Good News

[moondoggy]

Cheers Rivian owners and fans. New here. Been stalking since my deposit several weeks ago on a shop Quad R1S.

TBH, the customer service / guide experience has left much to be desired — I suppose this isn’t surprising. Typical AWOL experience even though I have a VIN and delivery date. The guide hasn’t communicated with me once and CS keeps directing me to wait for them, even though we are approx a week away from delivery.

Anyway, between the ambiguity on purchase process (most tasks are still gated), the new supercharger news (still very few on Rivian’s map within reach), and a number of posts on this forum complaining about road tripping & long charge times in the Riv — I’m hoping some of you will be kind enough to share your positive experiences (and pro tips).

Much of this is giving me cold feet on a significant purchase but I was hooked after my first test drive and I’m really hoping it’ll all go well.

Thanks in advance.

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[Redline]

My experience has been amazing.

We've done multiple road trips...in a dead zone area like MN and Wi, and it was just fine.

Don't over think this. The car is amazing. You'll love it.

 

[moosetags]

Greetings from the Florida Panhandle. We have had our R1T (Opal) for almost a year now. We absolutely love her. We fight over who gets to drive her. Opal has performed flawlessly so far and now has 6,000 miles on her. We charge her primarily at home with a Rivian wall charger. We do have some limited experience using DC chargers along the highway as we took Factory Delivery of Opal in Normal and drove her home to Florida. This our first venture into the EV world and are really enjoying it. We are very early Rivian adopters having put our deposit in on November 28th, 2018. We waited almost 4 1/2 years to get Opal. Best wishes on your delivery and Rivian experience.

Brian

 

[jjswan33]

2 Years and 55k miles on my R1T and only minor issues a couple of times related to charging infrastructure. Those that like to whine about things are very vocal, many successful and easy trip reports if you look in the appropriate sub threads

I will say though if you are the type to whine about having to wait 10-15 min for an open charger on a road trip, especially during busy travel periods, then an EV might not be for you and road tripping. Doesn't happen often and with more and more charger availability it will only get better but it can happen.

edit: spelling

 

[Marchin_MTB]

No issues here other than occasionally having to change stalls, but planning goes a long way. Maybe just lucky but I’ve only had to wait for a EA charger once in grand junction but now that location has a RAN. We’ve had the R1T since 2022 and ever year the charging Landscape has improved. Longest road trip was 1000 mi from Denver area to central Texas. Truck did great and now that some NACS sites are available that trip just got much easier.

 

[cjbot3000]

We were relatively early - I have a 5k vin.

Purchase was great! The steps were weird because we never purchased a vehicle online as we're new to EVs entirely, but they worked flawlessly despite our mild confusion. I remember we had to have everything ready to rock, basically. Got our cars sold to CarMax as soon as I started talking to my guide and had our pre approvals all lined up

My guide was phenomenal and I wish I was friends with the guy. Guide Scott was exactly what I hoped for from the guide program

I opted for pickup at the service center because it worked out better for my schedule and it was weird but easy. Super fast signing, especially when I'm accustomed to traditional car buying model, spending most of my day in a dealership to do the same stuff. So I signed, they did a walk-around with me, showed my how to pair my phone, and bade me adieu.

This was not only my first EV but also first factory-new vehicle. And also most expensive. I'm not clear if you're new to non-teslas or EVs entirely but the intimidation is real, however unfounded. We actually went 100% electric as a family all at once without an ice backup and it's the sort of experience where you're worried about and intimidated by the paradigm shift until you do it, whereupon you wonder what you were so worried about!

Depending on where you are, fast charging can be relatively good or completely unreliable but it doesn't really matter 99% of the time because you just charge at home (if you have that option). Here in southern AZ it's awful. In the NE, my brother has nearly zero issues. Road tripping should be fine if you're patient enough to place a call to EA or wait for a working stall at some point. As long as you have plug share app you'll look up your chargers to check their operation.

It's DEFINITELY a detractor to EV adoption, but it's not something to lose sleep over

As an early build of a new vehicle from a new manufacturer, I expected to have some gremlins to work out and I have, but nothing like the horror stories you read on this forum. The worst thing I had happen was a slow leak in my air suspension that didn't affect driveability. Just some smaller things like rattles, camp speaker, electrical plug not pushed in all the way, windshield washer squirters dying a slow death, et al.

Again, early vin problems, but it's been mechanically rock solid. I used to have to reset it a bunch when I first got it to clear the pipes, but I don't think I've had to in the last year or so as things have been worked out through updates and such

And the updates. GOD HOW I LOVE THE UPDATES. Our other EV is a mach e that we also love, but the Ford OTAs are a joke. The Rivian OTAs are regular, meaningful, and transparent as to what's being done.

Long story short - I have no regrets, I love the vehicle, and I just pray to gear guard Gary that I never get rear ended.

 

[majorfriend]

I'm a pretty new owner, having purchased an pre-owned R1T launch edition with 55k miles just a few weeks ago.

It's only been a couple weeks but I'm very happy. We picked it up and drove it back to CO from CA and had no issues, nice and easy road trip.

The truck has only had minor issues since new. The windshield, front driver window regulator, and front passenger CV axel have been replaced. No issues other than that. I'm very happy with the condition of the truck, the PTC is even still working and has had no issues. Obviously, some of that is credit to the previous owner and how he took care of the truck.

My experience with customer service has been outstanding.

I called in to transfer ownership, waited less than a minute to speak with someone, and he sent an email to the ownership transfer team (this was on a Saturday). On Monday the transfer team reached out and asked for a copy of the bill of sale and my driver's license. Ownership of the truck was transferred to my account about 3 days after I sent in the bill of sale and a photo of my driver's license.

Given that I'm a new owner and the comprehensive warranty is almost up I did want to have a comprehensive inspection done before I hit the 60k mile mark. It was very easy to schedule that in the app. I was able to schedule an appointment for about 2 weeks out, but there were earlier appointments, that one just fit my schedule best.

I received a courtesy confirmation call later that week regarding the appointment.

Last week I noticed a couple other things, the automatic windshield wipers could not be selected, and an underbody panel by the rear passenger tire is missing. The panel was there when we left CA, but it was very windy on the trip home, I'm guessing it was loose and eventually blew off in the wind. There are other reports of these panels being loose on launch editions.

So, I wanted to have those items added to my inspection appointment. I called in and waited less than 2 minutes to speak with someone. She actually walked me through hard reset of the truck and that fixed the windshield wiper issue.

Then she opened the ticket for the underbody panel, and I was able to take a picture in the app so they can be prepared when I drop the truck off next week.

So far, my experience with customer service and the truck have been the best of any vehicle I've purchased. Much better than the Ford dealer when I purchased my Mach-E, and that was a new vehicle.

 

[COdogman]

I haven't done a bunch of road trips, but if you do a forum title search for "trip report" you will find a bunch of amazing road trip stories long before there was even news about Tesla chargers being added.

It does help to be road tripping in parts of the country with good charging infrastructure, but some of those reports are not that. They are traveling through places with pretty sparse charging and still making it work.

 

[Rivdog]

Best vehicle I’ve ever driven. I had to get some collision repair done and rented a Porsche Panamera 4S platinum while I waited…and couldn’t wait to get my Rivian back. Yeah, a freaking Porsche felt like a significant downgrade to me.

People can pick apart a Bentley or Rolls Royce if they want. Some people are plenty happy with a Toyota Corolla. If you want to be happy with your Rivian, it’s your choice on whether you are.

Welcome to the club!

 

[jtshaw]

Cheers Rivian owners and fans. New here. Been stalking since my deposit several weeks ago on a shop Quad R1S.

TBH, the customer service / guide experience has left much to be desired — I suppose this isn’t surprising. Typical AWOL experience even though I have a VIN and delivery date. The guide hasn’t communicated with me once and CS keeps directing me to wait for them, even though we are approx a week away from delivery.

Anyway, between the ambiguity on purchase process (most tasks are still gated), the new supercharger news (still very few on Rivian’s map within reach), and a number of posts on this forum complaining about road tripping & long charge times in the Riv — I’m hoping some of you will be kind enough to share your positive experiences (and pro tips).

Much of this is giving me cold feet on a significant purchase but I was hooked after my first test drive and I’m really hoping it’ll all go well.

Thanks in advance.

We've had great experiences road tripping up and down between Seattle and San Francisco as well as going across Washington and up into rural British Columbia. The charging in rural BC (west side of the Rockies) was slow, but we knew what we were getting into and the 50kW chargers they deployed up there (Flo Network) are surprisingly abundant in the small mountain towns.

Only charging problems we have run into are waits at EA chargers that are super popular. Ellensburg, WA EA sucks, for example, but it's insanely popular charger because it's the first one you reach on the east side of the Cascades on I-90.

Our last road trip was ~1800 miles and we had zero wait times and only came across a single broken charger (EA of course). The RAN network chargers in Oregon were absolutely amazing.

One thing to keep in mind if you are coming from a Tesla... Rivian's range estimates are very accurate, even traversing mountains. We typically arrive with a slightly higher SOC than the car tells us, it's a huge peace of mind compared to the aggressive estimates we see on the Tesla.

 

[SDH]

Congrats. You'll get a wealth of hints and tips on this forum and whilst most folks are owners and may have some confirmation bias, it's a very positive group with many positive experiences. Ask questions if you need help.

Just bear in mind, as usual, the complainers tend to shout loudest.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

TBH, the customer service / guide experience has left much to be desired — I suppose this isn’t surprising.

Do yourself a favor and do not ever expect guides to be white gloved personal concierge. What is written/expressed for sake of marketing may give that impression, but that's not what they are. They are just one rung above the customer service generalists that staff the "call center"—with perhaps access to more personal account info than the generalists. And each guide, or guide team, is assigned numerous customers, all clamoring for attention and inundating them with questions and messages... from serious to info they could easily look up themselves online. We're early adopters, and just like the service centers, at this stage there aren't enough guides to go around. Contact guides only for things you can't possibly do/find yourself.

 

[A Land Rover Forever]

The R1S is the best SUV in the world at the moment! You should have no worries... Think about how people felt when they switched from horse and buggy to the automobile. I'm sure most had anxiety about buying something new.

 

[majorfriend]

Here's some qualitative data to back up the quantitative you're getting here:
Rivian tops Consumer Reports 'most loved' ranks after its reviewers derided it (electrek.co)

 

[SANZC02]

My experience, 14k on my R1S, picked up in January of 2023 in Normal, drove it to Boston, down to the Florida Panhandle, and Interstate 10 back to SoCal.

People will tell you EA is no good but my 5100 mile trip was 34 stops, 33 of them were EA and I had no problems. I saw a few stations down but never had an issue charging. With the Tesla V3+ Superchargers opening what for me was not an issue will only be better.

I have had such a positive experience with my R1S I put a deposit on the R2 within the first 20 minutes of the reservations opening which will probably replace our 2016 Tesla Model S.

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