Rivian’s R1S: An electric SUV for those with an adventurous lifestyle

Last September, we drove one of Rivian’s new electric trucks and found its R1 platform highly competent on and off the road, with an impressive level of engineering that made driving to the top of a mountain almost effortless. It’s been a tough few months for the electric vehicle maker since then, with supply chain issues delaying deliveries, a former executive filing a discrimination lawsuit, and shareholders upset about a rather clumsy price hike.

But Rivian remains very well-funded, and its factory in Normal, Illinois, is finding its feet building electric trucks as well as delivery vans for Amazon. Now another R1-based EV is entering production—the R1S SUV.

Like its truck sibling, the R1S is a friendly looking thing, particularly compared to the more aggressive SUVs coming out of Detroit. Partly that’s down to the design of the lights, which should set off your pareidolia, and partly down to what now passes for a relatively low hood height, with curved edges finding favor over sharp creases at the corners.

It’s hard to avoid seeing a face here.

Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

That said, the R1S remains a large SUV. It’s the same width (81.8 inches/2,078 mm) as the R1T truck, but at 200.8 inches (5,100 mm) long the R1S is actually 16.3 inches (414 mm) shorter, with most of that difference (14.7 inches/374 mm) coming out of the wheelbase. As a consequence, there’s no longer a gear tunnel—the innovative cargo area that lives just below and behind the R1T’s rear seats—but you do get a third row of seats that fold flat with the floor when not in use.

Under the hood, there’s a large powered frunk, just like on the R1T, with 11 cubic feet (313 L) of storage space. Open the split tailgate—the lower portion can support up to 1,000 lbs (454 kg), so feel free to sit on it—and there’s a useful 17.6 cubic feet (498 L) of cargo capacity that increases to a capacious 46.7 cubic feet (1,322 L) if you don’t need to employ the third-row seating. For really big loads, fold down the middle row as well and enjoy 88.2 cubic feet (2,498 L) of cargo capacity.

As with the truck, the interior is a stylish place to be. I’m a particular fan of the recycled wood trim, as well as the thoughtful approach Rivian took to placing USB-C ports and storage areas. Visibility from the driver’s seat is good, without too many blindspots, but some readers might be turned off by an all-touchscreen user interface for the infotainment system and the lack of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support.

This is a button-free zone, but there are plenty of USB ports and places to store your stuff. It could use grab handles and a retractable sunshade, though.

Jonathan Gitlin

This is a button-free zone, but there are plenty of USB ports and places to store your stuff. It could use grab handles and a retractable sunshade, though. Jonathan Gitlin

The middle row of seats is split 40:20:40 and moves forward and back. Even with this row all the way back there’s room in the third row, although, like all third rows, your feet are quite close to your hips.

Jonathan Gitlin

The middle row of seats is split 40:20:40 and moves forward and back. Even with this row all the way back there’s room in the third row, although, like all third rows, your feet are quite close to your hips. Jonathan Gitlin

There’s an extra 5-cubic-foot storage area underneath the floor.

Jonathan Gitlin

There’s an extra 5-cubic-foot storage area underneath the floor. Jonathan Gitlin

The middle row of seats is split 40:20:40 and moves forward and back. Even with this row all the way back there’s room in the third row, although, like all third rows, your feet are quite close to your hips. Jonathan Gitlin

There’s an extra 5-cubic-foot storage area underneath the floor. Jonathan Gitlin

The cabin could do with grab handles to make it easier to climb aboard, and yet again an automaker has created an EV with a full-length glass roof that has no sunshade. Rivian says that the panoramic glass blocks 99.9 percent of UV rays as well as heat, but it would be nice to have some retractable fabric that could just block it all when the owner desires. A passenger sitting in the middle row on the right side of the car might also be dazzled by reflections off the main instrument display, as I discovered.

The family resemblance between truck and SUV is more than just skin deep; mechanically, the R1S that we drove in New York is basically the same as the R1T we drove in 2021. Our test R1S featured the 835 hp (623 kW), 908 lb-ft (1,231 Nm) quad-motor configuration, paired with the 135-kWh battery pack.

The front drive unit generates 415 hp (310 kW) and 413 lb-ft (560 Nm), with the rear drive unit contributing 420 hp (313 kW) and 495 lb-ft (671 Nm). Each drive unit contains two motors, one for each wheel, so the powertrain doesn’t require a conventional differential to apportion torque from one side to the other.

You expect the R1S to be quick off the line, considering there’s so much power and torque just a throttle press away. And in sport mode, the R1S will hit 60 mph in as little as three seconds, which is no small feat considering the SUV’s considerable 7,000 lb (3,175 kg) curb weight.

At more than 5 meters long, it’s a pretty substantial SUV.

Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

We spent some of our day putting the R1S through an off-road course that was challenging, if not quite as hardcore as our Colorado adventure in the R1T. The R1S is in fact more nimble at this kind of thing than the truck, thanks to the shorter overall length and wheelbase.

As with the truck, the R1S flattered my embryonic off-road skills; Rivian’s software is extremely good at working out how much torque to send to each wheel at any particular time to make progress when in off-road mode. The company has even added soft sand, drift, and rally submodes, which get much more permissive with the amount of slip allowed to each wheel when away from tarmac.

For most users, this is just academic; Rivian told me that the vehicles it has already delivered have only spent about 1 percent of their time in off-road modes. But as with similarly capable SUVs like the Land Rover Defender, believing it’s able to go almost anywhere—even if it won’t—is part of the charm.

Like the R1T, I again found that of the three on-road modes (All-Purpose, Sport, and Conserve), Sport is probably the sweet spot, with the air spring suspension set to soft. This mode also provides the briskest acceleration, and while the R1S is no slouch, it’s not brutally quick the way you might expect from something boasting more than 800 hp.

The 22-inch tires are better for handling, but they will cost you about 7 percent in range compared to the 21-inch option.

Jonathan Gitlin

The 22-inch tires are better for handling, but they will cost you about 7 percent in range compared to the 21-inch option. Jonathan Gitlin

20-inch all-terrain tires are also available, but these will eat 40 miles (60 km) of range compared to 21-inch wheels and road tires.

Jonathan Gitlin

20-inch all-terrain tires are also available, but these will eat 40 miles (60 km) of range compared to 21-inch wheels and road tires. Jonathan Gitlin

This shows the lifetime efficiency of our test R1S (wearing 22-inch sport tires).

Jonathan Gitlin

This shows the lifetime efficiency of our test R1S (wearing 22-inch sport tires). Jonathan Gitlin

20-inch all-terrain tires are also available, but these will eat 40 miles (60 km) of range compared to 21-inch wheels and road tires. Jonathan Gitlin

This shows the lifetime efficiency of our test R1S (wearing 22-inch sport tires). Jonathan Gitlin

Completely flooring the throttle pedal will feel quite unnatural if you’re used to driving anything besides the R1T I drove last year. The pedal’s travel is long, and the curve that translates that travel into applying torque on each wheel has been well-programmed. (I believe TVR used to use the same approach with very long throttle-pedal travel in the days before traction control was available or affordable, but I’ve never driven one and so can’t confirm.)

One-pedal driving is extremely natural, particularly when set to high-regenerative braking, and it feels quite normal to flex your right foot forward to go or release it to slow. Like with Tesla’s EVs, there’s no brake by wire. Therefore, any time you use the left pedal to slow down, you’re wasting that energy as friction, so there’s a strong incentive to use one-pedal driving.

I’d recommend sticking with the suspension in its softer mode if you have passengers in the back. Traveling over a road with frequent bumps—a series of expansion gaps, for example—can result in a bit of vertical oscillation for the middle-row occupants. This is largely a function of ride height, improving as you raise the car, but in the lower settings, the rhythm of the car and the road could start harmonizing to the point where a person will want to look out at the horizon rather than down at a phone or tablet (or a book, if people still read those in the back seats of cars).

Road noise is well-controlled, including tire roar, but over bumps you might hear a creak or two that I think was coming from the seats.

Rivian’s “Driver+” is a standardized suite of advanced driver assistance systems, and it’s present here. The R1S uses a mix of nine exterior cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and five radars to create a picture of the world around the vehicle at high and low speeds. In addition to adaptive cruise control, there’s also a “Highway Assist” that will only engage on pre-mapped highways. Highway Assist adds an auto-steering component to the cruise control, although it’s not as advanced as General Motors’ Super Cruise, which features a gaze-tracking driver monitoring system as well as the ability to perform automated lane changes. (Rivian currently uses capacitive touch and a torque sensor on the steering wheel as a driver monitor—there is hardware for gaze-tracking, but the feature has yet to be implemented.)