Rivian R1T First Drive reviews

[Nebulocity]

Interesting reads that detail R1T's off-roading capability....Personally I don't care for the uni-body design, but I think Rivian will be huge in a few years....

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...opnik-inside-evs-kbb-roadshow-etc.2254/unread

Sponsored

 

[db305]

looks like a larger ford maverick with an insanely ugly front end.

 

[The Bean]

looks like a larger ford maverick with an insanely ugly front end.

I was at the 2018 LA Auto show when Rivian popped up out of nowhere. They’re vehicles definitely look better in person. I just hope this pushes Jeep to finally release (or at least announce) the JT 4Xe. Attached are photos of the front of the R1T and rear of the R1S. It was a nightmare trying to get photos. They were by far the most attended display the whole day I was there.

 

[dcmdon]

Its aggressively ugly. But there is some very clever and innovative tech in it.

No differentials. It has a 200 hp electric motor at each wheel. So it can do things with its 4wd system that are unimaginable with any other kind of system.

You could have a simulated "locked" axle system by turning every wheel at the same speed.

More interestingly, you could have a system that only gives power to weighted wheels and doesn't even bother turning wheels that are in the air.

On the road, or at high speed in the dirt, you can drive the outside wheels harder around a turn to enhance stability and performance.

Its a HUGE advantage in almost every driving situation and its limitations are pretty much only subject to the imagination of the software people in how they want to use it.

And its fast. Enough said on that. Reaching 60 mph in less than HALF the time it takes a Gladiator.

Ugly but cool.

 

[Bonanza]

This is 100% the future. Jeep needs to (and I think has been making steps to) embrace this technology. Anyone who doesn't is going to be the Blockbuster/Sears/etc. of the automotive world. I'm a big fan of solid axles, but a motor at each wheel is far and away the king of tech here. Rivian is also immediately appealing to the overlanding/outdoor crowd, and the ideas in this thing are remarkable. A flat underside, traction on demand, tank turn, storage galore, etc.

The biggest issue from my standpoint is weight. This much weight takes a huge toll on everything down the chain, but that downside isn't enough to outweigh (pardon the pun) the upsides.

 

[Ry89JT]

In 4 to 5 years these will have 1000+ mile ranges and decreases in price due to competition... ill be all over it. The tech and innovation is too great to ignore.

 

[spectre6000]

I saw the blue press test truck in the wild. Very dirty, but looked decent. It was turning left or maybe making a u-turn on 285 heading up out of Denver. From the rear and side, it looked good. I barely caught the front in my mirrors. Somehow looks smaller than I expected; possibly due to the unibody styling.

 

[bleda2002]

It is a body on frame truck not a unibody. The nice thing about it is that by bolting all the batteries to the frame you basically stiffen it up like a unibody but it's still actually body on frame.

 

[dcmdon]

In 4 to 5 years these will have 1000+ mile ranges and decreases in price due to competition... ill be all over it. The tech and innovation is too great to ignore.

I don't think we will ever get to this point because people won't want to pay for it.

Think about it this way. We're all OK with a 300 mile range gas car because you can refill it in 5 minutes.

The key to broad adoption of BEVs is not huge range, but rather quick charging. If you could pull of almost any exit on an interstate and charge your 300 mile range car in 5 minutes you would be happy.

Many Teslas already get 300+ miles per charge. The problem is that it takes 30-60 minutes to "fill up".

This also makes sense because big batteries will always cost more than smaller batteries. A 1000 mile battery will always weigh twice what a 500 mile battery of the same tech. So the real push in the electric world is to cut recharging times.

Some impediments to this also surround the charging infrastructure. A 300 mile Tesla battery has about 100 kWh of energy. That's 100,000 watt hours. That means that to charge a battery in 5 minutes requires a charging station that can provide over 1 million (!!!!) watts of power for that time. (Actually 1.2 million) This requires HUGE wires or HUGE voltages.

You can't just tap into the wire on your street, even a large street and pull 1 million watts. Its simply too much power. You would sag the voltage within miles of your location or burn out transformers.

So it will take time to build out the electrical infrastructure to support rapid charging.

Of course if you allow 10 minutes to charge, you reduce the time needed to fully charge a 100 kWh battery to 600,000 watts.

Now if we figure that the car being charged is being charged from 20% to 80%, we are looking at 360,000 watts to meet a 10 minute goal. More achievable, but still huge.

To put it in perspective. A typical average draw from a home is slightly less than 10,000 watts.

 

[DocMike]

Curious as to how you can lift it. Portal styled axles? I agree...it's got many advantages.
Cheap mods for the Jeep...relative to other brands got me hooked.

Kit one out. Do a proper overland or rock crawler. I'd love to see that and the build process.

The TFL video with the Defender they mentioned they do not wheel it at full height. They only lift it for big obstacles.

 

[spectre6000]

You're completely ignoring advancements in battery chemistry. This is a white hot space right now, with lots of active research ongoing and coming.

 

[Free2roam]

Any of y'all watch Long Way Up with Ewan McGregor? They prototype test the hell out of them. Along with the all electric Harleys.

 

[legacy_etu]

I would hope it's not a motor in every wheel. That seems like it would be a lot of sprung weight on the wheel. Seems like mounting it inboard and driving a shaft woold be better for chassis dynamics. Maybe that's what it is. I don't know.

 

[869 KPH]

100% the only thing realistically stopping me from getting an R1T is that I don't want all of the attention it would bring. This platform in a JT? Shut up and take my money already.

 

[InvertedLogic]

I would hope it's not a motor in every wheel. That seems like it would be a lot of sprung weight on the wheel. Seems like mounting it inboard and driving a shaft woold be better for chassis dynamics. Maybe that's what it is. I don't know.

I'm guessing they're mounted inboard as you said, but I also haven't seen any underneath pics yet

Sponsored