2022 Rivian R1T

RYAN ZUMMALLEN: Hey, guys. Today is a very special day. We're at the Rivian service center in Los Angeles, and you can probably guess why. We're picking up our very own long-term Rivian R1T, and I somehow convinced everyone that I should be the one that gets to unbox it. Not sure why they agreed to that, but anyway, let's go check it out. [MUSIC PLAYING] Look what I got. Let's go unbox this thing. First one in the seats, first one with the seat belt on. First one driving it. Woo! All right, we've got the R1T here where we can really dive into our new long-termer. Now, the Edmunds long-term test program is where we take new cars and drive them for about 20,000 miles over the course of the year. That way we can report on the ownership experience. That's especially important for electric vehicles, because a lot of people are coming into EVs for the very first time with little or no experience, and that's where we come in. So back to our latest acquisition-- the Rivian R1T. Now, this is a fully electric pickup truck. That means it's got a bed, its body-on-frame, and there is a big old battery pack under the floor sending a lot of power to four electric motors. How much power exactly? 835 horsepower. Dang, that's a lot. That's one of the reasons the Rivian R1T was named winner of the Edmunds Top-rated Editor's Choice Award for 2022. We also conducted an exclusive instrumented test of the R1T using our renowned Edmunds testing process. That highlighted things like its extreme acceleration and its extremely heavy weight. You can click here to watch that full in-depth evaluation. Now, ours is the launch edition, and that comes with a whole bunch of cool upgrades. For one thing, you get this awesome green paint and some cool interior badging as well. Under the floor, the battery pack is larger than it is on standard versions, and the launch edition comes with the Adventure Package, too-- heated and cooled front seats, natural grain wood inside, and an upgraded stereo system. You want even more stuff? OK, fine. There's upgraded wheels and 34-inch all terrain tires. I can't wait to get into trouble with those. All launch editions are EPA rated at 314 miles of all electric range. And we've tested one at 317 miles, so it seems pretty true to that rating. The R1T starts at $68,500, including destination. Since ours is a launch edition and we added protective skid plates and all-weather floor mats as options, our R1T came to 76,250. That includes destination as well as our original $1,000 deposit. Phew, that's a lot of money. But it could have been worse. A few months ago, Rivian announced they were increasing their prices by up to $12,000 depending on the model that you ordered. We placed our order early enough that it didn't end up applying to us. Woo! All right, enough of that. Let's go unbox the thing. The truck is now officially ours, so I'll be the first to show you all around it using the five senses-- how it looks, how it feels, how it sounds, how it smells, and how it tastes. OK, maybe not that last one. Let's start by taking off all the stickers. OK, first up is this giant Monroney, or pricing sticker, which is not on there all that well. That was a lot easier than I expected. Let's see what else we can find. So when we get to do unboxing vehicles, it's always really fun, because manufacturers put all kinds of like protective screens on stuff that we get to rip off. I assume-- this is a very tech-forward vehicle-- we'll have plenty of stuff like that. OK never mind, not so much. That was it, no screens on the touch screen this time. So sorry for all you ASMR fans out there. But luckily, the Rivian does come with a bunch of other really cool stuff, so let's search around some more and see what we can find. The first thing I want to show you is actually in the door. It's this cool flashlight Rivian calls the torch, and since I'm the first one to touch it, I'm going to claim it as my territory. Now every time they use it, they'll think of me. Ha, ha, ha, ha. OK anyway-- ah. Here's the next thing I want to show you. Remember when I told you about that upgraded stereo system a little while ago? Well, that comes with a portable Rivian-branded speaker-- super rad, right? It's also gonna be mine. I think I improved on the looks. Let's put that back. Enjoy your cookout everybody, courtesy of me. And finally, in the bed of this truck there's an integrated air compressor that when you pull it out, you can reach all four tires, so you can fill up or air down when you're off-roading-- pretty sweet. Let's talk about the interior. OK, inside the Rivian now, and first of all, it smells like leather and wood, and my editors are really worried I'm gonna ruin it all next time I take this off-roading. But first thing's first. I'm the first one to get to sit inside the Rivian, and that means I get to set everything based on my personal preferences, based on rules I just made up 5 seconds ago. So what's the first thing you do when you get into a new car? You set the driver's seat, obviously. Thankfully, that's really easy in this car. You just use the buttons over on the side of the seats. And you go down a bit, and back a bit, and I'm feeling pretty good. OK. The second thing is setting the steering wheel. Now it's pushed in really far right now, so you hit steering wheel on the button. And this part's kind of annoying. You don't just use buttons to move it around. You have to use the dials on either side of the steering wheel. So if I want the steering wheel to come out, I gotta keep scrolling back. That gets a little old, and on this one, I gotta scroll it up or down to move it up. And I'm finally at a height that I like. That was not the greatest. So I'm want to make sure to hit Remember there so that I never have to do that again. And everyone just has to drive the way that I like to drive-- success for me. What's the third first thing you do when you get inside a new car? You set the mirrors. Just like the steering wheel, you hit Side Mirrors, and then you have to use these dials to move them around. Let's see how this goes. OK, left one goes up and down, right one goes up and down. That feels good. I mean, that's a lot more intuitive than it is to set the steering wheel, but still, it would be nice to just put some buttons over here. Seems like they overthought things a bit. The last first thing you do is pair your phone. Now, this is especially important in this car, because just like Teslas, Rivian doesn't offer Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. So the way to connect your phone is through Bluetooth. So let's go ahead and hit No Device Connected, Add Device, Add a Bluetooth Audio Device. OK, Ryan's iPhone-- ha, ha. Loading contacts-- so it's taking a little while to load, but pretty soon I'll have all my contacts in here. I can make phone calls. I can listen to music, play my podcasts, load Spotify, which is already integrated into here. OK, so that's fine. And if I want to play music, I can go to Spotify or play off of my phone. And it's got a Justin Timberlake song that I didn't ask for, but cool. While we're on the subject of phones, one cool thing that happened when we picked up the truck is they actually need to pair the vehicle to a phone in order to give that person delivery of it. So we were able to do that, and through that app on that phone, you can unlock the doors, start the car, prep it, and all kinds of other stuff. So there is a lot of phone functionality, just like a Tesla. Now that we've got everything set, let's go ahead and set Edmunds headquarters as the default office in the navigation here. I'm going to just type in Edmunds and see if it knows where to go. It comes right up, perfect-- edmunds.com. And that said it worked. That was shockingly easy. OK, well it seems like I got everything just the way I like it in here, so let's see what else there is to explore. So obviously one of the advantages of having a truck is tons of places to put your stuff, and the Rivian is no exception. To help me demonstrate today, I brought some of the world's best candy, which is, of course, blue Tropical Skittles. It is. It is. First, I'll show you the center console, which uses a button. The actuator's down there, and it's actually really deep like. Look how far it can go in there. OK, so there's one bag of Skittles for future Ryan to enjoy. And then the next part is actually under the seats. There's a small little cubby there, which fits in really nicely. And there's actually one under both of the front seats. This is where Rivian put our keys and our, I don't know, adventure bracelet I guess you would call it-- some pretty cool little goodies to find hidden under our seats. The bracelet is weatherproof, so while you're out riding on the trails or even surfing, you can just wear this and you don't need to bring a key with you. So you can just bring it back and unlock the car. But that's not the coolest part. I'll show you the coolest part. The coolest part is here. Press this button on top, and this comes out. Rivian calls it a gear tunnel. I call it tons of Skittle storage space. You also get this little flap in the door. And hey, there's a surprise bag in here I didn't know about. It's pretty rad. Let's see what's inside. OK, so this is the air compressor hose and a tire repair kit in case you get a flat, because we did not opt for the spare. That's nice-- nice and handy little spot. On the other side, let's see what we got in here-- secret compartment just like the other one, and there's a first aid kit-- neat little bag. And let's see what we got. OK, so a whole bunch of gauze, some exam gloves, bandages, looks like an emergency blanket if you need it, and some shears. Whoops, that fell out. I'll put it back later. So Rivian's really doubling down on the whole adventure thing, which is pretty cool. This is a truck, so let's talk about the truck-y parts. First of all, to get the tailgate down it's this button on top. It'll lower very softly. Obviously there's a pretty large bed in here with lots of tie-down points, but there's one secret. Come over to this part. And I'm making sure to demonstrate this part, because it took me forever to find it. Flip that up, and you have under-bed storage. It's pretty rad. Now, there's a divider in here. It's locked in there, so I can't pull it out and see exactly what max capacity would be, but it's a neat little trick to hide your stuff. Ha. The gate power opens, but it doesn't power close, so you gotta really push it. OK, let's talk frunk. Obviously this is an electric car. You don't have an engine under here, so let's see what you do get. I'm going to take the key, which you may remember from earlier. Give it two presses. Two presses, and there she goes. So here's the frunk. And as you can see, there's pretty good space. It's not super deep, but there's a lot of space from side to side, which I like a lot. So you do have a lot of loading area to put things in. And you can get even more if you take up the floor. Now, this is where we can find a lot of things like locking cables for the bed, our license plate frame, and some brackets to help install child seats. There's also another bag in here, which contains, I believe-- yep, our big charging cord. And another thing that's really cool is these little areas on the back end here look kind of crude, like they're just-- looks like extra glue residue that was left over. But we figured out when you bring up the floor and fold this back, they're magnets. So that stays put up there, which is really cool. We're back inside the truck now, where I can show you this extra-cool storage way, which runs pretty deep and a long way, so you can stock all kinds of stuff in there. Under my seat is the subwoofer, so you don't have this area. But there's still more. Fold this down and you get cup holders and a hidden little storage area. You know I love that. Finally there's one more thing. There's a little door back here, and with that you get a passage to the gear tunnel. I think that's everything, but let me know in the comments if there's any storage spaces I forgot. I mean, it's possible. SPEAKER: Can I get out now? RYAN ZUMMALLEN: Shh. Let's talk charging for a second. Obviously that's going to be a major point of discussion for us, because this is an electric car. It needs to be charged. Rivian provides you with a lot of tools to make that a little bit easier. Obviously you saw the charging cord that this truck comes with, and that's for use on a level 2 charging station. And with one of those, it will recharge at a rate of about 16 miles for every hour that it's plugged in. Another helpful feature is that in the touch screen, it's very easy to just push a button and all of the available networks near you will pop up so you can get to one if you need a charge in a pinch. Finally, the Rivian runs on a 400-volt architecture. Now, that refers to the amount of charge that it can take at any one time. And Rivian's been criticized a little bit for that, because it's a 400-volt system, not an 800 like you'll find on some Porsches and even Hyundais. Lucid uses a 900-volt system. Now, why is that important? Because it limits the peak charging rate that this truck can handle. And if you saw Alistair's full instrumented test video on a Rivian R1T last year, you know that this truck uses a lot of energy to get its full range. Having a higher peak charging rate would really come in handy if you're ever getting close to 0 miles of range, or if you're on a long road trip and you don't want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere while you wait for this thing to charge for hours. We'll be watching the charging rates on this truck very closely on our long-term blog to see if the 400-volt architecture really makes a difference either way. So stay tuned to that page for updates. As you can see, they squeezed a lot into this package, and I can't wait to see where we're gonna take it and get into lots of trouble. In the meantime, make sure to follow our long-term test page so you can see all of the updates we write about it. And click, like, and subscribe so you can see our videos first. In the meantime, leave a comment below and let me know where you would take this thing if you were me. Maybe we'll make it out there. Thanks for watching.