Another one bites the dust: Good bye Rivian, for now...

[PaythePiper]

LOL, it's kind of refreshing to see some infighting among EV brands instead of the usual EV vs ICE stuff that's so prevalent here.

I'm still waiting for someone to make the perfect vehicle. But that's never going to happen. Buy what you like and enjoy it. There will eventually be headaches with any vehicle if you keep it long enough, and some if you keep them even a short time. LIfe is too short to worry about it though...

You aren’t wrong sir. So far the R1 has done well minus a few small things, but nothing has stranded us like some I’ve seen on here. Just wish the service part of things would drastically improve.

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[Ecupip]

Keep the stories coming. I enjoy hearing why someone chose Rivian and also why they left and went with something different.

Our R1 is has been flawless service wise and in build quality. I’m grateful for that.

Lately, we’ve experienced and more software bugs. What’s frustrating lately is having a hard time performing basic tasks like listening to a music station. So much so that I’ve even considered getting rid of ours. Lately, I've just been driving it less. I’ll hang onto it for a while longer to see if they can improve the infotainment.

 

[ads75]

And the good part for OP is Stellantis is known for reliability.

I have a much easier time getting service appointments for me Jeep at multiple dealers if needed, verse my R1T. My 2019 Wrangler (6 years old, 48k miles) has been overnight once at a dealer to get its soft top replaced under warranty. My R1T (2 years, 25k miles) has been into 3 service centers for an about of 2 weeks each time, and those service centers are 2.5 hours away.

 

[JonW716]

Rivian rented me a Grand Wagoneer yesterday and I have to say its a very nice vehicle AND it has Carplay! Good luck with your new vehicle, I hope it serves you well. Like you, I am somewhat unsettled with the Rivian but hope they get there brand together.... Service issues can wreak havoc on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Currently their service system is not sufficient.

 

[Schroederhc]

My Rivian is in the service center getting the tonneau cover installed. I'm driving a rental Dodge Durango and it's fucking miserable. The Rivian suspension is actually good, just noisy -- but the power and driving experience is night and day over gasoline.

Same mine is in getting the PTC installed. I am in a Grand Wagoneer I can't stand it and it is tricked out. Compared to the R1T it feels just blah. Even with all the warts mines a keeper

 

[Austin]

Long distance towing is the only advantage? What about long distance driving in general, when not towing? That's one of the things holding me back from going EV. I can see myself getting a Rivian for commuting & around town driving, but I'm still not sold on long distance driving even with a dual motor with the largest battery. I mean, 400 miles seems decent on paper, but in reality I'm probably looking at less than 300 miles on a highway road trip when I factor in highway driving, general conditions, any adverse whether or winter driving, elevation changes, using 70% of the battery (you know, 10% - 80%), etc. That's a big downgrade from the 500+ real world miles I can get with my current SUV. Plus, I don't want to give up all the luxury and creature comforts, so I'm hoping that Rivian (or most likely someone else at this point) builds an electric SUV that truly has it all, including killer range. And yeah, towing does matter to me since I often pull a small boat or a trailer with snowmobiles or quads. I do like what GM is doing with their massive battery packs in their fullsize trucks, but I'm avoiding trucks and especially fullsize vehicles in general. I want to stay in the realm of midsize instead.

FWIW, long distance driving was my biggest concern before getting the R1T. I've had it going on 2 years now and have gone on numerous (6+) longer distance trips (>750m round trip). Almost all for vacations. Total miles on the truck ~30K. A few things:

- Adds about 45mins to 1.5hrs to each leg vs. how I used to drive these trips

- Tesla network has made it quite a bit easier, but generally most of my trips were reasonably doable before that with a bit of planning (N Texas to Florida panhandle has gotten a lot simpler over the last two years, for example)

- Changed my mindset on these trips. Found I don't miss the extra hour or so that I used to gain at the destination. The forced breaks and Driver+ mean I feel more rested/less wound up when I arrive; family is much happier without me trying to keep to a strict schedule; make a point to plan stops at locations that have items of interest (usually restaurants), whereas before we'd wolf down some fast food and be on our way (the Rivian charger in Baton Rouge LA is in a great location BTW). I expect screen casting will help for remote locations without much else to do and while waiting for a charge (don't really care where I watch my shows).

- Other things about the truck I enjoy on road trips: Power for overtaking, general stability on the road, 1 pedal driving and speed modulation, I love the Driver + (even its current iteration is a huge leap forward for me personally), large maps and infotainment screens (unlike some, I've found the maps to be reliable - I keep Waze on in the background as a voice alert to help with traffic and other notifications)

- Incidentally, we had a RR Sport as an alternative for the first ~ year that was our prior long-hauler of choice. When they overlapped, we ended up taking the Rivian every time (even though the trips took longer) because everyone in the family preferred the Rivian's ride / storage space / tech, etc.

- Will say, I've been fairly diligent with planning (generally making sure I almost always have a back up charging option and enough range to get there. Fingers crossed, never needed it). Again, quite a bit easier with the Tesla network now (and generally with other stations coming online). Generally I try to make sure I have access to a 220v at my destination, or look for a spot nearby that I'd like to visit (lunch or otherwise) that has a decent charger (more than you'd think).

- Haven't towed longer distance (that changes this weekend), so can't comment on that. Short-haul towing (boat and boat launching) are much better in the Rivian.

- By my math, road-trip cost is a wash to slightly more expensive in the Rivian at avg. supercharge rates all things considered (i.e. largely a non-issue).

- Only found one trip that was problematic for my initial parameters (mid-west Arkansas for a one day roundtrip. Ended up heading out the night before and stayed at a great B&B with a L2 charger, so an experience that I wouldn't have embraced otherwise). Oklahoma (Francis Energy) was a PITA. Tesla solves this.

- Overall, I'd say it's changed my road trip mindset (for the better?) and I'm no longer concerned about long road trips, still do all the ones I used to do and additional charge time hasn't been as big a deal as I was initially worried about. Day-to-day (95% of my driving) it's been a no-brainer for me (don't miss the gas station one bit). Again fingers crossed, truck has been very reliable (my only incident - within the first 2 weeks - was fixed with a hard reset). Early 2023 service experiences (the reset and a cracked windshield replacement) were all great /efficient.

 

[s4wrxttcs]

One of our cultural norms that drives me NUTS is that people feel like they need to have logical proof for buying cars. Like they have to justify the decision with numbers and facts.

Truth is for a lot of people (especially Rivian owners), you buy what you buy because you WANT it.

In a purely utilitarian world we need 3 vehicles - a prius, an odysey, and a base model F150/F250. Nobody NEEDS anything else.

If you care about the environment don't own a car. EVs are LESS bad for the environment. But cars in general are just a disaster for the environment.

All that to say - the OP got a wagoneer cause he wanted it. And that's reason enough. I got an R1S because I wanted it. There are plenty of other vehicles that would have fulfilled my needs just fine but the R1S is what I wanted. So OP - although what you want is very different from what most people here want, here's to following that. I hope your wagoneer keeps you adventurous always

</rant>

What I find funny is I actually hate cars.

I think the whole idea of people driving themselves around in 1+ ton vehicle to be basically the definition of insanity. To take up all the space they do, and to allow a single individual to do so much damage to the environment? Then there is the never ending road construction, and constant crashes. One would think that relying on this form of transportation also imply that we needed to have really good drivers, but no. Pretty much anyone can drive, and continue to drive even when they prove themselves to be utter incapable of it.

To make it worse some vehicles like my R1T have a different classification I don't even have to pay the RTA tax. The RTA tax being the thing that helps pay for people to use VIABLE forms of transportation.

At the same time I also love cars. Not the Wagoneer as a everyone knows a proper Wagoneer has wood paneling, and that's just hideous . But, I do love cars especially on an empty curvy mountain road. At my max I owned three of the illogical things, and then decided owning multiple houses would be my way of being nutty so I solved one of them.

I have the same love/hate for my Rivian as well.

I love the vehicle, but hate the service wait times.

In some weird twist it went from a vehicle I wanted to a vehicle with a utility. Such a utility that I even eat while in the car. As in actually eating with food crumbs falling to the floor.

There is no question I'd recommend a Rivian if the initial quality issues were sorted out and Service wait times were significantly reduced to under a month at most. It's fun to drive, and it has reasonably good range.

I think its easy to recommend things like a Jeep. It's a Jeep so its never going win any reliability awards. It's going to be somewhere around where Rivian or Land Rover. Cars that look pretty on the side of the road while a Prius driver waves on by.

One just expects a Rivian to be more, and that's where Rivian falls short.

I'm keeping mine until something else proves better for my use case or when it can't go no more. I'm certainly averaging more miles on it then any vehicle I've owned before. I also don't have money to literally burn like the OP has.

 

[ThumprMN]

 

[Jonger1150]

What I find funny is I actually hate cars.

I think the whole idea of people driving themselves around in 1+ ton vehicle to be basically the definition of insanity. To take up all the space they do, and to allow a single individual to do so much damage to the environment? Then there is the never ending road construction, and constant crashes. One would think that relying on this form of transportation also imply that we needed to have really good drivers, but no. Pretty much anyone can drive, and continue to drive even when they prove themselves to be utter incapable of it.

To make it worse some vehicles like my R1T have a different classification I don't even have to pay the RTA tax. The RTA tax being the thing that helps pay for people to use VIABLE forms of transportation.

At the same time I also love cars. Not the Wagoneer as a everyone knows a proper Wagoneer has wood paneling, and that's just hideous . But, I do love cars especially on an empty curvy mountain road. At my max I owned three of the illogical things, and then decided owning multiple houses would be my way of being nutty so I solved one of them.

I have the same love/hate for my Rivian as well.

I love the vehicle, but hate the service wait times.

In some weird twist it went from a vehicle I wanted to a vehicle with a utility. Such a utility that I even eat while in the car. As in actually eating with food crumbs falling to the floor.

There is no question I'd recommend a Rivian if the initial quality issues were sorted out and Service wait times were significantly reduced to under a month at most. It's fun to drive, and it has reasonably good range.

I think its easy to recommend things like a Jeep. It's a Jeep so its never going win any reliability awards. It's going to be somewhere around where Rivian or Land Rover. Cars that look pretty on the side of the road while a Prius driver waves on by.

One just expects a Rivian to be more, and that's where Rivian falls short.

I'm keeping mine until something else proves better for my use case or when it can't go no more. I'm certainly averaging more miles on it then any vehicle I've owned before. I also don't have money to literally burn like the OP has.

Long term, it's all going on-demand. The Elon unveiling last week is the future as silly as some want to portray it. It will be AI on-demand.

 

[usulio]

Your EV is hardly a zero carbon emitter unless you happen to use 100% zero carbon energy for charging which is untypical unless you have a nearby atomic plant.

CO2 from power generation in MI is somewhere in the 360 g/kWh range (a 2019 number I found), so driving your R1 for 1 mile (consuming ~0.5 kWh of energy) emitted approximately 180g of CO2 at the source.

An ICE emits ~8800g CO2 per gallon, if you get 20 miles per gallon this is about 440g of CO2 emitted to drive the same mile but measured at the tailpipe.

So an average MI R1 driver has slightly less than half the CO2 emissions of an ICE vehicle, an improvement but not something to brag about if all sources of CO2 are considered. This is the reason the Hummer EV ended up polluting more than some ICE vehicles.

Couldn't let this pass by. Your numbers ignore the emissions and energy needed to drill the oil, refine it into gas, and transport it into the fuel tank. I don't have those numbers available, but the fair comparison is worse for ICE than you make it sound (already bad).

BTW most of my Rivian's electricity comes from solar, and the grid is getting greener and greener all the time while gas is not.

 

[strykerwsu]

Hmm… one thing you have to keep in mind is that the East Coast EV infra, specifically New England, is very different from the West Coast. It’s really not as easy here as it is there. Want to go to upstate NY or Vermont for the weekend? It’s a bit more difficult than going from SF to LA. So yeah, there is a clear group of people (myself included now, although for different reasons) that “go back to ICE” after EV.

I live in the midwest (Kansas). So assume East coast is much better but could be wrong. Our level 3s are about 150 to 175 miles apart on most highways, but perfect for most 80% charges. You have to plan but I've always been a planner so likely explains why easy conversion for me.

 

[Jiji]

Couldn't let this pass by. Your numbers ignore the emissions and energy needed to drill the oil, refine it into gas, and transport it into the fuel tank. I don't have those numbers available, but the fair comparison is worse for ICE than you make it sound (already bad).

Very true but many of the same or similar costs apply to the power grid or solar panel manufacturing.

The important point I wished to make is that driving an R1 does not permit one to be claiming zero carbon emission, sure they are less than an ICE but they are real for the vast majority of us.

 

[AlexF]

Same mine is in getting the PTC installed. I am in a Grand Wagoneer I can't stand it and it is tricked out. Compared to the R1T it feels just blah. Even with all the warts mines a keeper

Rivian rented me a Wagoneer when my R1T was in service and I couldn‘t wait to get back in the Rivian. It feels like a sports car compared to that thing, and the interior felt as cheap as could be. It really made me appreciate the driving dynamics that the engineers pulled off for their first vehicle. The range of capability is truly unique.

 

[RivianR1TinSFL]

Well, one could say this was a short but very intense stint. Certainly it was a much appreciated and enjoyable one packed with lots of learnings about EVs.

After having my R1T Dual Performance Max Pack for a year (and as some know fully converted it for Overlanding purposes), the small itch in the back of my head that I wasn't fully bought into the vehicle with passion became larger and could no longer be ignored. Of course, my overlanding equipment stays (partially) with me to be converted onto the next whip. However, after the Rivian being in a small accident (affecting resale value) and the general EV resale value landscape being absolutely pathetic, I decided it was time to get out before things got worse (luckily being financially endowed sufficiently to take the hit).

A few things that prevented me from gaining that passion that lets you keep the vehicle for a longer time:
- I had about 8 outstanding service tickets, all of which not first-timers in trying to be addressed. From suspension, to front drive unit, to rattles, to door issues to AC problems the list goes on. Being in NY with the Brooklyn SC the only location to fix it, waiting months for a service appointment didn't help.
- Subjectively, I always kind of wanted something bigger, more full size truck or SUV. Today, there is much more choice for buyers like me than there was before
- Subjectively, I smirked at the power of the EV but honestly, why do I need that much power in a truck? It just never added up to me. I'd much rather have significantly better range and faster charging than more power in an EV truck.
- The ride, while I believe according to factory-spec, was just too harsh, even in soft. That is not to say it wasn't softer than most other vehicles, but it was subjectively still too uncomfortable for the crappy NY roads.
- While not the main driver for my decision, the volatility of Rivian as a company did get to me in the back of my head at least a little

Farewell and I hope Rivian continues to innovate and figure things out. I can imagine being back at a later, more mature stage, of the product.

Of course you all want to know what I traded into and I reserved this for last, as I know this will be driving most of the discussion and comments but I wanted to make sure that what I got into was not the driver of what I got out off. I am now driving a 2024 Jeep Grand Wagoneer Series III with Hurricane I-6 Twin Turbo. So far, I've been loving the vehicle and it appears, most of the horrendous early issues have been figured out. Aside, the deals that can be had on Jeep vehicles these days is absolutely insane. The vehicle had a $109k MSRP and sold for $82k. I also have the same dealer as @NY_Rob which is a large volume dealer that will fight Stellantis for you if you need them to.

Bye. Seems like the Rivian could have been too much $$? based on your discounted purchase price on the Jeep.

 

[Jonger1150]

That 0-60 is slow. I think the most enjoyable part of driving is explosive acceleration. It sound like you just want to float around on soft suspension first and foremost.

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