Thanks: Global Motorsports
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2022 Rivian R1S Has Appeal, but the R1T Pickup Drives Far Better

Startup automaker Rivian's electric SUV model is impressive, but not as impressive as the company's R1T pickup.

EV startup Rivian is slowly becoming a reality rather than just a promise. The company says it is on track to build 25,000 vehicles this year, and many customers have already received delivery of their R1T pickups. The first examples of the R1S SUV have started to hit the ground as well. We drove the R1S SUV in New York's Catskill Mountains earlier this year and have now strapped our test equipment to an R1S Launch Edition as well. We came away impressed with the R1S's blistering acceleration and posh interior but were surprised that the SUV doesn't drive nearly as well as the mechanically similar R1T pickup.

The R1S is missing one of the R1T's coolest features too: the gear tunnel stretching horizontally across the truck between the rear doors and the pickup bed, which not only draws oohs and aahs but provides a remarkably useful amount of space. That's because for the SUV, Rivian moved the rear wheels forward to where the gear tunnel is on the pickup, shortening the wheelbase by 14.7 inches. At 200.8 inches long, the R1S is closest in size to many mid-size three-row SUVs, and its proportions remind us of the Jeep Grand Cherokee L's.

HIGHS: Blistering acceleration, attractive inside and out, capable off-road.

The R1S comes standard with a seven-passenger setup courtesy of a three-place second-row bench seat and a two-passenger third row. There's not an overly generous amount of legroom in either row, so don't think that this is an alternative to a Chevy Suburban. But Rivian did do a good job with the seat versatility, as both the second and third rows fold flat and create a useful cargo floor. We fit five carry-on suitcases behind the third row and 34 cases with both the second and third rows folded, almost identical to what a Grand Cherokee L can hold.
R1S Horsepower and Range

The R1S we tested had the only powertrain available initially: a quad-motor setup with a 128.9-kWh battery pack feeding the electric motors, which make 835 total horsepower—same as the R1T. The SUV's numbers aren't identical to the truck's, however, as it has slightly better EPA range (316 miles versus 314 for the T) and a lower towing capacity of 7700 pounds (compared with 11,000 pounds for the pickup). Rivian says that several more powertrain configurations are coming at some point in the future, including both a larger and a smaller battery pack and a less expensive and less powerful dual-motor drivetrain.

In our real-world highway range test, the R1S Launch Edition managed to go 230 miles on a charge. That's farther than we went in an R1T equipped with all-terrain tires that hit 220 miles but significantly less than a later test of the pickup equipped with the same 22-inch wheels and all-season tires that achieved a result of 280 miles.
Driving the R1S On-Road and Off-Road

Ride quality is firm, the steering is heavily weighted, and body roll is far more subdued than you'd expect from a vehicle this big, tall, and heavy—we measured the R1S's curb weight at a whopping 6986 pounds (that's still less than the 7036-pound R1T). But, driven over a challenging road, the R1S's dynamics really turned us off. There's floatiness, front to rear porpoising, and probably the worst thing is that the steering response is out of line with the rest of the vehicle. Turn the wheel, and the chassis responds a beat later, like it’s set up to Scandi-flick sideways into corners. Perhaps the R1S feels so different from the T because Rivian optimized the tuning for the longer-wheelbase R1T and the S didn't get sufficiently retuned?
There's also a fair amount of squat if you give it the beans, and the rush of torque is enough to shove you back into your seat. The S was just a tick behind the quicker of the two Ts we've tested with its 3.1-second sprint to 60 mph, making it one of the quickest SUVs we've ever tested, and its quarter-mile time of 11.6 seconds at 111 mph is similarly impressive. Riding on Pirelli P Zero All Season Elect tires, the R1S's skidpad and braking results were nearly identical to the truck's as well, and predictably better than the R1T we tested on the all-terrain tires. The R1S gripped the skidpad to the tune of 0.85 g and stopped from 70 mph in 173 feet.

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