Yes, a bike can sit on the crossbars in the bed (I'll try to find the pick and edit this post with a link).
In a September-ish 2021 Rivianstories clip, a surfer shared her experience of an early Rivian event. She said Rivian said they were working on a set of high rails for the bed that would extend to roof height. This would enable the truck to more easily carry long surfboards or kayaks or whatnot.
Thanks for the notes, helpful. That storage lid/area on the gear tunnel doors is "relatively" new. TBH, I think its a last minute decision which to me explains why its such low quality. Its a mistake to add that in my opinion. Since that's where we'll stand/sit it'll get a lot of use and if that door break, no longer usable for that purpose. They should have just left it without a door. I'm concerned about the quality of the cameras on the R1T. I've had vehicles with low res and its super annoying. As you said, I really really hope they didnt go cheap there. And lastly the tonneau cover. It is without a doubt a serious issue. In multiple different events, they have disabled it. To their credit, I have seen it enabled in other places like the Hub in Venice but a majority of time its not. This tells me its a serious issue and likely contributing to the delay. Honestly, they should just disable or remove it and reduce the price of the Adventure trim by $500. Its not a deal breaker to me, rather have a truck with a manual cover than wait months longer for a powered one.Got my test drive today, so here's yet another set of observations for those curious:
The good
The meh (*caveat, these likely weren't production vehicles so... YMMV)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Love the storage options. Will never run out of places to put things and I own a station wagon, which has loads of storage.
- 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.
- Fun. Fun. Fun. It's going to be a blast to finally take ownership (someday).
Other non-truck notes:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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%.
- 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?
- 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.
- [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...
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...
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
The tent can already be mounted at roof height using the mounting points on the roof of both the R1T and R1S.
Thanks for the intel. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
So after checking with my internal OEM partners, here is what I found:
There is no tank turn, it has been delayed (wouldn't surprise me if that becomes indefinitely).
