Shopping for a “new” BEV while waiting for the Scout Traveler BEV.

[Scout_Lookout]

We have a friend with the Solterra, and they mostly love it. There are a couple of issues they have with it, only one of which is a big deal. I don’t know if we could handle the slower charge rate. We do a lot of road tripping and we’d like to be able to take either vehicle. We have several times taken both the Lightning and the Mustang for various reasons (one of us had to head home earlier than the other, one of us couldn’t leave at the same time, we needed two vehicles, etc).

The upgraded versions are more interesting to us.

Have you driven a Trailseeker yet? It sounds like that could be a very strong contender to meet most of your preferences. I believe the charging was largely improved as well, but I think the UX leaves a bit to be desired.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Have you driven a Trailseeker yet? It sounds like that could be a very strong contender to meet most of your preferences. I believe the charging was largely improved as well, but I think the UX leaves a bit to be desired.

We haven’t had the chance yet. We’ll be going to look at one in the next couple of weeks.

 

[Scout_Lookout]

We haven’t had the chance yet. We’ll be going to look at one in the next couple of weeks.

Cool. Given your long term ownership with Mustang, it will be interesting to hear your review of it. Please do share once you drive it.

 

[J Alynn]

That is a great idea.

Even the long-term rentals in big cities (Flex Car, for example) don’t have a Rivian.

This seems like a great business model that’s missing from the world: 1 to 11 month lease of an EV so people can get a feel for the vehicle before they commit.

Anyone have a few tens of millions of dollars they can angle invest in my new company?

Would be great but the charging issue makes this a challenge. We had wished for the same thing but to only be able to trickle charge as a non EV owner makes it challenging to be sold on it. Wish there was a way to make this happen though

 

[J Alynn]

I’d recommend the RZ but I suspect the hesitations and issues you have with the Mach E might be similar with the RZ

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Cool. Given your long term ownership with Mustang, it will be interesting to hear your review of it. Please do share once you drive it.

I will.

Here’s a review of the R1S we test drove multiple times in the past month:

We test drove a 2026 Rivian R1S with the Max Pack, Dual Motor and whatever else it had “Adventure," maybe? I still don’t understand the option/package naming schemes nor what comes with them. The roof was electrochromic if that helps anyone who knows the package/options any better than I do. It did not have the aero wheel covers. It had AS tires.

Anyway, the test drives were in Scottsdale, AZ. We were explicitly told we could not take the vehicles off-pavement, so we were unable to get a feel for the vehicle performance on any kind of gravel road or similar.

I’ll go through in a time-linear fashion with some impressions. The complaints/annoyances look like they’re a bigger deal than they might be. There are mostly positives when it comes to most of the physical engineering.

TL;DR:
The vehicle is a fantastic feat of engineering. I don’t like the UX. I was disappointed we couldn’t control our podcast and audiobook apps from the vehicle screen. I think there should be a forced recall to add physical door mechanisms to the rear doors. I do like the drive, handling, and overall feel of the vehicle. If we had a month to figure out how to live with the UX, we’d probably be up for buying a used R1S; a new one is entirely outside of our price range.

——

First Impressions:

I know there are a bunch of people who have joined the war on buttons, and I don’t need the “you could do it this way or there’s a work around…” I know, I know, but I’m not interested in spending a lot of money on a UX that requires a bunch of workarounds to use my vehicle. I still think the war on physical buttons is dumb design. I care about function, not aesthetics and the form over function is badly considered for my use-cases. I would still be willing to try a longer-term use of the vehicle to see if I could get over some of the annoyances.

They had a keycard for us to use. That required putting the card on the center console before we could drive. So the lack of a push button to drive did not actually speed up getting the vehicle ready to drive. I don’t know if this is different from when one owns the vehicle—is there a setting that allows the card to stay in the wallet/purse/pocket? If not, then there’s little practical difference between having to pull the card out and pushing a button to start the vehicle—in fact, pulling the card out is more of a pain than pressing the button as I get seated. Apparently we would have to buy a fob if we wanted one. We don’t do phones as keys for a pile of reasons. I don’t know what the use-case difference is between the card and the bracelet.

The steering wheel adjustment was annoying. First we had to find the adjustment menu on the center screen. Tapping the profile icon on the upper left of the screen opens a menu. Then we had to choose the wheel adjustment option. Then we had to return our hand to the steering wheel and roll the little rollers to adjust the wheel. But it only moves a little bit at a time as you click through the roller. One click at a time to adjust the steering wheel is dumb, IMO. There’s no reason it couldn’t be adjusted with the continuous press buttons that are used for the mirrors.

The adjustment menu for the mirrors are also under the profile icon on the center screen, then you have to choose the mirrors, then the left and right pads on the steering wheel adjust the mirrors. But don’t forget to save. Oh, I forgot to save the steering wheel settings. It wasn’t clear to me if tapping save once saved everything or if you have to tap it for every adjustment you make. I think saving either the mirror or the wheel setting saves the seat, but does saving the mirror save the wheel and vice versa? I’m not sure. I went back in to save the steering wheel setting, just in case.

The adjustments for the vent directions are also on the screen, but they’re even more problematic because they require you to look at the screen to find the “handles” to adjust the vents. This is probably one of the worst interfaces I’ve ever experienced in a vehicle. The “handles” don’t even snap to your finger so you can grab them when you get close. Instead, you have to precisely place your finger on the tiny icon. I found this is nearly impossible to do while driving. I dislike this so much that I would probably take the motors out of the driver-facing vents and superglue small handles on the louvers so I could adjust them physically.

This is mostly a non-issue for an owner of the vehicle once they have set the memory. But I have a bad back and a bad shoulder and have to regularly adjust the wheel height and depth, adjust the seat position, adjust the vents, and adjust the mirror positions while driving, so it might annoy me quite a bit. I’d like to give it a month or two trial before being 100% turned off by it. But as first impressions go, that wasn’t great.

We wanted to adjust the ride height and comfort. The menu items for those are in a different place than the menu items for the mirrors and steering wheel. I didn't understand the UX decision for that, but I would probably get used to it eventually. I think it might be user profile vs general vehicle setting. In which case, fair enough, once I understand the specific reasoning, it will probably make sense.

There were a few other non-issue adjustments that I have to make in every vehicle and we were ready to go.

Shifting into “gear” is done with the column stalk. It’s a simple design and fairly easy to pick up after one or two uses. Putting the vehicle into reverse “instantly" pops up the rear camera as well as an overhead view of the vehicle. The cameras are HIGH quality and the glass/crystal lenses they use are some of the best quality lenses I’ve seen in consumer-grade automotive cameras. I do remote sensing with cameras as a career, so I’m particular about the quality of cameras. Rivian’s are top-of-the-line quality. And the interface is fast. There’s no delay between putting the vehicle into gear and seeing the cameras on the screen.

I couldn’t hear if there’s a backup alert on the outside of the vehicle.

The vehicle alerted me to several potential obstacles on the sides and in the front. None of them were of concern, none of them were people. I didn’t have the “opportunity” to test Rivian’s emergency braking in this context. I assume it’s effective, but cannot review it.

On the road:

The R1S road feel is that of an off-road-capable truck. It’s not as comfortable as the Lightning. It’s more comfortable than the Mustang Mach-e. Mostly. We played with the ride settings and didn’t really notice a setting that gave a soft-and-cushy ride. We could feel the expansion joints, the rough road, the potholes on the surfaces (asphalt, concrete) we drove on. On one bridge-street interface, there was a large drop and we must have had the R1S in the wrong setting because it felt very much like its suspension bottomed out and hit the bump stops. That was jarring both physically and metaphorically. I suspect we just didn’t play with the multitude of settings enough to find the one that gives a great ride on washboard gravel or potholed roads. Again, I’d like to have one for a month or two to play with those settings to learn what works best for our use cases. Don’t get me wrong, the off-road capable truck ride is great for about half of our driving, but for road trips on pavement, we’d prefer something a little softer.

Control, steering, performance: Fantastic vehicle. The response to the steering input, to the accelerator, to the decelerator…all fantastic. This performs like a sports car in a large SUV body but it’s not lumbering. This is especially true when the suspension is at the lowest setting. We don’t care too much about 0-60 performance; the R1S is quicker than we need. But being able to route around an unexpected behavior of the vehicle in front of us is great. We could also get up to freeway speeds before the end of the onramp, which meant we didn’t need to negotiate with the vehicles in our merge lane, we could just slip in where we wanted. This is also true of our Mustang and Lightning and almost every BEV we’ve driven. One-pedal and regen performance was fantastic, and having the ability to change strength settings is nice. I would prefer paddles (again with the physical vs virtual interface), but it’s a minor preference.

Visibility around the vehicle is much better than the Lightning, which isn’t surprising even though they are the same width; the front shoulders of the R1S roll over in such a way that the vehicle feels narrower than it is. But it’s not deceiving so we were never in danger of hitting something because we misjudged the size of the vehicle. When the turn signals are activated, the sideview cameras were also activated and displayed on the screen. I did appreciate those since they give a wider-angle view of the sidewalk than the side mirrors give. I wouldn’t ever give up the mirrors themselves since they operate at light speed and cameras and screens are many, many, many orders of magnitude slower. Except in very limited cases, I would have no use for the rearview camera instead of the rearview mirror. There’s a lot of visibility out the various windows as well.

The adjustable ride height was not as dramatic as I’d expected, at least not as far as seeing the difference. But the vehicle did handle differently between max and min ride heights.

We did like having a higher seat and being more visible around all the other giant vehicles.

The road noise was about the same as the Mustang and louder than the Lightning.

Other features:

The glass roof is a thing my partner wants. I don’t care either way. The milky appearance of the electrochromic glass is not my favorite. I’d prefer just plain old tinting.

The rear seats don’t fold down completely flat, but I think we could figure out a way to comfortably sleep in the rear of the vehicle if we wanted. I would prefer to remove the third row of seats entirely, but I’m not sure if that’s an easily-accomplished option. It sure would give a lot more cargo capacity, which isn’t really necessary, just a nice-to-have.

The frunk is smaller than I’m used to in the Lightning, but about the same size as the Mustang. It’s a good size. I would prefer to have the front of the frunk open like with the Lightning or Scout; it’s less of an issue with a low vehicle like the Mustang, but it does make it difficult for my partner to reach in and find the things she’s looking for if they’ve migrated to the bottom of the frunk.

We spent 20 minutes or so trying to figure out a way to use Libby on the main screen and it’s simply not possible with the vehicle from the factory. There’s an aftermarket option that might solve the problem. We read a lot of books while on the road and not being able to control Libby from the screen is annoying at best.

The mapping application was fine. We could do with that. However, we do almost all of our long adventure planning in Google Maps and it would be nice if we could send a KML or KMZ file to the vehicle so the plan is in the mapping application. That’s probably not possible, but I haven’t investigated whether it is.

IMO, the electronic door release mechanism in the rear doors is borderline criminal and should be recalled immediately. The idiotic attack on physical interfaces goes too far here. If I still had a young child, this would be a disqualifying failure. I probably would never use a Rivian to haul around young children unless I were to modify the rear door release mechanisms so the buried “emergency” releases were easy to access and use.

Overall:
The vehicle is a fantastic feat of engineering.

I don’t like the UX and the foolish war on buttons and other physical mechanisms, especially the rear door releases.

I was disappointed we couldn’t control our podcast and audiobook apps from the vehicle screen.

I really do like the drive, handling, and overall feel of the vehicle. If we had a month to figure out how to live with the UX, we’d probably be up for trying a used R1S; a new one is entirely outside of our price range.

 

[cyure]

I will.

Here’s a review of the R1S we test drove multiple times in the past month:

We test drove a 2026 Rivian R1S with the Max Pack, Dual Motor and whatever else it had “Adventure," maybe? I still don’t understand the option/package naming schemes nor what comes with them. The roof was electrochromic if that helps anyone who knows the package/options any better than I do. It did not have the aero wheel covers. It had AS tires.

Anyway, the test drives were in Scottsdale, AZ. We were explicitly told we could not take the vehicles off-pavement, so we were unable to get a feel for the vehicle performance on any kind of gravel road or similar.

I’ll go through in a time-linear fashion with some impressions. The complaints/annoyances look like they’re a bigger deal than they might be. There are mostly positives when it comes to most of the physical engineering.

TL;DR:
The vehicle is a fantastic feat of engineering. I don’t like the UX. I was disappointed we couldn’t control our podcast and audiobook apps from the vehicle screen. I think there should be a forced recall to add physical door mechanisms to the rear doors. I do like the drive, handling, and overall feel of the vehicle. If we had a month to figure out how to live with the UX, we’d probably be up for buying a used R1S; a new one is entirely outside of our price range.

——

First Impressions:

I know there are a bunch of people who have joined the war on buttons, and I don’t need the “you could do it this way or there’s a work around…” I know, I know, but I’m not interested in spending a lot of money on a UX that requires a bunch of workarounds to use my vehicle. I still think the war on physical buttons is dumb design. I care about function, not aesthetics and the form over function is badly considered for my use-cases. I would still be willing to try a longer-term use of the vehicle to see if I could get over some of the annoyances.

They had a keycard for us to use. That required putting the card on the center console before we could drive. So the lack of a push button to drive did not actually speed up getting the vehicle ready to drive. I don’t know if this is different from when one owns the vehicle—is there a setting that allows the card to stay in the wallet/purse/pocket? If not, then there’s little practical difference between having to pull the card out and pushing a button to start the vehicle—in fact, pulling the card out is more of a pain than pressing the button as I get seated. Apparently we would have to buy a fob if we wanted one. We don’t do phones as keys for a pile of reasons. I don’t know what the use-case difference is between the card and the bracelet.

The steering wheel adjustment was annoying. First we had to find the adjustment menu on the center screen. Tapping the profile icon on the upper left of the screen opens a menu. Then we had to choose the wheel adjustment option. Then we had to return our hand to the steering wheel and roll the little rollers to adjust the wheel. But it only moves a little bit at a time as you click through the roller. One click at a time to adjust the steering wheel is dumb, IMO. There’s no reason it couldn’t be adjusted with the continuous press buttons that are used for the mirrors.

The adjustment menu for the mirrors are also under the profile icon on the center screen, then you have to choose the mirrors, then the left and right pads on the steering wheel adjust the mirrors. But don’t forget to save. Oh, I forgot to save the steering wheel settings. It wasn’t clear to me if tapping save once saved everything or if you have to tap it for every adjustment you make. I think saving either the mirror or the wheel setting saves the seat, but does saving the mirror save the wheel and vice versa? I’m not sure. I went back in to save the steering wheel setting, just in case.

The adjustments for the vent directions are also on the screen, but they’re even more problematic because they require you to look at the screen to find the “handles” to adjust the vents. This is probably one of the worst interfaces I’ve ever experienced in a vehicle. The “handles” don’t even snap to your finger so you can grab them when you get close. Instead, you have to precisely place your finger on the tiny icon. I found this is nearly impossible to do while driving. I dislike this so much that I would probably take the motors out of the driver-facing vents and superglue small handles on the louvers so I could adjust them physically.

This is mostly a non-issue for an owner of the vehicle once they have set the memory. But I have a bad back and a bad shoulder and have to regularly adjust the wheel height and depth, adjust the seat position, adjust the vents, and adjust the mirror positions while driving, so it might annoy me quite a bit. I’d like to give it a month or two trial before being 100% turned off by it. But as first impressions go, that wasn’t great.

We wanted to adjust the ride height and comfort. The menu items for those are in a different place than the menu items for the mirrors and steering wheel. I didn't understand the UX decision for that, but I would probably get used to it eventually. I think it might be user profile vs general vehicle setting. In which case, fair enough, once I understand the specific reasoning, it will probably make sense.

There were a few other non-issue adjustments that I have to make in every vehicle and we were ready to go.

Shifting into “gear” is done with the column stalk. It’s a simple design and fairly easy to pick up after one or two uses. Putting the vehicle into reverse “instantly" pops up the rear camera as well as an overhead view of the vehicle. The cameras are HIGH quality and the glass/crystal lenses they use are some of the best quality lenses I’ve seen in consumer-grade automotive cameras. I do remote sensing with cameras as a career, so I’m particular about the quality of cameras. Rivian’s are top-of-the-line quality. And the interface is fast. There’s no delay between putting the vehicle into gear and seeing the cameras on the screen.

I couldn’t hear if there’s a backup alert on the outside of the vehicle.

The vehicle alerted me to several potential obstacles on the sides and in the front. None of them were of concern, none of them were people. I didn’t have the “opportunity” to test Rivian’s emergency braking in this context. I assume it’s effective, but cannot review it.

On the road:

The R1S road feel is that of an off-road-capable truck. It’s not as comfortable as the Lightning. It’s more comfortable than the Mustang Mach-e. Mostly. We played with the ride settings and didn’t really notice a setting that gave a soft-and-cushy ride. We could feel the expansion joints, the rough road, the potholes on the surfaces (asphalt, concrete) we drove on. On one bridge-street interface, there was a large drop and we must have had the R1S in the wrong setting because it felt very much like its suspension bottomed out and hit the bump stops. That was jarring both physically and metaphorically. I suspect we just didn’t play with the multitude of settings enough to find the one that gives a great ride on washboard gravel or potholed roads. Again, I’d like to have one for a month or two to play with those settings to learn what works best for our use cases. Don’t get me wrong, the off-road capable truck ride is great for about half of our driving, but for road trips on pavement, we’d prefer something a little softer.

Control, steering, performance: Fantastic vehicle. The response to the steering input, to the accelerator, to the decelerator…all fantastic. This performs like a sports car in a large SUV body but it’s not lumbering. This is especially true when the suspension is at the lowest setting. We don’t care too much about 0-60 performance; the R1S is quicker than we need. But being able to route around an unexpected behavior of the vehicle in front of us is great. We could also get up to freeway speeds before the end of the onramp, which meant we didn’t need to negotiate with the vehicles in our merge lane, we could just slip in where we wanted. This is also true of our Mustang and Lightning and almost every BEV we’ve driven. One-pedal and regen performance was fantastic, and having the ability to change strength settings is nice. I would prefer paddles (again with the physical vs virtual interface), but it’s a minor preference.

Visibility around the vehicle is much better than the Lightning, which isn’t surprising even though they are the same width; the front shoulders of the R1S roll over in such a way that the vehicle feels narrower than it is. But it’s not deceiving so we were never in danger of hitting something because we misjudged the size of the vehicle. When the turn signals are activated, the sideview cameras were also activated and displayed on the screen. I did appreciate those since they give a wider-angle view of the sidewalk than the side mirrors give. I wouldn’t ever give up the mirrors themselves since they operate at light speed and cameras and screens are many, many, many orders of magnitude slower. Except in very limited cases, I would have no use for the rearview camera instead of the rearview mirror. There’s a lot of visibility out the various windows as well.

The adjustable ride height was not as dramatic as I’d expected, at least not as far as seeing the difference. But the vehicle did handle differently between max and min ride heights.

We did like having a higher seat and being more visible around all the other giant vehicles.

The road noise was about the same as the Mustang and louder than the Lightning.

Other features:

The glass roof is a thing my partner wants. I don’t care either way. The milky appearance of the electrochromic glass is not my favorite. I’d prefer just plain old tinting.

The rear seats don’t fold down completely flat, but I think we could figure out a way to comfortably sleep in the rear of the vehicle if we wanted. I would prefer to remove the third row of seats entirely, but I’m not sure if that’s an easily-accomplished option. It sure would give a lot more cargo capacity, which isn’t really necessary, just a nice-to-have.

The frunk is smaller than I’m used to in the Lightning, but about the same size as the Mustang. It’s a good size. I would prefer to have the front of the frunk open like with the Lightning or Scout; it’s less of an issue with a low vehicle like the Mustang, but it does make it difficult for my partner to reach in and find the things she’s looking for if they’ve migrated to the bottom of the frunk.

We spent 20 minutes or so trying to figure out a way to use Libby on the main screen and it’s simply not possible with the vehicle from the factory. There’s an aftermarket option that might solve the problem. We read a lot of books while on the road and not being able to control Libby from the screen is annoying at best.

The mapping application was fine. We could do with that. However, we do almost all of our long adventure planning in Google Maps and it would be nice if we could send a KML or KMZ file to the vehicle so the plan is in the mapping application. That’s probably not possible, but I haven’t investigated whether it is.

IMO, the electronic door release mechanism in the rear doors is borderline criminal and should be recalled immediately. The idiotic attack on physical interfaces goes too far here. If I still had a young child, this would be a disqualifying failure. I probably would never use a Rivian to haul around young children unless I were to modify the rear door release mechanisms so the buried “emergency” releases were easy to access and use.

Overall:
The vehicle is a fantastic feat of engineering.

I don’t like the UX and the foolish war on buttons and other physical mechanisms, especially the rear door releases.

I was disappointed we couldn’t control our podcast and audiobook apps from the vehicle screen.

I really do like the drive, handling, and overall feel of the vehicle. If we had a month to figure out how to live with the UX, we’d probably be up for trying a used R1S; a new one is entirely outside of our price range.

View attachment 15596

View attachment 15595

Thanks for this.

 

[THil08]

The vehicles in our list include the following.
They don't necessarily meet all of those desires.
This list is not in order of preference.
There are probably some others that might fit the list as well.
I will update this list from time-to-time as we consider other demands we remember.

• Rivian R2
• Kia EV9
• Subaru Trailerseeker
• Subaru Uncharted
• Toyota BZ Woodland
• Toyota Highlander BEV
• Lexus RZ
• Polestar 3
• Used R1S or R1T (ha!)
• Used Gravity (ha!)

My uncle was testing a few Subaru EVs while his wife's car was getting work done. He said they are fun to drive, but he said their hybrids have a better driving experience.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

My uncle was testing a few Subaru EVs while his wife's car was getting work done. He said they are fun to drive, but he said their hybrids have a better driving experience.

I have no interest in any fossil-fueled vehicles, so a hybrid anything wouldn’t even make the list to test-drive.

 

[Scout_Lookout]

I will.

Here’s a review of the R1S we test drove multiple times in the past month:

We test drove a 2026 Rivian R1S with the Max Pack, Dual Motor and whatever else it had “Adventure," maybe? I still don’t understand the option/package naming schemes nor what comes with them. The roof was electrochromic if that helps anyone who knows the package/options any better than I do. It did not have the aero wheel covers. It had AS tires.

Anyway, the test drives were in Scottsdale, AZ. We were explicitly told we could not take the vehicles off-pavement, so we were unable to get a feel for the vehicle performance on any kind of gravel road or similar.

I’ll go through in a time-linear fashion with some impressions. The complaints/annoyances look like they’re a bigger deal than they might be. There are mostly positives when it comes to most of the physical engineering.

TL;DR:
The vehicle is a fantastic feat of engineering. I don’t like the UX. I was disappointed we couldn’t control our podcast and audiobook apps from the vehicle screen. I think there should be a forced recall to add physical door mechanisms to the rear doors. I do like the drive, handling, and overall feel of the vehicle. If we had a month to figure out how to live with the UX, we’d probably be up for buying a used R1S; a new one is entirely outside of our price range.

——

First Impressions:

I know there are a bunch of people who have joined the war on buttons, and I don’t need the “you could do it this way or there’s a work around…” I know, I know, but I’m not interested in spending a lot of money on a UX that requires a bunch of workarounds to use my vehicle. I still think the war on physical buttons is dumb design. I care about function, not aesthetics and the form over function is badly considered for my use-cases. I would still be willing to try a longer-term use of the vehicle to see if I could get over some of the annoyances.

They had a keycard for us to use. That required putting the card on the center console before we could drive. So the lack of a push button to drive did not actually speed up getting the vehicle ready to drive. I don’t know if this is different from when one owns the vehicle—is there a setting that allows the card to stay in the wallet/purse/pocket? If not, then there’s little practical difference between having to pull the card out and pushing a button to start the vehicle—in fact, pulling the card out is more of a pain than pressing the button as I get seated. Apparently we would have to buy a fob if we wanted one. We don’t do phones as keys for a pile of reasons. I don’t know what the use-case difference is between the card and the bracelet.

The steering wheel adjustment was annoying. First we had to find the adjustment menu on the center screen. Tapping the profile icon on the upper left of the screen opens a menu. Then we had to choose the wheel adjustment option. Then we had to return our hand to the steering wheel and roll the little rollers to adjust the wheel. But it only moves a little bit at a time as you click through the roller. One click at a time to adjust the steering wheel is dumb, IMO. There’s no reason it couldn’t be adjusted with the continuous press buttons that are used for the mirrors.

The adjustment menu for the mirrors are also under the profile icon on the center screen, then you have to choose the mirrors, then the left and right pads on the steering wheel adjust the mirrors. But don’t forget to save. Oh, I forgot to save the steering wheel settings. It wasn’t clear to me if tapping save once saved everything or if you have to tap it for every adjustment you make. I think saving either the mirror or the wheel setting saves the seat, but does saving the mirror save the wheel and vice versa? I’m not sure. I went back in to save the steering wheel setting, just in case.

The adjustments for the vent directions are also on the screen, but they’re even more problematic because they require you to look at the screen to find the “handles” to adjust the vents. This is probably one of the worst interfaces I’ve ever experienced in a vehicle. The “handles” don’t even snap to your finger so you can grab them when you get close. Instead, you have to precisely place your finger on the tiny icon. I found this is nearly impossible to do while driving. I dislike this so much that I would probably take the motors out of the driver-facing vents and superglue small handles on the louvers so I could adjust them physically.

This is mostly a non-issue for an owner of the vehicle once they have set the memory. But I have a bad back and a bad shoulder and have to regularly adjust the wheel height and depth, adjust the seat position, adjust the vents, and adjust the mirror positions while driving, so it might annoy me quite a bit. I’d like to give it a month or two trial before being 100% turned off by it. But as first impressions go, that wasn’t great.

We wanted to adjust the ride height and comfort. The menu items for those are in a different place than the menu items for the mirrors and steering wheel. I didn't understand the UX decision for that, but I would probably get used to it eventually. I think it might be user profile vs general vehicle setting. In which case, fair enough, once I understand the specific reasoning, it will probably make sense.

There were a few other non-issue adjustments that I have to make in every vehicle and we were ready to go.

Shifting into “gear” is done with the column stalk. It’s a simple design and fairly easy to pick up after one or two uses. Putting the vehicle into reverse “instantly" pops up the rear camera as well as an overhead view of the vehicle. The cameras are HIGH quality and the glass/crystal lenses they use are some of the best quality lenses I’ve seen in consumer-grade automotive cameras. I do remote sensing with cameras as a career, so I’m particular about the quality of cameras. Rivian’s are top-of-the-line quality. And the interface is fast. There’s no delay between putting the vehicle into gear and seeing the cameras on the screen.

I couldn’t hear if there’s a backup alert on the outside of the vehicle.

The vehicle alerted me to several potential obstacles on the sides and in the front. None of them were of concern, none of them were people. I didn’t have the “opportunity” to test Rivian’s emergency braking in this context. I assume it’s effective, but cannot review it.

On the road:

The R1S road feel is that of an off-road-capable truck. It’s not as comfortable as the Lightning. It’s more comfortable than the Mustang Mach-e. Mostly. We played with the ride settings and didn’t really notice a setting that gave a soft-and-cushy ride. We could feel the expansion joints, the rough road, the potholes on the surfaces (asphalt, concrete) we drove on. On one bridge-street interface, there was a large drop and we must have had the R1S in the wrong setting because it felt very much like its suspension bottomed out and hit the bump stops. That was jarring both physically and metaphorically. I suspect we just didn’t play with the multitude of settings enough to find the one that gives a great ride on washboard gravel or potholed roads. Again, I’d like to have one for a month or two to play with those settings to learn what works best for our use cases. Don’t get me wrong, the off-road capable truck ride is great for about half of our driving, but for road trips on pavement, we’d prefer something a little softer.

Control, steering, performance: Fantastic vehicle. The response to the steering input, to the accelerator, to the decelerator…all fantastic. This performs like a sports car in a large SUV body but it’s not lumbering. This is especially true when the suspension is at the lowest setting. We don’t care too much about 0-60 performance; the R1S is quicker than we need. But being able to route around an unexpected behavior of the vehicle in front of us is great. We could also get up to freeway speeds before the end of the onramp, which meant we didn’t need to negotiate with the vehicles in our merge lane, we could just slip in where we wanted. This is also true of our Mustang and Lightning and almost every BEV we’ve driven. One-pedal and regen performance was fantastic, and having the ability to change strength settings is nice. I would prefer paddles (again with the physical vs virtual interface), but it’s a minor preference.

Visibility around the vehicle is much better than the Lightning, which isn’t surprising even though they are the same width; the front shoulders of the R1S roll over in such a way that the vehicle feels narrower than it is. But it’s not deceiving so we were never in danger of hitting something because we misjudged the size of the vehicle. When the turn signals are activated, the sideview cameras were also activated and displayed on the screen. I did appreciate those since they give a wider-angle view of the sidewalk than the side mirrors give. I wouldn’t ever give up the mirrors themselves since they operate at light speed and cameras and screens are many, many, many orders of magnitude slower. Except in very limited cases, I would have no use for the rearview camera instead of the rearview mirror. There’s a lot of visibility out the various windows as well.

The adjustable ride height was not as dramatic as I’d expected, at least not as far as seeing the difference. But the vehicle did handle differently between max and min ride heights.

We did like having a higher seat and being more visible around all the other giant vehicles.

The road noise was about the same as the Mustang and louder than the Lightning.

Other features:

The glass roof is a thing my partner wants. I don’t care either way. The milky appearance of the electrochromic glass is not my favorite. I’d prefer just plain old tinting.

The rear seats don’t fold down completely flat, but I think we could figure out a way to comfortably sleep in the rear of the vehicle if we wanted. I would prefer to remove the third row of seats entirely, but I’m not sure if that’s an easily-accomplished option. It sure would give a lot more cargo capacity, which isn’t really necessary, just a nice-to-have.

The frunk is smaller than I’m used to in the Lightning, but about the same size as the Mustang. It’s a good size. I would prefer to have the front of the frunk open like with the Lightning or Scout; it’s less of an issue with a low vehicle like the Mustang, but it does make it difficult for my partner to reach in and find the things she’s looking for if they’ve migrated to the bottom of the frunk.

We spent 20 minutes or so trying to figure out a way to use Libby on the main screen and it’s simply not possible with the vehicle from the factory. There’s an aftermarket option that might solve the problem. We read a lot of books while on the road and not being able to control Libby from the screen is annoying at best.

The mapping application was fine. We could do with that. However, we do almost all of our long adventure planning in Google Maps and it would be nice if we could send a KML or KMZ file to the vehicle so the plan is in the mapping application. That’s probably not possible, but I haven’t investigated whether it is.

IMO, the electronic door release mechanism in the rear doors is borderline criminal and should be recalled immediately. The idiotic attack on physical interfaces goes too far here. If I still had a young child, this would be a disqualifying failure. I probably would never use a Rivian to haul around young children unless I were to modify the rear door release mechanisms so the buried “emergency” releases were easy to access and use.

Overall:
The vehicle is a fantastic feat of engineering.

I don’t like the UX and the foolish war on buttons and other physical mechanisms, especially the rear door releases.

I was disappointed we couldn’t control our podcast and audiobook apps from the vehicle screen.

I really do like the drive, handling, and overall feel of the vehicle. If we had a month to figure out how to live with the UX, we’d probably be up for trying a used R1S; a new one is entirely outside of our price range.

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Gotta say I'm impressed with this write up. With this level of detail you should seriously consider being a car reviewer on YT. Really well done.

What I will say though is this is one of the most difficult things for car makers to overcome. As comprehensive as you write up was, being a current Rivian owner I was able to immediately point out the "Do's and Don'ts" of your experience. "Briefly" without going into too much detail or trying to steer you in anyway I'll review a couple.

1. The AC control function is the WORST! Using the "pills' as they use to be called is one of the most difficult things ever, and even us Rivian owners hate them.

2. Driving the lowest suspension by far offers the worst ride and it can be made substantially better in either all purpose or conserve modes.
Additionally, driving a Rivian on 20's with AT's is a much better ride, but you do get some added tire noise from the more aggressive tires. Lastly, one of the things that impressed me the most with my Rivian is how smooth it felt off-road and then how much smoother it felt when I got back on the road.

3. Adjusting the driver seat and steering wheel position can be challenging I agree. A quick work around this would be to create several driver profiles and then just switch between them by tapping at the top of screen.

4. One of the cool things you can do since they use Google maps is prior to taking a trip you can go into the app and plan your entire trip, and once you do you can send it to your Rivian. Even better you can add/remove stops if you want in the UX as you're going if need be.

5. Lastly, one of my favorite features that unfortunately you didn't get to experience was the phone access key. There is nothing better than having the vehicle unlock, turn on, and ready to press the brake and drive away without needing any key, card, fob etc. It will also lock as soon as you walk away from it as well. I feel the key card pain right now though as I have a Rivian loaner, so I can vouch that it can absolutely be a much better experience lol!

Happy to provide more insight if you'd like, but I wholeheartedly agree that you should try it for an extended period of time.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Gotta say I'm impressed with this write up. With this level of detail you should seriously consider being a car reviewer on YT. Really well done.

Thanks! I write for a living and try to do a decent job even when it’s not my job-job. I’m not so good with videos, especially the editing aspects. If I had someone who liked to do the video editing, it might be a different story.

What I will say though is this is one of the most difficult things for car makers to overcome. As comprehensive as you write up was, being a current Rivian owner I was able to immediately point out the "Do's and Don'ts" of your experience. "Briefly" without going into too much detail or trying to steer you in anyway I'll review a couple.

1. The AC control function is the WORST! Using the "pills' as they use to be called is one of the most difficult things ever, and even us Rivian owners hate them.

Yeah, I have to regularly adjust the vents for various reasons, so I would seriously consider disconnecting the motors so I can control the vents by hand.

2. Driving the lowest suspension by far offers the worst ride and it can be made substantially better in either all purpose or conserve modes.
Additionally, driving a Rivian on 20's with AT's is a much better ride, but you do get some added tire noise from the more aggressive tires. Lastly, one of the things that impressed me the most with my Rivian is how smooth it felt off-road and then how much smoother it felt when I got back on the road.

I think we were probably in the lowest suspension setting when we hit that bridge-street interface with the sudden drop. It was unpleasant. But that’s a rookie issue, not necessarily an issue with the vehicle.

3. Adjusting the driver seat and steering wheel position can be challenging I agree. A quick work around this would be to create several driver profiles and then just switch between them by tapping at the top of screen.

Because of my back, I can’t really set one or two and be done, I often have to find something in between and then again in 20 minutes, etc. And with my shoulder acting up, the wheel position needs adjusting quite often too.

4. One of the cool things you can do since they use Google maps is prior to taking a trip you can go into the app and plan your entire trip, and once you do you can send it to your Rivian. Even better you can add/remove stops if you want in the UX as you're going if need be.

Can I use my computer to plan the route in Google Maps and send the map to the vehicle? I don’t use my phone for these sorts of things. I prefer large screen interfaces in web browsers. I’m not talking a single destination. Those we don’t bother with planning. I’m talking about a 7-14 day trip across several states.

5. Lastly, one of my favorite features that unfortunately you didn't get to experience was the phone access key. There is nothing better than having the vehicle unlock, turn on, and ready to press the brake and drive away without needing any key, card, fob etc. It will also lock as soon as you walk away from it as well. I feel the key card pain right now though as I have a Rivian loaner, so I can vouch that it can absolutely be a much better experience lol!

We don’t always have our phones, so phone as a key isn’t one of the options for us. A fob, if it enables walk-up unlock and use is definitely our preferred option. But we’d have to have two fobs, and at $250 a pop, that’s not a cheap option.

Happy to provide more insight if you'd like, but I wholeheartedly agree that you should try it for an extended period of time.

Thanks. If we do end up getting serious about a Rivian, we’ll probably have a lot of questions.

 

[maynard]

Thanks! I write for a living and try to do a decent job even when it’s not my job-job. I’m not so good with videos, especially the editing aspects. If I had someone who liked to do the video editing, it might be a different story.

I don't know...
The frunk video was pretty awesome!

 

[robothero]

The lack of a built-in way to directly interface with the two most popular phones in the country is also short-sighted. We listen to a lot of audiobooks while on road trips and the extra nonsense required to get the Libby app to work could make this vehicle a non-purchase.

Just as a FYI there's a 3rd party tool called EVPlay which lets you use CarPlay on the Rivian. I haven't dug too much into it, but put a pin on it while I wait for my R2 reservation to pop.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

We also test drove a Lucid Gravity on the same day we drove the Rivian R1S.

Yes, we’re cross-shopping $120k vehicles with $40k vehicles. That’s how we roll. We cannot even come close to affording a used Gravity, much less a new one. And it’s not an off-roader. But it’s another fantastic feat of engineering and would be absolutely fantastic for road trips.

TL;DR: The Gravity has some engineering going for it that is not available to the Rivian. First, it has an ~800 Volt battery so its charge rate can be significantly better than the Mustang Mach-E or the Rivian…when you have access to the right chargers, of which there are some but they’re not everywhere. The ride is superior to any other vehicle I’ve ever been in. The road surfaces do not intrude into the vehicle. The UX isn’t fully anti-button, but it’s still more on the virtual interface side than I prefer. There are some places where they fell down. For example, the rear seats have a very weird way of folding down that exposes what I imagine are poor communications between various engineering teams.

First impressions.
The exterior of the Gravity is about as uninteresting as you can get. It’s built for function more than form. I’m good with that. The main function seems to be to disturb as little air as possible as it passes by. The color options are terrible. They’re just one flavor of boring after another. It almost doesn’t matter what color you choose, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Sitting in the vehicle, the first thing I noticed was the glass that extends from the windshield to the roof. That’s not a thing I like. The dinky sun visors are not big enough and become distracting. The sun comes through and it’s nearly impossible to block it at certain times of day—more than the bad times that we all experience with all vehicles. I would become nauseated driving through a canyon road with the Sun flashing through the trees. No thank you.

The second thing I noticed was that the steering wheel was low enough that it would never interfere with my view of the instrument panel. I like that, though it would take some getting used to.

Mirror adjustments are again accessed through the big screen menu. Ugh. Why can’t we just have dials and knobs?
Steering wheel adjustment is also accessed through the big screen, but at least you can control that with the constant press controls on the steering wheel instead of a clicky wheel. And at least the vents are mechanical, not controlled on a screen. HVAC has both physical buttons and screen controls.

Ride height is also adjustable on the screen.

Seat position is adjustable on the seats; save is found somewhere in the menu.

It has Android Auto.

Again, the “gear” shift is on the stalk and works just fine.

The cameras are, again, fantastic. The software is immediately responsive.

On the road:
The drive is fantastic. Lucid didn’t tell us to stay on pavement, but we couldn’t find any dirt to play in, so we stayed on pavement.
The Gravity also drives like a sports car, but again is bigger and heavier, but not lumbering. It’s far, far more comfortable than the Lightning…more comfortable than any other vehicle I’ve driven. You know the road is there and you’re still connected, but you don’t feel everything coming through. There is essentially no road noise.

It is not an off-roader. At least it doesn’t handle like one.

The control, acceleration, deceleration are all perfectly responsive. You point it somewhere and that’s where you go. Its adjustable suspension at its lowest level does not cause an equivalently rough ride like we got in the R1S. Which isn’t surprising. The R1S is an off-road capable SUV that doubles as a sports car and the Gravity is an SUV-shaped sports car.

Visibility is fantastic. Again, I appreciate the mirror-mounted cameras that come on when the turn signals are in use, but I’m also happy the mirrors exist. We also like the adjustable suspension. Being able to raise up to SUV height when in traffic was great. Being able to lower when the handling warranted was also nice.

Other features:
The glass roof was just tinted, not electrochromic. But the use of glass where the headliner should be is a thing I intensely dislike. It’s distracting and would be entirely problematic when the sun is in the wrong position in the sky.

The rear seats folded down in a really bizarre way and they seemed to have gotten stuck. We figured it out eventually, but I’d probably have to work at it several times before I understood the mechanism.

The frunk is a decent size and I do like the open front. It’s not as big as the Lightning’s, but that’s probably fine.

There’s so much space in the rear cargo area. If they offered the vehicle with sliding doors like a minivan, it would be such a useful vehicle… for someone very rich.

The mapping application seems to be Here Maps, which is okay, but I don’t like it in the Lightning and Mustang. It has some very weird failure modes. We didn’t use this mapping application long enough to say whether it has the same problems.

At one point, I think after I turned on the cruise control, the instrument panel displayed a distracting 3D representation of the road and vehicles surrounding the Gravity, including oncoming vehicles. I know that’s a thing in the Teslas and I think we saw it in the Rivian as well. I hated it. And was happy to find a way to turn it off. I don’t need to see that kind of active, video-game-like animation going on while I’m driving. I can see out the windshield.

Again, the electronic doors are dumb, but at least every door on the Gravity has an interior mechanical door latch.

Overall:
The vehicle is another fantastic feat of engineering for the driving aspects. But it also suffers from some similarly dumb decisions as the Rivian. The way the rear seats fold is just bizarre. The touch-screen adjustments of the wheel and mirrors is annoying. The lack of a start button is annoying. At least we had a key fob and I could actively lock the doors when I walked away instead of hoping the doors would lock (they never did on the Rivian; I waited while my partner went into the shop and the vehicle just stayed unlocked). The electrically-activated doors is a dangerous and lazy decision. The glass headliner is not something I would want in my vehicle.

But if I could get over the bothersome aspects, it drives amazingly.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Just as a FYI there's a 3rd party tool called EVPlay which lets you use CarPlay on the Rivian. I haven't dug too much into it, but put a pin on it while I wait for my R2 reservation to pop.

Yes. It also enables Android Auto. It’s about $500 last time I checked. And I’ve found some people have issues with it. It’s annoying that it’s not built in. But if we end up with an R2 or a used R1S, we’ll almost certainly be getting that too.

 

[jasdeep27b]

I’ll share what I’m considering for myself. Potentially getting the R2 next year when they release the lidar version with the full self drive. Then when the scout comes out, get my traveler and work it out with my parents to give them the R2 to replace their model Y (which will be approx 7-8 years old at that point. My parents are getting older and believe they would really benefit from the FSD and it’s at a much better price point than Teslas and is only getting better.

 

[Scout_Lookout]

I’ll share what I’m considering for myself. Potentially getting the R2 next year when they release the lidar version with the full self drive. Then when the scout comes out, get my traveler and work it out with my parents to give them the R2 to replace their model Y (which will be approx 7-8 years old at that point. My parents are getting older and believe they would really benefit from the FSD and it’s at a much better price point than Teslas and is only getting better.

Tbh I believe that one of the best use cases for FSD and the Rivian Autonomy platform is to help seniors be able to safely drive for a longer period of time without additional risks.

 

[Scout_Lookout]

The vehicles in our list include the following.
They don't necessarily meet all of those desires.
This list is not in order of preference.
There are probably some others that might fit the list as well.
I will update this list from time-to-time as we consider other demands we remember.

• Rivian R2
• Kia EV9
• Subaru Trailerseeker
• Subaru Uncharted
• Toyota BZ Woodland
• Toyota Highlander BEV
• Lexus RZ
• Polestar 3
• Used R1S or R1T (ha!)
• Used Gravity (ha!)

Hey I just realized the Hummer EV didn't make the list. I know its huge, but it is surprisingly easy to drive thanks to the rear steer. It has tons of storage, all the physical buttons you need, switches on the side of the driver seat, a key fob, but no car play/android auto. Was it ever a consideration?

 

[speedrye]

@SpaceEVDriver - Thanks for these reviews. Your detail and annoyances match mine almost perfectly, so they're invaluable.

 

[Chuckles]

Hey I just realized the Hummer EV didn't make the list. I know its huge, but it is surprisingly easy to drive thanks to the rear steer. It has tons of storage, all the physical buttons you need, switches on the side of the driver seat, a key fob, but no car play/android auto. Was it ever a consideration?

2022-25 Hummers have CarPlay and Android Auto. They were dropped for 2026.