Rivian revealed what at first regarded like a really calmly up to date R1 mannequin line that appeared virtually similar to the car it’s been promoting since 2021. Nonetheless, the outside modifications don’t point out how a lot work has been accomplished to those vehicles underneath the pores and skin. When you uncover all of the modifications, you perceive why Rivian payments these revised vehicles as a brand new technology.
Jordan Schiefer of Out of Spec Critiques lined up pre- and post-refresh R1S SUVs to see what’s totally different and whether or not the brand new truck is greater than only a facelift. On this prolonged video, Jordan, with a unvoiced Kyle Conner behind the digicam, goes over the entire seen modifications and those you’ll be able to’t see.
The most important change underneath the pores and skin is utilizing drive items that Rivian now makes in-house. All pre-refresh R1 vehicles with greater than two motors had Bosch drive items, however now Rivian makes its personal. It’s presently solely constructing dual-motor autos, but it surely plans to launch tri-motor and quad-motor R1s with rather more energy than earlier than.
The large modifications are underneath the pores and skin
With new motors, batteries and mechanical enhancements (together with the addition of a warmth pump that R1 vehicles did not have earlier than no matter model), the revised R1S and R1T promise to be quite a bit higher than earlier than.
The quad-motor will get an influence increase from 835 horsepower to 1,025 hp, whereas torque will go up from 908 pound-feet to 1,198 lb-ft. Rivian says this can give its vehicles an acceleration time from a standstill to 60 mph of underneath 2.5 seconds. The brand new tri-motor may have extra energy than the outgoing quad-motor, 850 hp, and may full the benchmark dash in a claimed 2.9 seconds.
One other important under-the-skin change is the swap to an LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery pack for the bottom dual-motor R1 and including a warmth pump. It offers the R1T and R1S an EPA vary of 270 miles on one cost. Out of Spec put a second-gen R1S dual-motor by way of the 70 mph vary check, and the real-world freeway end result was 241 miles.
On this video, they undergo extra minor modifications, like how the entrance and rear gentle bars are totally different. In revised R1s, you now get an emergency perform that makes use of the rear gentle bar to direct site visitors across the car if it’s stopped in a harmful, low-visibility space—it lights up segments on the sunshine bar to point the path to go across the stopped truck.
In addition they level out that the entrance gentle bar is extra totally different than you may be capable to spot at first look. Whereas the pre-refresh truck had a diffuse impact on the entire gentle bar, the brand new one has extra depth to it and appears fairly totally different in individual—tell us within the feedback which model gentle bar you favor. You possibly can simply inform the distinction in case you have the older truck parked subsequent to it like they’ve within the video.
Pre-refresh vehicles appear to have better-quality door handles and door-opening mechanisms. The R1S they’d within the video had squeaky handles, which was not an issue for the older model, even after just a few years. In addition they level out that the door itself feels lighter and that there are delicate variations within the plastic used for the door card—this may very well be proof of cost-cutting.
Different variations they discovered have been the variety of cameras on the facet mirrors, the charging port, the inside, and the driving modes. If you’d like a whole breakdown of every thing totally different between the 2 generations, this video ought to reply most of your questions.