Buying R1T Tomorrow - Torn Between Two - Any input?

[DayTripping]

Why steer clear of the 21" tire. I am going to go look at a 22 R1T adventure elcap with 7900 miles tomorrow that have 21 road tires.

Tire choices are improving and the factory 21" is quite efficient. I wouldn't worry that much about it. You can run those down and if you want, buy 20's for cheap and put on whatever tires you want.

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[Rividiculous]

So, what did you get?!?!

Hey, OP, we’re all here waiting around to find out!

 

[Roads76]

A lot of good points have already been covered. I'll add one that may matter. If you are financing, the newer one might be eligible for a better loan rate. I went with a '23 as it qualified for the new car rate at Navy Federal. Saved me a substantial amount in interest. I found low miles '22 and '23 and even though the '23 was more expensive, the interest savings closed a lot of that gap.

I was in a similar situation to the OP. The 23 in my case had higher mileage but was much cleaner with an interior I preferred. The bonus was I qualified for the new vehicle loan rate from NFCU with the 2023. This was just in October.

 

[BrianB]

Gen 2 2025’s aren’t much more money and have tons of upgrades.

 

[DayTripping]

Gen 2 2025’s aren’t much more money and have tons of upgrades.

Not to be argumentative, but I think most of the upgrades are for saving Rivian money and don't all translate into a better user experience. The efficiency gains don't seem to really have materialized based on initial user reports. Even then, at higher speeds not likely to see any noticeable gains. No upgrade to charging speed. They shrunk the large pack size and kept the price the same.

I'd say the only real upgrades are for the R1S an improving the suspension. I am not sure the heat pump is going to make that much of a difference. The ones I heard were much louder than my G1 R1T. Not to mention if you are in a hot climate, a normal AC system is more efficient once temps get higher. A great read on heat pumps here. From about 20F to 80F there is an advantage to heat pumps. Above about 80, AC is more efficient. Below 20F, heat pumps aren't that much more efficient. I normally use my AC when above 80 and heat when I am in the 40's. In Texas, most of my temps seem to be 80+.

https://www.itbgroup.com/blog/2023/02-battery-electric-vehicle-heat-pump-system-value

So overall, I think Rivian did great at taking costs out in some areas of the G2 trucks. The autonomous driver aids still lag way behind Tesla and are some minor improvements there. The better cameras didn't see to make much of a difference when I test drove the G2 trucks.

How much of the upgrades matter or make a difference to most people remain to be seen. I think they seem more impressive on paper than in real life. I definitely would go with a G2 R1S over the G1, though. That would be an easy decision.

 

[BrianB]

Not to be argumentative, but I think most of the upgrades are for saving Rivian money and don't all translate into a better user experience. The efficiency gains don't seem to really have materialized based on initial user reports. Even then, at higher speeds not likely to see any noticeable gains. No upgrade to charging speed. They shrunk the large pack size and kept the price the same.

I'd say the only real upgrades are for the R1S an improving the suspension. I am not sure the heat pump is going to make that much of a difference. The ones I heard were much louder than my G1 R1T. Not to mention if you are in a hot climate, a normal AC system is more efficient once temps get higher. A great read on heat pumps here. From about 20F to 80F there is an advantage to heat pumps. Above about 80, AC is more efficient. Below 20F, heat pumps aren't that much more efficient. I normally use my AC when above 80 and heat when I am in the 40's. In Texas, most of my temps seem to be 80+.

https://www.itbgroup.com/blog/2023/02-battery-electric-vehicle-heat-pump-system-value

So overall, I think Rivian did great at taking costs out in some areas of the G2 trucks. The autonomous driver aids still lag way behind Tesla and are some minor improvements there. The better cameras didn't see to make much of a difference when I test drove the G2 trucks.

How much of the upgrades matter or make a difference to most people remain to be seen. I think they seem more impressive on paper than in real life. I definitely would go with a G2 R1S over the G1, though. That would be an easy decision.

 

[BrianB]

Watch RJ’s video about all the excess compute capacity they now have on Gen2, that isn’t there in Gen1. Also, ride quality was one of the biggest Gen 1 complaints.

Re: air conditioning, I took delivery of my Gen2 in July in Houston. No issues with the Gen2 cooling system.

Good luck with whichever you choose.

 

[DayTripping]

Watch RJ’s video about all the excess compute capacity they now have on Gen2, that isn’t there in Gen1. Also, ride quality was one of the biggest Gen 1 complaints.

Re: air conditioning, I took delivery of my Gen2 in July in Houston. No issues with the Gen2 cooling system.

Good luck with whichever you choose.

Excess computing power is just excess. At least until they do something with it. I've been down that road with Tesla and they iterate FAR faster than Rivian does. So I had an HW3 system, which has excess capacity compared to HW2. By the time they actually got around to doing something with it, HW4 had been out, and my HW3, which was so much faster than HW2, was like leftover bread. It won't do a lot of what they want to do now, which requires HW4, and even that may not be enough to do what they plan to do.

So right now, the upgraded compute isn't tapped. They aren't chasing Tesla with respect to self driving, so what are they going to do with it? Will it matter in the time you actually own the truck? I learned to buy on the capabilities of the vehicle now, now what they promise it will do. By the time they get around to need more than the G1 trucks have, there likely will be G3 trucks out and given Moores Law, even the G2 trucks may not be able to keep up with the demands. Really the only place I could see them needing more compute is with autonomous driving.

I never said G2 cooling was bad, I said it may not be as efficient as the non-heatpump system in the G1s. I can tell you that regarding a non-heat pump equipped Model 3 I had as a loaner, vs my heat pump equipped model 3, used less energy on the hot days we had (100F+). The cars were kept at the same temps internally and similar ambient temps, rolling on the same kinds of tires and the exact same model.

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