R1S Impressions @ 500mi

[jdinsb]

Picked up my R1S a few weeks ago. I'm coming from a Model Y LR and below is my perspective on the R1S after 500 miles as a daily driver. R1S specs: El Cap Granite, Ocean Coast, Dual Motor Max Pack, 22" Sport Dark Wheels.

4 Things I love

1. The ride quality is fantastic. I'd heard about bumpiness and rigidity of ride quality, but compared to the Tesla I'm very impressed. R1S quality feels comparable to the 7 series I used to drive. I used to feel like my teeth were rattling going over the smallest changes in road quality.
2. The UI and control center is very well done. Tap targets, responsiveness, intuitiveness are all ahead of Tesla in my opinion. Sure, missing some features, but the core is built very, very well.
3. Granularity of climate control is lovely. Solved a big problem we had in the Tesla where I'd want AC but couldn't turn the vents off for the passenger area.
4. Overall look, feel, quality exceeded my expectations. Tesla felt cheap, and it was cheaper, but the R1S beats it in nearly every way. The fit and finish of most things is immaculate, and the overall build quality feels durable and luxurious. I was nervous this would not live up to the cost, but it does.

4 Things I wish were better

1. Lots of little noises. I'm sure I'll grow accustomed to these, but the nicks and noises when the suspension is adjusting, or when shifting gears, or when accelerating are noticeably more annoying than the Tesla was. This is a huge nit and I'm sure I'll forget these exist in a few weeks.
2. Serviceability. There were a few issues at delivery that I have not been able to get Rivian to commit to fixing on a reasonable timetable. Small scuff on the Halo, read door child lock does not disengage, few small panel gaps. For a $110k car I expected immediate attention (or at least that's what I got with a Tesla that cost roughly half). Instead I'm getting timelines 4+ months out for a mobile appointment.
3. Auto-lock/unlock proximity control. Very annoying at home to have the car unlock/lock all the time when passing the garage. And also very annoying to have to disable this behavior at home just to avoid it waking/unlocking/etc. This was never an issue with the Tesla.
4. Lane control seems uncalibrated. Jerky at times if I put turn signal on too late, or need to veer to avoid an obstacle. I like the feature, but will be turning it off to avoid unpredictability.

4 software updates on my wishlist

1. Side camera preview when turn signal engages. Miss this a lot from the Tesla.
2. Auto adjust side mirrors when in reverse. This seems like such low hanging fruit and an obvious miss. The 360 camera view helps, but this would be nice for navigating curbs.
3. Auto-window shutting when I lock. Maybe I missed this setting or in the manual, but this was a great feature in the Tesla and I grew quite used to it.
4. Automatic garage door opening/closing. One less thing to think about

Overall impression
Blown away. I was nervous about buyers remorse and that left after about 15 miles on the drive home from El Segundo. Very impressed with the quality of the R1S and how nice it is to drive. My only regret is I didn't pull the trigger sooner.

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[Cortles]

We’re similarly 500 miles in and ex-Tesla MY LR. Love the Rivian!! Ride quality compared to the MY is so superior but then I expect that with the premium price.

Agree with the features you’ve shared as they were certainly helpful on the MY. I love the way the garage door opener is activated with the right button.

My office is above my garage so that proximity thing is annoying as hear crickets all day!!! But I must admit that the immediacy and predictability of the doors opening is great for Rivian as the MY was often glitchy.

For me in my office, I just turn my Bluetooth off on my phone while I’m working - a pretty easy fix for that problem rather than switching a very convenient feature off on the car. My partner thanks me for that, for sure!

 

[jdinsb]

One other thing I think is laughable is the on-road visualization UI. Other cars are jerky and wildly inaccurate. They should just remove this entirely until they can do this well.

 

[fdon1]

Picked up my R1S a few weeks ago. I'm coming from a Model Y LR and below is my perspective on the R1S after 500 miles as a daily driver. R1S specs: El Cap Granite, Ocean Coast, Dual Motor Max Pack, 22" Sport Dark Wheels.

4 Things I love

1. The ride quality is fantastic. I'd heard about bumpiness and rigidity of ride quality, but compared to the Tesla I'm very impressed. R1S quality feels comparable to the 7 series I used to drive. I used to feel like my teeth were rattling going over the smallest changes in road quality.
2. The UI and control center is very well done. Tap targets, responsiveness, intuitiveness are all ahead of Tesla in my opinion. Sure, missing some features, but the core is built very, very well.
3. Granularity of climate control is lovely. Solved a big problem we had in the Tesla where I'd want AC but couldn't turn the vents off for the passenger area.
4. Overall look, feel, quality exceeded my expectations. Tesla felt cheap, and it was cheaper, but the R1S beats it in nearly every way. The fit and finish of most things is immaculate, and the overall build quality feels durable and luxurious. I was nervous this would not live up to the cost, but it does.

4 Things I wish were better

1. Lots of little noises. I'm sure I'll grow accustomed to these, but the nicks and noises when the suspension is adjusting, or when shifting gears, or when accelerating are noticeably more annoying than the Tesla was. This is a huge nit and I'm sure I'll forget these exist in a few weeks.
2. Serviceability. There were a few issues at delivery that I have not been able to get Rivian to commit to fixing on a reasonable timetable. Small scuff on the Halo, read door child lock does not disengage, few small panel gaps. For a $110k car I expected immediate attention (or at least that's what I got with a Tesla that cost roughly half). Instead I'm getting timelines 4+ months out for a mobile appointment.
3. Auto-lock/unlock proximity control. Very annoying at home to have the car unlock/lock all the time when passing the garage. And also very annoying to have to disable this behavior at home just to avoid it waking/unlocking/etc. This was never an issue with the Tesla.
4. Lane control seems uncalibrated. Jerky at times if I put turn signal on too late, or need to veer to avoid an obstacle. I like the feature, but will be turning it off to avoid unpredictability.

4 software updates on my wishlist

1. Side camera preview when turn signal engages. Miss this a lot from the Tesla.
2. Auto adjust side mirrors when in reverse. This seems like such low hanging fruit and an obvious miss. The 360 camera view helps, but this would be nice for navigating curbs.
3. Auto-window shutting when I lock. Maybe I missed this setting or in the manual, but this was a great feature in the Tesla and I grew quite used to it.
4. Automatic garage door opening/closing. One less thing to think about

Overall impression
Blown away. I was nervous about buyers remorse and that left after about 15 miles on the drive home from El Segundo. Very impressed with the quality of the R1S and how nice it is to drive. My only regret is I didn't pull the trigger sooner.

Good to know.. I will be picking mine up shortly so I'll be looking over some of these oberservations as well

 

[Jacopa]

Good write up, I too drive a Model Y as my daily driver for the past 3.5 yrs. We've had a DM R1S in Canyon Red (great color! Especially in the vsunlight.) for 8 days now. The biggest niggle I have is the proximity locking/unlocking. It's VERY sporadic at best, and often I need to put stuff down to open the app but I'm confident that will improve. The Mrs. kept asking how to get the text msgs to show up on the screen! I said wrong car love, that's a Tesla thing. She wasn't happy. I said that will happen in the future. It's taken Tesla 12 years to tweak the software and they do often. Rivian will follow, no doubt. I do get amused with all the new EV owners complaining about stuff that we Tesla people have already lived thru. I'm certain Rivian has some very smart, talented software engineers that will have the benefit of all the different EV manufacturers out there to tweak our software but these things do not happen over night. Look at the bright side, everyone lucky enough to drive a bougie EV will never go back to ICE! OK, that's enough, the Mrs handed me a diaper and chamois to start washing her new baby. Out.

 

[Nacho Rivian]

Picked up my R1S a few weeks ago. I'm coming from a Model Y LR and below is my perspective on the R1S after 500 miles as a daily driver. R1S specs: El Cap Granite, Ocean Coast, Dual Motor Max Pack, 22" Sport Dark Wheels.

4 Things I love

1. The ride quality is fantastic. I'd heard about bumpiness and rigidity of ride quality, but compared to the Tesla I'm very impressed. R1S quality feels comparable to the 7 series I used to drive. I used to feel like my teeth were rattling going over the smallest changes in road quality.
2. The UI and control center is very well done. Tap targets, responsiveness, intuitiveness are all ahead of Tesla in my opinion. Sure, missing some features, but the core is built very, very well.
3. Granularity of climate control is lovely. Solved a big problem we had in the Tesla where I'd want AC but couldn't turn the vents off for the passenger area.
4. Overall look, feel, quality exceeded my expectations. Tesla felt cheap, and it was cheaper, but the R1S beats it in nearly every way. The fit and finish of most things is immaculate, and the overall build quality feels durable and luxurious. I was nervous this would not live up to the cost, but it does.

4 Things I wish were better

1. Lots of little noises. I'm sure I'll grow accustomed to these, but the nicks and noises when the suspension is adjusting, or when shifting gears, or when accelerating are noticeably more annoying than the Tesla was. This is a huge nit and I'm sure I'll forget these exist in a few weeks.
2. Serviceability. There were a few issues at delivery that I have not been able to get Rivian to commit to fixing on a reasonable timetable. Small scuff on the Halo, read door child lock does not disengage, few small panel gaps. For a $110k car I expected immediate attention (or at least that's what I got with a Tesla that cost roughly half). Instead I'm getting timelines 4+ months out for a mobile appointment.
3. Auto-lock/unlock proximity control. Very annoying at home to have the car unlock/lock all the time when passing the garage. And also very annoying to have to disable this behavior at home just to avoid it waking/unlocking/etc. This was never an issue with the Tesla.
4. Lane control seems uncalibrated. Jerky at times if I put turn signal on too late, or need to veer to avoid an obstacle. I like the feature, but will be turning it off to avoid unpredictability.

4 software updates on my wishlist

1. Side camera preview when turn signal engages. Miss this a lot from the Tesla.
2. Auto adjust side mirrors when in reverse. This seems like such low hanging fruit and an obvious miss. The 360 camera view helps, but this would be nice for navigating curbs.
3. Auto-window shutting when I lock. Maybe I missed this setting or in the manual, but this was a great feature in the Tesla and I grew quite used to it.
4. Automatic garage door opening/closing. One less thing to think about

Overall impression
Blown away. I was nervous about buyers remorse and that left after about 15 miles on the drive home from El Segundo. Very impressed with the quality of the R1S and how nice it is to drive. My only regret is I didn't pull the trigger sooner.

Nice write-up and you can turn off auto-lock and unlock by changing the settings on your Rivian. I set mine to auto-lock at home but no unlock.

 

[electruck]

One other thing I think is laughable is the on-road visualization UI. Other cars are jerky and wildly inaccurate. They should just remove this entirely until they can do this well.

Even if it worked well, I don't really see the point. I'd much rather be able to swap it out for media info (song, artist, cover art, etc).

 

[Mark_AZR1T]

Excellent feedback! My wife couldn't wait to get rid of her MY23 (for a host of reasons), with the SOLE exception of the auto open and close garage door feature.....I actually liked the MY more than she did, but it's her vehicle not mine.

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