t spend much time here. They have some cool animations, very smooth, can’t wait to see what else they do with them in the future.
- They seem adequately bright, though not blinding. Visible in the day, but not bright by any means
Turn Signals
- Both generations seem to have very similar light output from the headlights. Very bright, no complaints
- The gen 2 matrix functionality is AMAZING. When the high beams come on, they animate on with a barn door effect. The dynamic matrix “cutouts” around other vehicles works very well. The pixels are a bit on the large side, so the cutouts aren’t super precise, but they do work very well. Because it has the ability to cut out other vehicles, I do find it turns on the high beams in places where gen 1 would not.
Lift Gate Lights
- The gen 2 front turn signals have moved from the “stadium light” down to where the fogs used to be on gen 1. I appreciate this, since this means the light bar doesn’t have to dim when the turn signals come on. The new turn signals have a nice “sweep” animation.
- The cargo lights on the underside of the lift gate are touch sensitive on gen 2 so you can turn them on/off like the interior dome lights
Tech
UI Sounds
Seatbelt Chime Video
- The UI sounds changed slightly between Gen 1 and Gen 2. The seatbelt chime is more “traditional” in gen 1 and more “futuristic” in gen 2:
Highway Assist Video
- The “What do you think I am, a Tesla? You can’t activate Highway Assist wherever you want!” sound, and cruise deactivation sounds are also different. Unfortunately I don’t have a recording of Gen 1, but this is what it sounds like now:
Turn Signal Video
- The turn signal sound has also changed slightly. To my ear it almost sounds as if they put a low pass filter on the same audio file. As a result, Gen 2 sounds slightly more muted, and doesn’t have the faint static noise that Gen 1 has on the turn signal sound. In the recordings the difference is VERY subtle, you may need headphones to tell them apart. In person it was much more obvious to my ear.
Autonomy
- The driver’s screen visualizations are hilariously bad on gen 1. It vaguely resembles what’s happening in the real world.
- Gen 2 is a bit better. It can see a greater number of vehicles, the visuals are more stable and representative of reality, and it works in 360 degrees. But Tesla visuals are by far and away better than either. Hoping they can play catch up here.
- As it stands now Highway assist performs very similarly between the 2. I notice almost no difference in lane keeping ability.
- Gen 2 can change lanes. It does so extremely competently and quickly. It does not, however speed match and find a gap. You have to time it correctly for a gap to appear, or it won’t move.
- For those of you who doubted, yes, there IS a driver monitoring system in the mirror. It does not appear to be active yet.
Cameras
Wireless Charging Pad
- I was perfectly happy with the gen 1 cameras, they do their job just fine. Even the blind spot camera views. But comparison is the thief of joy
- Gen 2 cameras are noticeably brighter, clearer, and higher frame rate. While I do appreciate the improvements, I wasn’t dissatisfied with the gen 1 cameras
Sound System
- I found that the gen 1 charging pad worked decently well for me… as long as I wasn’t driving. The moment I started moving my phone slid ALL over the place. Sometimes it would still figure it out and keep charging, but that wasn’t often.
- Gen 2 helps significantly. The phone will still slide forward and back, but my phone will generally continue charging after it has slid forward
- Big Caveat here. I suspect that MagSafe is making Rivian’s poor design perform even worse. In my experience, phones with Magsafe magnets tend to be a bit pickier with alignment on charging surfaces… So iPhone users and Android users with magsafe cases will likely get little to no use out of these.
- Dolby Atmos music is life changing. Why have we not had this sooner!?? Songs that take advantage of it are AMAZING, though a lot of the Dolby Atmos mixes on Apple Music are lazy and barely take advantage of the spatial-ness
- This one is going to be polarizing. My loaner had the Rivian Elevation Audio. I thought it was great. Certainly not a flat response curve, but I found it to be decently full sounding with a strong, crisp base. No complaints whatsoever. (Mind you this was on version 2024.27, which I’ve heard greatly improved the system)
- My gen 2 vehicle has the new Rivian Premium audio. I’ll have to give a more detailed review later, once it’s broken in, but on initial impression it performs very comparably to the elevation audio
Overall both vehicles are EXCELLENT. I fell in love almost immediately. While there were a few areas where Rivian did some cost cutting for Gen 2, on the whole I don’t feel that it’s any less premium. It’s got a lot of great improvements across the board.
If you have any questions about gen 2 that you’d like me to document or comment on, let me know!
Just noting varience in the G1 too. My G1 with 46k has never had any undesirable HVAC noises or vibration. Or wind noise. It's like a vault inside at 75mph even into a headwind.
Definitely worth a test Drive. The difference in suspension is immediately noticeable. It's not like it's a suddenly a different vehicle - there's still a bit of bounce in some situations - but significantly improved. Even riding in "low" ride height is comfortable now (where gen 1 low was a bit harsh)
To be completely transparent I haven't played around with magsafe phones on rivian specifically - just going off of prior experience with phones equipped with mag safe consistently being picky on charging pads that don't have magnetic locators. My old mach e was like that with mag safe devices.
