2022 Rivian R1S _ Talking Cars with Consumer Reports #410

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign hi everybody welcome to another episode I'm Mike Monticello I'm Joe vesselak and I'm Jake Fisher So today we're going to be talking about our first impressions of the rivion r1s which we bought for the CR auto test program the r1s is basically a three row SUV version of the r1t pickup that we have already finished testing um and so like that one it has four electric motors one at each wheel giving it all-wheel drive it has an astounding 835 horsepower and the driving range the EPA says is between 289 to 321 miles depending on the wheel and tire package you get now the one we're talking about today the one we bought for the program is actually 2022 and it has an EPA estimated driving range of 316 miles with 21 inch wheels um the r1s comes standard with all the good safety stuff and a bunch of driver assistance stuff including automatic emergency braking with passenger detection automatic emergency braking that operates at highway speeds blind spot warning rear cross traffic warning Lane departure warning Lane keeping assistance Lane centering assistance and adaptive cruise control pretty good honjo yeah I was able to do all that um so we purchased a 2022 r1s launch edition which had a base price of 75 500 with a few options and an 1800 destination charge our vehicle cost 79 250 but a little backstory which is that we you know with startup companies and everything it was kind of interesting because we put our deposit on the r1s in late 2019 we weren't able to configure it until late 2022 that's when we were able to actually do you know make the truck order it the way we wanted and then we took delivery of it in March of 2023 and we were kind of fortunate that we did put in that reservation so early because if we were to order that same truck now instead of costing 79 000 it would cost about ninety five thousand dollars that's how much things have gone up so um with that in mind Jake let's kind of start off the topic the conversation really before we get into what it's like to drive this thing but where is the r1s as far as SUVs within the market like who is it competing with who is it for what is it for sure so first of all let's talk electric vehicles right electric vehicles well there's Tesla and there's the rest of them yeah and most electric vehicles are still Tesla they really dominate the market so Tesla they have a little variety of vehicles right they got the the model S the model y the thing is is that what they're missing and they have you know quite a bit of sedans and if anyone's been looking at the market lately not a whole lot of sedans sedans aren't very popular so rivien came up with a great idea it's like let's kind of do Tesla but let's do it in the market that everyone is buying so what is that simply pickup trucks three row SUVs and not Tesla Model X's with Falcon Wing doors or whatever but like Square two box you know three row SUVs um those are really hot in this market so really when you come down to it that's kind of rivian is these days it's kind of they're filling in those little the blanks in the Tesla Model uh model line of let's and when you look at these vehicles right I mean we've we've tested the the pickup truck and and now looking at three recipe it feels very Tesla yeah it really does um you know I mean it was almost like the infotainment system is almost kind of like yeah the steering wheel controls are the same basically a lot of the same frustrations or conveniences either way but very similar you know it's funny you bring that up Jake because it's almost like they they must have known that going in that we're going to fi I mean you'd think they said we're gonna go where Tesla isn't right I mean like how did they or or did they just guess that Tesla wasn't going to have a pickup by by now or they weren't going to have because like you said yes the the model X is a three row SUV but it's not a very practical three-year-old SUV by any stretch of the imagination so they they kind of just slid in there and they had a lot of time because I mean Tesla you know they Telegraph their product line way ahead right I mean they've been talking about you know the Roadster and the and the Cybertron and it's still not here so it's very clear where they're heading and they're like hey there's this giant market for three row SUVs and pickup trucks let's jump on it let's jump on it yeah uh okay so you talked about some of the kind of Tesla stuff but there's some non-tesla stuff as well you know well Tesla has some gimmicks with some of their cars we've talked about it before and rivian has sort of some gimmicks or features whatever whatever you want to call them such as the same things we saw in the uh the r1t pickup rechargeable LED flashlight that's tucked away in the driver's door a removable rechargeable Bluetooth speaker that's underneath the center console and there's an onboard air compressor with a hose and Joe just first of all are they gimmicks or are they actual valuable features and let's start with one that I think probably is valuable which is the air compressor and tell people why why would you put an air compressor on a vehicle like this yeah I think yeah there is a value to it depending on how well how well it works or how long it lasts depending on you know I don't know you know you wonder there's a lot of aftermarket air compressors is it as good as that I don't know but yeah you run into a situation especially if they're marketing it for like off-road use or whatever you can run into a situation where you may push the bead off lose some air whatever it may be have a puncture and you do want that you know capability of being able to inflate out in wherever you are off on a trail is pretty pretty big deal or if you air down so to speak you know a lot of times in really serious off-road situations which I don't know anyone would take their 80 000.95 and a series but you know quite often true off-roaders like let some air out of the tires when they get into these situations so then they with this onboard air compressor they can air it back up when they head back out to the road which is kind of neat but what about these other things Jake Bluetooth um speaker flashlight like you don't you you couldn't buy any of those yourself so so let's let's let's talk gimmicks right okay and and you know one person's gimmick is the other person's surprise and delight and doing product differentiator and all these different things and yes we talk about Tesla which has everything from video games to You Know karaoke and whatnot and fart noises of course you're gonna say it you gotta call that and and um certainly look the reviewed ones make a lot more sense in the context I mean there's also like you know we didn't talk about the camping mode where it where we'll you know adjust the the level for you the level for you if you're sleeping in the car or whatever but you know I you'd probably afford you know a nice setup if you could afford this car anyway beyond that um but here's the thing um look this is nearly a hundred thousand dollar vehicle and you could go get a you know 88 Civic and put in the trunk a Bluetooth speaker a air compressor um rechargeable flashlights all for less than 100 bucks I mean honestly there's other ways to do this I mean you could put a little you know cubby in the back and put your own stuff with some USB charging right and you'd be all set so so I mean to differentiate differentiate such an expensive vehicle by literally a couple things you go and get it you know the corner uh you know you know the Mart so not really Beyond I mean being a three-row SUV that's electric that's still fairly new but it does it's not breaking ground the way the pickup did in a sense like with that gear tunnel and stuff like that I mean that's they just did some really cool things with that this one has most of those same things yeah but nothing really it's a three-row SUV you know there's nothing really game changing about it other than yes it's a big boxy uh SUV which is surprisingly absent from the market and Joe fits really quick I mean yeah 835 horsepower just give people an idea of what it's like to floor it you know yeah all the way to the floor when you get all that power at once yeah so like in the past when you're driving you know traditional cars you actually like travel to the speed you're trying to get at with these EVS you just go directly to the speed you're at it feels like you know it's like slingshot effect or right you feel like you're driving a laser beam not a car really but yeah it gets to 60 and I would assume similar to the truck so it's going to get to 60 in around 4 seconds just under four seconds which is quick yeah I mean you can feel if you floor it which I I'll be honest uh it's I haven't gotten bored yet of at from low speeds just flooring the accelerator pedal because it's you know we for years journalists have talked about you know oh this pins you back into your seat these types of EVS truly do pin you back into your seat and you can feel the tires like squirming trying to get any little bit of traction but and it does a great job putting that power down when you think about it yeah if you look at our track actually where I do the launches from 60 or you know doing our quarter mile 5 500 meter runs you can see rubber down on the track but the wheels are never spinning they're just right at that limit of where they're just scrubbing like most efficient way to put the power down but it's putting those tires like to the to the ultimate test right there I'm gonna throw out just Counterpoint um you know I mean it goes back to the old adage that's it's much more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow and yeah I don't know how great of an idea is this giant Behemoth of a vehicle going zero to sixty in four seconds and they'd be on I actually drive in um the other day took out you know NRL lab we're done tests you know but the uh the GT86 the gr86 gr86 the um yeah they keep on changing the team on it you know the Scion you know yeah exactly so I took I took that out and you know it's it does not go zero to 164 seconds um anything near that but it's really fun because you got to work in order to do it right and this is effortlessly goes so fast that it's like you don't have time to engage when you drive a manual you have like six seconds to engage with the vehicle this is like yeah it's four but it feels like just a blink of an eye really it's like a Quantum gauge right it's like I'm stopped and now I'm going 60. now I'm going 100 you know your Speedo losing chunks of 10 mile an hour increments you don't see these gradual like increases in speed I'm not gonna say I can't sit here and say that it's not thrilling to floor that thing right I'm not going to say that and now you're talking acceleration versus handling and yeah gr-86 acceleration I'm like it's more fun well you know it's it's a it's just I mean you would this thing it's amazing but here's here's what I will say I think where you're sort of going with it besides the fact that maybe it's not as fun for some people and also I miss the I miss the engine sound too I really do I'm sure uh the revving high and everything but I think where you're sort of going is maybe this isn't the smartest thing for a vehicle this heavy to be able to accelerate that quickly just anyone can get it get in the car get in the truck and just floor you know it before you know and that was the other thing that so the power is amazing it's awesome and when you're doing like a say you're on a two-lane road and and you need to get around slower traffic and you punch it all the way to the floor which you don't need to to do this because it has so much power if you do by the time you're through that passing zone you are going ridiculously around so there is something I think where you're sort of going Jake is that maybe these aren't this artist this isn't the smartest way to do an electric vehicle yeah well I mean the question is you know I mean obviously we're in the business of raiding vehicles and you know we have a whole lot of different metrics and you know a lot of these you know again like if this went 0-60 in six seconds would that be kind of fast enough to get into traffic oh yeah you know is it that much better that it goes 0-60 in four seconds I mean for some people it's ridiculous it's an amusement park ride but you know does that make it safe for your family too right when you're competing with other manufacturers or just seeing sky's the limit in terms of acceleration it's like who's going to be the one to say enough is enough I don't know yeah well it's kind of funny because I love it it wasn't that many years ago that there was like this horsepower War whether it was and torque Wars with uh you know uh with the diesel pickups and everything everyone thought when are these horsepower Wars gonna end and then it seemed like oh maybe they are going to start ending and now they're just doing the same thing with the EVS they're just the exact same thing but sticking with it there are even with how quick it is and whatever there's actually some issues with the way that the power is delivered right and can you speak a little bit either one of you that just the the kind of the abruptness that has to do with the regenerative breaking right yeah so yeah exactly so first there's the regen issues but I'll start with acceleration in the throttle or accelerator whatever we're calling it now being a little touchy where you're rolling in and then you're kind of you almost get this little bit of like uh you're scared because as soon as the power hits it's pretty hard so you're trying to you know almost you want to creep right and it's very difficult to do that in slower situations and as well as with regen it's almost like the polar opposite where you're trying to come to a stop smoothly in the brake pedal you'll find just has a excessive travel and it's a little touchy too so as soon as you finally get feedback you get too much feedback and it's kind of you know accelerators the same brake pedal is the opposite same frustrations in a different it's kind of jerky you know it's very difficult especially if you're trying to you know gently get around like a garage space or something like that it's worse situations right so it's funny because this they have two different levels of regenerative braking that you can set it to standard and and high but they're both high and higher and you know one pedal driving which this is capable of which is basically you can come to a stop without ever having to touch the the actual physical brake pedal and it's possible to do with this truck in either of its modes and no question one pedal driving with a regener braking does take a different mindset right a different driving style you have to be smoother you have to be thinking about it because we're so used to regular gas cars right you just when you're even thinking about slowing down you just let off the accelerator pedal and it basically keeps going exactly but with this and in many electric cars you have a mode where you can do that too right and they don't have that here and and you don't that's a mistake right I I really do think it is I think a lot of people will get into it and be turned off because they'll want no certainly there's the one pedal drive you know thing and some people like that and it works but a lot of people who don't want that jerkiness and to not give you that selection although it turns out there is that solution we have breaking news today you found a hack for this um only abrupt throttle I am very um I have to admit I actually read the the manual very very no you did not I know I know I'm the only one but um you can turn off that regen that heavy regen and there's one way to do it is you have to go into a snow mode so if you go into snow mode you have the option of really having a very low regen or no late regen where you could actually Coast that like a normal car right so so I'm driving the car around in snow mode and you know at 70 degrees and I'm like this is actually way more pleasant I was gonna say is there a downside it doesn't appear to be so if you go and you could see in some of the modes first you go in sport you could see like the range changes and whatnot and it didn't really seem to change much at all so I'm like I think I would drive this car around a snowboard because you know it doesn't make my passengers nauseous when I constantly slow down every time I'm off the throttle so there's there's a tip for everyone right winter all year round how do I hack your Vivian again one pedal drive is I try to get used to it but I I don't like it I just feel like every they should just like you mentioned they should just have the options to be able to utilize Coast because I love that's how I usually that's how I prefer to drive one pedal drive I find myself always like misjudging this stop getting off the pedal too early and then having to roll back on or then touching the brake to soon getting back to the throttle and just frustrating and here's another thing that I recently realized that I had a sneaking suspicion was the case but I am now pretty darn positive is the case which is that they when there's a certain and JQ can probably speak more to this but when the the vehicle is breaking through gen breaking up to a certain amount of of force the brake lights have to come on either they have to come on or everyone puts them on well so what I found is I'm all think I'm doing this you know one pedal driving never having touched the brake pedal but what is happening actually is the brake lights are coming on a lot when I don't necessarily want them to but you're on the highway and like you're flashing I don't want to do that to people so that is kind of a downside to especially one like this where it's really hard to just be very gentle with the accelerator pedal so there are some downsides to it and so I'm I might be going because I've been this big I love trying to see if I can get it to stop you know to let off the accelerator pedal at the exact right point to then let it come to a stop it's a lot of distraction and words really it's a lot of work like hyper-miling when you really focus on trying to get them you just called me a nerd didn't you yeah yeah um speaking of nerdiness Joe let's talk about I know you love track handling I know that uh I don't know why that's nerdy that's not nerdy at all but this thing I mean speak to just how sort of crazy it is that this big heavy vehicle can handle as well as it does assuming you agree that it does handle yeah it does it handles real well it actually because you know you have lower center of gravity with the battery and it stays very flat there's not that much body roll the steering is pretty responsive but yeah I feel in the just as fast as as it is like when you're on our track you're getting from between turn to turn like the straightaways in between really quickly so you find yourself actually you can misjudge a turn if you don't you know you have to know to let up earlier because these cars go so fast but yeah handling in general is pretty pretty impressive for a vehicle that weighs what almost like seven thousand Pounds it's really heavy yeah what happened is that the people who were who used to be in charge of making like sports cars they're all working on EVS now and certainly I mean with rivian I mean actually if you go back in history they were looking at making sports cars but but these are today's sports cars and you know what's really weird just to throw it out I mean not a lot of electric sports cars are there because they don't need to be right I mean what the the high performance sports cars of the day now are sedans by Tesla SUVs and pickup trucks by rivian and I mean why not make it it's like you don't need to because if you might as well have four doors if you can well and that's not the practicality so you think about a sports car right like um we're gonna go Way Off Script here but there's no script let's get real but um sports cars are made in a certain way to be low to the ground so they handle better and low center of gravity right right when you got an EV it doesn't matter if you're an SUV or a sedan you got a low center of gravity because you get that big battery at the bottom so that's why all these SUVs are really sports cars they don't need to make those compromises because they have low surrender gravity they're unbelievably quick they could put the power down I mean they're doing all the sports car stuff but just with the body of whatever you want on it except the funny thing about this one Joe is that the truck the r1t rode pretty well yeah this thing I think it rides worse don't you yeah it's pretty like a sports car yeah seriously yeah it's firm there's a lot of impacts that just punch right through and some you know it's pretty unsettled for what you would expect out of most SUVs that are you know pretty compliant this thing is it feels like like we say it again a sports car type you know ride Comfort I think it rides rougher uh less refined than most SUVs out there honestly and I think this would it would be again we we still it has to go through our whole test program and everything but I think that would for me that would be a big sticking point but maybe the bigger sticker sticking point might be controls and I know Jake you love to talk about controls oh geez let me just so we have a first drive of the r1s up on our website consumerreports.org and johnlinkov friend of the podcast wrote the r1s's interior controls are identical to those of the r1t meaning they also mirror Tesla's overall approach of shove it all in the center screen which I think totally captures tell us like why of all things that you copy why would someone copy Tesla's controls well I mean look I I think a lot of it's almost like they want to get that Tesla customer so I mean say you had I mean there's a lot of people who have Tesla Model 3 right I mean that's a very common vehicle and a lot of people are like okay maybe I don't want a small sedan I want to move up to a three-row SUV or a pickup truck so I think it's more about just someone who's gonna hop into that one and feel like totally comfortable wow this is the same kind of environment yeah they already know what to do it's like getting these phone manufacturers that kind of copy each other where you know they're gonna you can kind of already be comfortable getting the newest phone or version of that right it's kind of you already you know it's easy easy to get used to I think it's just you know it's it's that mindset so it's just kind of like just it's almost like in the same product portfolio yeah you know and um you know again it's not it's not as bad as that I mean look there is a screen in front of the driver you know unlike on the Tesla Model three in the Tesla Model why you have you have that but it is super familiar you know in terms of how it how that big screen functions and like like Joe said like everything from the steering wheel and how you adjust the mirrors and how you adjust the steering wheel it's like oh it's a carbon copy and they're unlabeled steering wheel buttons I mean the fact that you have to go through the touch screen first if you want to make an adjustment to the to the steering wheel to the power steering wheel or the mirrors you have to first go through the touchscreen to say that's what you want to do and then you do the con you do the adjustments with the steering wheel controls which are unlabeled that said they show you on you know on the screen which way to move it you're playing a video game adjust your steering wheel and same with the adaptive cruise control right like well I can't remember which one wait which side is the volume which side is this Tesla model three for for four years you'd be used totally fine and actually engaging the the crews the after Crews and the lane centering it's the exact same way as on the double tap on that so it's about familiarity and where you're what you're comparing to well I mean the assumption is you're not moving from a Highlander to this you're moving from a Tesla and it's cool to know what those controls do without other people knowing right you're kind of create a handshake yeah yeah you're not in the club I'm totally not in the club uh also just from a safety standpoint I think it's insane that the that the emergency flashers button this is one of my everyone has their pet peeves right Gabe has his Gabe shanhars is is lumbar support mine apparently is is is emergency flashers buttons that are in weird locations and it's up on the center console you would the purpose of an emergence of the emergency flashers is we need to press them because you need to tell someone behind you hey slow down and I don't want to be fiddling around that's just stupid but um I will say at least the seat heater buttons are always on the touch screen visible you can always get to them which in you know there's some cars where you can't even do that so there's a lot to talk about with this r1s and we have a lot more information up on our website consumerreports.org a full first drive uh and it the r1s is going into our test program very soon it's just about up to our break-in miles and then stay tuned obviously for the full road test results uh as soon as we're done with that so with that let's move on to the audience question of the week folks don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips of talking cards at icloud.com that's the best way to reach out and talk to us and you know we do love those videos um and wouldn't you know we have one this week this is from Scott in Winnipeg Canada so let's roll that clip right now hi talking cars I just have my Subaru Forester in for service and it's making me look forward to when we are going to be replacing our 2013 Toyota Highlander in the fall we are looking for something that would be at least a five thousand pound towing capacity but something more fuel efficient and that is seeming to be something that is hard to find I have looked at the XC90 plug-in hybrid as well as the Grand Cherokee 4xe but neither of those rank very well on your reliability rankings I've also looked at the possibility of the 2024 Grand Highlander but I'm concerned that it won't have the fuel economy that we're looking for anything that you could point us towards would be greatly appreciated thanks so much and keep talking cars all right so I always love when people end their videos with and keep on talking cars I so thanks Scott for that that's kind of a neat thing people do uh so Joe this is not an easy question he basically admitted that uh so maybe almost a unicorn is what can you how can you help him I think the best thing you can do maybe is do nothing and kind of stick with what he's got because what do you do when you're kind of making all the correct decisions or doing what you should be or what we think you know and um kind of just ride it out and see what comes out down down the road wait for um the newer Highlander or wait for yeah the grand Highlander yeah I feel like it I don't know there's something to be said about just doing nothing when you have a decent option I know he wants better fuel economy but when you're kind of already getting the best of what you're gonna get maybe I don't know you just be complacent with it yeah Jake so first of all auto manufacturers if you're listening make this guy a car yeah um because really you know he's right um you know when you go to the hybrid SUVs you're usually cut to 3 500 pounds right why not just figure out how to make the thing pull five thousand if that means a little bit more powertrain cooling then so be it um but I'm with Joey over here um you know look you've got yourself a Highlander um you know those that at around 10 years they're just starting to get broken in they have a long life I think the one thing you could start thinking about I mean we we talk about bikes right I mean you know you have a mountain bike and you have a road bike right and you wouldn't want to do uh Triathlon you know Road Race on your mountain bike why not have the right tool for the right right job and I know it's difficult sometimes to have multiple cars but you know maybe the right answer is go get an EV for your everyday driving or commuting keep that Highlander don't rack the miles up on it only use it when you do need to tow and you do need to go on that trip but think about what you need daily so a lot of times we do see that people will get an EV and something for those trips and have the right tool for the right job if if you could afford that but again in terms of affording you might be a whole lot better off keeping this older Highlander and getting a more affordable EV than trying to get that vehicle that somehow does everything how about an EV for towing yeah I would avoid that we have a story on that I'm sort of I'm sort of hinting at which we just recently I want you to finish what you're going to say to be very patient we we just did a story it's up online where we towed a 10 000 pound trailer behind a rivian R1 our rivian r1t and our Ford F-150 Lightning and the results were kind of amazing like they did a great job Towing in most ways lots of power but the driving range went down to less than a third of what the EPA rates them at so Towing yes long range Towing no they're not even close to there yet if you're just Towing around just spend more time charging than you will exactly and think about trying to pull that big rig into uh you know a DC fast charge application but you were going to say something I guess in terms of back to his question there's always you know you got to ask yourself he's trying to compromise between two things right and he's got to just think about you know what's more important to him and then that can start leading him down maybe other routes if he does want to just pursue after getting something whether it be fuel economy or fuel efficiency or um yeah Towing so what's more important to them I kind of came up with sort of the same thing you guys are saying except what I thought was well he said he wanted better fuel economy than his 2013 Highlander so 2023 Highlander with the turbo four yeah uh gets you know better fuel economy than his did back in 2013 and can still tow 5000 pounds so he could also go that route sure uh it's not rated for more than five thousand pounds and 20 22 or whatever it gets is not amazing MPG I'm sure that's not what he's looking for and but it is one thought he could just get a newer Highlander get better fuel economy than what he's currently getting and still be able to tow so that's one option sure not bad uh all right that's going to do it for this episode if you want to learn more about the topics and the cars that we talked about you can click on the links in the show notes don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips to talking cars at icloud.com this episode was produced by Dave Abrams and edited by Anatoly schumsky and Andrew Balise thanks so much for watching and we'll see you all next week ha foreign foreignforeign hi everybody welcome to another episode I'm Mike Monticello I'm Joe vesselak and I'm Jake Fisher So today we're going to be talking about our first impressions of the rivion r1s which we bought for the CR auto test program the r1s is basically a three row SUV version of the r1t pickup that we have already finished testing um and so like that one it has four electric motors one at each wheel giving it all-wheel drive it has an astounding 835 horsepower and the driving range the EPA says is between 289 to 321 miles depending on the wheel and tire package you get now the one we're talking about today the one we bought for the program is actually 2022 and it has an EPA estimated driving range of 316 miles with 21 inch wheels um the r1s comes standard with all the good safety stuff and a bunch of driver assistance stuff including automatic emergency braking with passenger detection automatic emergency braking that operates at highway speeds blind spot warning rear cross traffic warning Lane departure warning Lane keeping assistance Lane centering assistance and adaptive cruise control pretty good honjo yeah I was able to do all that um so we purchased a 2022 r1s launch edition which had a base price of 75 500 with a few options and an 1800 destination charge our vehicle cost 79 250 but a little backstory which is that we you know with startup companies and everything it was kind of interesting because we put our deposit on the r1s in late 2019 we weren't able to configure it until late 2022 that's when we were able to actually do you know make the truck order it the way we wanted and then we took delivery of it in March of 2023 and we were kind of fortunate that we did put in that reservation so early because if we were to order that same truck now instead of costing 79 000 it would cost about ninety five thousand dollars that's how much things have gone up so um with that in mind Jake let's kind of start off the topic the conversation really before we get into what it's like to drive this thing but where is the r1s as far as SUVs within the market like who is it competing with who is it for what is it for sure so first of all let's talk electric vehicles right electric vehicles well there's Tesla and there's the rest of them yeah and most electric vehicles are still Tesla they really dominate the market so Tesla they have a little variety of vehicles right they got the the model S the model y the thing is is that what they're missing and they have you know quite a bit of sedans and if anyone's been looking at the market lately not a whole lot of sedans sedans aren't very popular so rivien came up with a great idea it's like let's kind of do Tesla but let's do it in the market that everyone is buying so what is that simply pickup trucks three row SUVs and not Tesla Model X's with Falcon Wing doors or whatever but like Square two box you know three row SUVs um those are really hot in this market so really when you come down to it that's kind of rivian is these days it's kind of they're filling in those little the blanks in the Tesla Model uh model line of let's and when you look at these vehicles right I mean we've we've tested the the pickup truck and and now looking at three recipe it feels very Tesla yeah it really does um you know I mean it was almost like the infotainment system is almost kind of like yeah the steering wheel controls are the same basically a lot of the same frustrations or conveniences either way but very similar you know it's funny you bring that up Jake because it's almost like they they must have known that going in that we're going to fi I mean you'd think they said we're gonna go where Tesla isn't right I mean like how did they or or did they just guess that Tesla wasn't going to have a pickup by by now or they weren't going to have because like you said yes the the model X is a three row SUV but it's not a very practical three-year-old SUV by any stretch of the imagination so they they kind of just slid in there and they had a lot of time because I mean Tesla you know they Telegraph their product line way ahead right I mean they've been talking about you know the Roadster and the and the Cybertron and it's still not here so it's very clear where they're heading and they're like hey there's this giant market for three row SUVs and pickup trucks let's jump on it let's jump on it yeah uh okay so you talked about some of the kind of Tesla stuff but there's some non-tesla stuff as well you know well Tesla has some gimmicks with some of their cars we've talked about it before and rivian has sort of some gimmicks or features whatever whatever you want to call them such as the same things we saw in the uh the r1t pickup rechargeable LED flashlight that's tucked away in the driver's door a removable rechargeable Bluetooth speaker that's underneath the center console and there's an onboard air compressor with a hose and Joe just first of all are they gimmicks or are they actual valuable features and let's start with one that I think probably is valuable which is the air compressor and tell people why why would you put an air compressor on a vehicle like this yeah I think yeah there is a value to it depending on how well how well it works or how long it lasts depending on you know I don't know you know you wonder there's a lot of aftermarket air compressors is it as good as that I don't know but yeah you run into a situation especially if they're marketing it for like off-road use or whatever you can run into a situation where you may push the bead off lose some air whatever it may be have a puncture and you do want that you know capability of being able to inflate out in wherever you are off on a trail is pretty pretty big deal or if you air down so to speak you know a lot of times in really serious off-road situations which I don't know anyone would take their 80 000.95 and a series but you know quite often true off-roaders like let some air out of the tires when they get into these situations so then they with this onboard air compressor they can air it back up when they head back out to the road which is kind of neat but what about these other things Jake Bluetooth um speaker flashlight like you don't you you couldn't buy any of those yourself so so let's let's let's talk gimmicks right okay and and you know one person's gimmick is the other person's surprise and delight and doing product differentiator and all these different things and yes we talk about Tesla which has everything from video games to You Know karaoke and whatnot and fart noises of course you're gonna say it you gotta call that and and um certainly look the reviewed ones make a lot more sense in the context I mean there's also like you know we didn't talk about the camping mode where it where we'll you know adjust the the level for you the level for you if you're sleeping in the car or whatever but you know I you'd probably afford you know a nice setup if you could afford this car anyway beyond that um but here's the thing um look this is nearly a hundred thousand dollar vehicle and you could go get a you know 88 Civic and put in the trunk a Bluetooth speaker a air compressor um rechargeable flashlights all for less than 100 bucks I mean honestly there's other ways to do this I mean you could put a little you know cubby in the back and put your own stuff with some USB charging right and you'd be all set so so I mean to differentiate differentiate such an expensive vehicle by literally a couple things you go and get it you know the corner uh you know you know the Mart so not really Beyond I mean being a three-row SUV that's electric that's still fairly new but it does it's not breaking ground the way the pickup did in a sense like with that gear tunnel and stuff like that I mean that's they just did some really cool things with that this one has most of those same things yeah but nothing really it's a three-row SUV you know there's nothing really game changing about it other than yes it's a big boxy uh SUV which is surprisingly absent from the market and Joe fits really quick I mean yeah 835 horsepower just give people an idea of what it's like to floor it you know yeah all the way to the floor when you get all that power at once yeah so like in the past when you're driving you know traditional cars you actually like travel to the speed you're trying to get at with these EVS you just go directly to the speed you're at it feels like you know it's like slingshot effect or right you feel like you're driving a laser beam not a car really but yeah it gets to 60 and I would assume similar to the truck so it's going to get to 60 in around 4 seconds just under four seconds which is quick yeah I mean you can feel if you floor it which I I'll be honest uh it's I haven't gotten bored yet of at from low speeds just flooring the accelerator pedal because it's you know we for years journalists have talked about you know oh this pins you back into your seat these types of EVS truly do pin you back into your seat and you can feel the tires like squirming trying to get any little bit of traction but and it does a great job putting that power down when you think about it yeah if you look at our track actually where I do the launches from 60 or you know doing our quarter mile 5 500 meter runs you can see rubber down on the track but the wheels are never spinning they're just right at that limit of where they're just scrubbing like most efficient way to put the power down but it's putting those tires like to the to the ultimate test right there I'm gonna throw out just Counterpoint um you know I mean it goes back to the old adage that's it's much more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow and yeah I don't know how great of an idea is this giant Behemoth of a vehicle going zero to sixty in four seconds and they'd be on I actually drive in um the other day took out you know NRL lab we're done tests you know but the uh the GT86 the gr86 gr86 the um yeah they keep on changing the team on it you know the Scion you know yeah exactly so I took I took that out and you know it's it does not go zero to 164 seconds um anything near that but it's really fun because you got to work in order to do it right and this is effortlessly goes so fast that it's like you don't have time to engage when you drive a manual you have like six seconds to engage with the vehicle this is like yeah it's four but it feels like just a blink of an eye really it's like a Quantum gauge right it's like I'm stopped and now I'm going 60. now I'm going 100 you know your Speedo losing chunks of 10 mile an hour increments you don't see these gradual like increases in speed I'm not gonna say I can't sit here and say that it's not thrilling to floor that thing right I'm not going to say that and now you're talking acceleration versus handling and yeah gr-86 acceleration I'm like it's more fun well you know it's it's a it's just I mean you would this thing it's amazing but here's here's what I will say I think where you're sort of going with it besides the fact that maybe it's not as fun for some people and also I miss the I miss the engine sound too I really do I'm sure uh the revving high and everything but I think where you're sort of going is maybe this isn't the smartest thing for a vehicle this heavy to be able to accelerate that quickly just anyone can get it get in the car get in the truck and just floor you know it before you know and that was the other thing that so the power is amazing it's awesome and when you're doing like a say you're on a two-lane road and and you need to get around slower traffic and you punch it all the way to the floor which you don't need to to do this because it has so much power if you do by the time you're through that passing zone you are going ridiculously around so there is something I think where you're sort of going Jake is that maybe these aren't this artist this isn't the smartest way to do an electric vehicle yeah well I mean the question is you know I mean obviously we're in the business of raiding vehicles and you know we have a whole lot of different metrics and you know a lot of these you know again like if this went 0-60 in six seconds would that be kind of fast enough to get into traffic oh yeah you know is it that much better that it goes 0-60 in four seconds I mean for some people it's ridiculous it's an amusement park ride but you know does that make it safe for your family too right when you're competing with other manufacturers or just seeing sky's the limit in terms of acceleration it's like who's going to be the one to say enough is enough I don't know yeah well it's kind of funny because I love it it wasn't that many years ago that there was like this horsepower War whether it was and torque Wars with uh you know uh with the diesel pickups and everything everyone thought when are these horsepower Wars gonna end and then it seemed like oh maybe they are going to start ending and now they're just doing the same thing with the EVS they're just the exact same thing but sticking with it there are even with how quick it is and whatever there's actually some issues with the way that the power is delivered right and can you speak a little bit either one of you that just the the kind of the abruptness that has to do with the regenerative breaking right yeah so yeah exactly so first there's the regen issues but I'll start with acceleration in the throttle or accelerator whatever we're calling it now being a little touchy where you're rolling in and then you're kind of you almost get this little bit of like uh you're scared because as soon as the power hits it's pretty hard so you're trying to you know almost you want to creep right and it's very difficult to do that in slower situations and as well as with regen it's almost like the polar opposite where you're trying to come to a stop smoothly in the brake pedal you'll find just has a excessive travel and it's a little touchy too so as soon as you finally get feedback you get too much feedback and it's kind of you know accelerators the same brake pedal is the opposite same frustrations in a different it's kind of jerky you know it's very difficult especially if you're trying to you know gently get around like a garage space or something like that it's worse situations right so it's funny because this they have two different levels of regenerative braking that you can set it to standard and and high but they're both high and higher and you know one pedal driving which this is capable of which is basically you can come to a stop without ever having to touch the the actual physical brake pedal and it's possible to do with this truck in either of its modes and no question one pedal driving with a regener braking does take a different mindset right a different driving style you have to be smoother you have to be thinking about it because we're so used to regular gas cars right you just when you're even thinking about slowing down you just let off the accelerator pedal and it basically keeps going exactly but with this and in many electric cars you have a mode where you can do that too right and they don't have that here and and you don't that's a mistake right I I really do think it is I think a lot of people will get into it and be turned off because they'll want no certainly there's the one pedal drive you know thing and some people like that and it works but a lot of people who don't want that jerkiness and to not give you that selection although it turns out there is that solution we have breaking news today you found a hack for this um only abrupt throttle I am very um I have to admit I actually read the the manual very very no you did not I know I know I'm the only one but um you can turn off that regen that heavy regen and there's one way to do it is you have to go into a snow mode so if you go into snow mode you have the option of really having a very low regen or no late regen where you could actually Coast that like a normal car right so so I'm driving the car around in snow mode and you know at 70 degrees and I'm like this is actually way more pleasant I was gonna say is there a downside it doesn't appear to be so if you go and you could see in some of the modes first you go in sport you could see like the range changes and whatnot and it didn't really seem to change much at all so I'm like I think I would drive this car around a snowboard because you know it doesn't make my passengers nauseous when I constantly slow down every time I'm off the throttle so there's there's a tip for everyone right winter all year round how do I hack your Vivian again one pedal drive is I try to get used to it but I I don't like it I just feel like every they should just like you mentioned they should just have the options to be able to utilize Coast because I love that's how I usually that's how I prefer to drive one pedal drive I find myself always like misjudging this stop getting off the pedal too early and then having to roll back on or then touching the brake to soon getting back to the throttle and just frustrating and here's another thing that I recently realized that I had a sneaking suspicion was the case but I am now pretty darn positive is the case which is that they when there's a certain and JQ can probably speak more to this but when the the vehicle is breaking through gen breaking up to a certain amount of of force the brake lights have to come on either they have to come on or everyone puts them on well so what I found is I'm all think I'm doing this you know one pedal driving never having touched the brake pedal but what is happening actually is the brake lights are coming on a lot when I don't necessarily want them to but you're on the highway and like you're flashing I don't want to do that to people so that is kind of a downside to especially one like this where it's really hard to just be very gentle with the accelerator pedal so there are some downsides to it and so I'm I might be going because I've been this big I love trying to see if I can get it to stop you know to let off the accelerator pedal at the exact right point to then let it come to a stop it's a lot of distraction and words really it's a lot of work like hyper-miling when you really focus on trying to get them you just called me a nerd didn't you yeah yeah um speaking of nerdiness Joe let's talk about I know you love track handling I know that uh I don't know why that's nerdy that's not nerdy at all but this thing I mean speak to just how sort of crazy it is that this big heavy vehicle can handle as well as it does assuming you agree that it does handle yeah it does it handles real well it actually because you know you have lower center of gravity with the battery and it stays very flat there's not that much body roll the steering is pretty responsive but yeah I feel in the just as fast as as it is like when you're on our track you're getting from between turn to turn like the straightaways in between really quickly so you find yourself actually you can misjudge a turn if you don't you know you have to know to let up earlier because these cars go so fast but yeah handling in general is pretty pretty impressive for a vehicle that weighs what almost like seven thousand Pounds it's really heavy yeah what happened is that the people who were who used to be in charge of making like sports cars they're all working on EVS now and certainly I mean with rivian I mean actually if you go back in history they were looking at making sports cars but but these are today's sports cars and you know what's really weird just to throw it out I mean not a lot of electric sports cars are there because they don't need to be right I mean what the the high performance sports cars of the day now are sedans by Tesla SUVs and pickup trucks by rivian and I mean why not make it it's like you don't need to because if you might as well have four doors if you can well and that's not the practicality so you think about a sports car right like um we're gonna go Way Off Script here but there's no script let's get real but um sports cars are made in a certain way to be low to the ground so they handle better and low center of gravity right right when you got an EV it doesn't matter if you're an SUV or a sedan you got a low center of gravity because you get that big battery at the bottom so that's why all these SUVs are really sports cars they don't need to make those compromises because they have low surrender gravity they're unbelievably quick they could put the power down I mean they're doing all the sports car stuff but just with the body of whatever you want on it except the funny thing about this one Joe is that the truck the r1t rode pretty well yeah this thing I think it rides worse don't you yeah it's pretty like a sports car yeah seriously yeah it's firm there's a lot of impacts that just punch right through and some you know it's pretty unsettled for what you would expect out of most SUVs that are you know pretty compliant this thing is it feels like like we say it again a sports car type you know ride Comfort I think it rides rougher uh less refined than most SUVs out there honestly and I think this would it would be again we we still it has to go through our whole test program and everything but I think that would for me that would be a big sticking point but maybe the bigger sticker sticking point might be controls and I know Jake you love to talk about controls oh geez let me just so we have a first drive of the r1s up on our website consumerreports.org and johnlinkov friend of the podcast wrote the r1s's interior controls are identical to those of the r1t meaning they also mirror Tesla's overall approach of shove it all in the center screen which I think totally captures tell us like why of all things that you copy why would someone copy Tesla's controls well I mean look I I think a lot of it's almost like they want to get that Tesla customer so I mean say you had I mean there's a lot of people who have Tesla Model 3 right I mean that's a very common vehicle and a lot of people are like okay maybe I don't want a small sedan I want to move up to a three-row SUV or a pickup truck so I think it's more about just someone who's gonna hop into that one and feel like totally comfortable wow this is the same kind of environment yeah they already know what to do it's like getting these phone manufacturers that kind of copy each other where you know they're gonna you can kind of already be comfortable getting the newest phone or version of that right it's kind of you already you know it's easy easy to get used to I think it's just you know it's it's that mindset so it's just kind of like just it's almost like in the same product portfolio yeah you know and um you know again it's not it's not as bad as that I mean look there is a screen in front of the driver you know unlike on the Tesla Model three in the Tesla Model why you have you have that but it is super familiar you know in terms of how it how that big screen functions and like like Joe said like everything from the steering wheel and how you adjust the mirrors and how you adjust the steering wheel it's like oh it's a carbon copy and they're unlabeled steering wheel buttons I mean the fact that you have to go through the touch screen first if you want to make an adjustment to the to the steering wheel to the power steering wheel or the mirrors you have to first go through the touchscreen to say that's what you want to do and then you do the con you do the adjustments with the steering wheel controls which are unlabeled that said they show you on you know on the screen which way to move it you're playing a video game adjust your steering wheel and same with the adaptive cruise control right like well I can't remember which one wait which side is the volume which side is this Tesla model three for for four years you'd be used totally fine and actually engaging the the crews the after Crews and the lane centering it's the exact same way as on the double tap on that so it's about familiarity and where you're what you're comparing to well I mean the assumption is you're not moving from a Highlander to this you're moving from a Tesla and it's cool to know what those controls do without other people knowing right you're kind of create a handshake yeah yeah you're not in the club I'm totally not in the club uh also just from a safety standpoint I think it's insane that the that the emergency flashers button this is one of my everyone has their pet peeves right Gabe has his Gabe shanhars is is lumbar support mine apparently is is is emergency flashers buttons that are in weird locations and it's up on the center console you would the purpose of an emergence of the emergency flashers is we need to press them because you need to tell someone behind you hey slow down and I don't want to be fiddling around that's just stupid but um I will say at least the seat heater buttons are always on the touch screen visible you can always get to them which in you know there's some cars where you can't even do that so there's a lot to talk about with this r1s and we have a lot more information up on our website consumerreports.org a full first drive uh and it the r1s is going into our test program very soon it's just about up to our break-in miles and then stay tuned obviously for the full road test results uh as soon as we're done with that so with that let's move on to the audience question of the week folks don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips of talking cards at icloud.com that's the best way to reach out and talk to us and you know we do love those videos um and wouldn't you know we have one this week this is from Scott in Winnipeg Canada so let's roll that clip right now hi talking cars I just have my Subaru Forester in for service and it's making me look forward to when we are going to be replacing our 2013 Toyota Highlander in the fall we are looking for something that would be at least a five thousand pound towing capacity but something more fuel efficient and that is seeming to be something that is hard to find I have looked at the XC90 plug-in hybrid as well as the Grand Cherokee 4xe but neither of those rank very well on your reliability rankings I've also looked at the possibility of the 2024 Grand Highlander but I'm concerned that it won't have the fuel economy that we're looking for anything that you could point us towards would be greatly appreciated thanks so much and keep talking cars all right so I always love when people end their videos with and keep on talking cars I so thanks Scott for that that's kind of a neat thing people do uh so Joe this is not an easy question he basically admitted that uh so maybe almost a unicorn is what can you how can you help him I think the best thing you can do maybe is do nothing and kind of stick with what he's got because what do you do when you're kind of making all the correct decisions or doing what you should be or what we think you know and um kind of just ride it out and see what comes out down down the road wait for um the newer Highlander or wait for yeah the grand Highlander yeah I feel like it I don't know there's something to be said about just doing nothing when you have a decent option I know he wants better fuel economy but when you're kind of already getting the best of what you're gonna get maybe I don't know you just be complacent with it yeah Jake so first of all auto manufacturers if you're listening make this guy a car yeah um because really you know he's right um you know when you go to the hybrid SUVs you're usually cut to 3 500 pounds right why not just figure out how to make the thing pull five thousand if that means a little bit more powertrain cooling then so be it um but I'm with Joey over here um you know look you've got yourself a Highlander um you know those that at around 10 years they're just starting to get broken in they have a long life I think the one thing you could start thinking about I mean we we talk about bikes right I mean you know you have a mountain bike and you have a road bike right and you wouldn't want to do uh Triathlon you know Road Race on your mountain bike why not have the right tool for the right right job and I know it's difficult sometimes to have multiple cars but you know maybe the right answer is go get an EV for your everyday driving or commuting keep that Highlander don't rack the miles up on it only use it when you do need to tow and you do need to go on that trip but think about what you need daily so a lot of times we do see that people will get an EV and something for those trips and have the right tool for the right job if if you could afford that but again in terms of affording you might be a whole lot better off keeping this older Highlander and getting a more affordable EV than trying to get that vehicle that somehow does everything how about an EV for towing yeah I would avoid that we have a story on that I'm sort of I'm sort of hinting at which we just recently I want you to finish what you're going to say to be very patient we we just did a story it's up online where we towed a 10 000 pound trailer behind a rivian R1 our rivian r1t and our Ford F-150 Lightning and the results were kind of amazing like they did a great job Towing in most ways lots of power but the driving range went down to less than a third of what the EPA rates them at so Towing yes long range Towing no they're not even close to there yet if you're just Towing around just spend more time charging than you will exactly and think about trying to pull that big rig into uh you know a DC fast charge application but you were going to say something I guess in terms of back to his question there's always you know you got to ask yourself he's trying to compromise between two things right and he's got to just think about you know what's more important to him and then that can start leading him down maybe other routes if he does want to just pursue after getting something whether it be fuel economy or fuel efficiency or um yeah Towing so what's more important to them I kind of came up with sort of the same thing you guys are saying except what I thought was well he said he wanted better fuel economy than his 2013 Highlander so 2023 Highlander with the turbo four yeah uh gets you know better fuel economy than his did back in 2013 and can still tow 5000 pounds so he could also go that route sure uh it's not rated for more than five thousand pounds and 20 22 or whatever it gets is not amazing MPG I'm sure that's not what he's looking for and but it is one thought he could just get a newer Highlander get better fuel economy than what he's currently getting and still be able to tow so that's one option sure not bad uh all right that's going to do it for this episode if you want to learn more about the topics and the cars that we talked about you can click on the links in the show notes don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips to talking cars at icloud.com this episode was produced by Dave Abrams and edited by Anatoly schumsky and Andrew Balise thanks so much for watching and we'll see you all next week ha foreign foreignforeign hi everybody welcome to another episode I'm Mike Monticello I'm Joe vesselak and I'm Jake Fisher So today we're going to be talking about our first impressions of the rivion r1s which we bought for the CR auto test program the r1s is basically a three row SUV version of the r1t pickup that we have already finished testing um and so like that one it has four electric motors one at each wheel giving it all-wheel drive it has an astounding 835 horsepower and the driving range the EPA says is between 289 to 321 miles depending on the wheel and tire package you get now the one we're talking about today the one we bought for the program is actually 2022 and it has an EPA estimated driving range of 316 miles with 21 inch wheels um the r1s comes standard with all the good safety stuff and a bunch of driver assistance stuff including automatic emergency braking with passenger detection automatic emergency braking that operates at highway speeds blind spot warning rear cross traffic warning Lane departure warning Lane keeping assistance Lane centering assistance and adaptive cruise control pretty good honjo yeah I was able to do all that um so we purchased a 2022 r1s launch edition which had a base price of 75 500 with a few options and an 1800 destination charge our vehicle cost 79 250 but a little backstory which is that we you know with startup companies and everything it was kind of interesting because we put our deposit on the r1s in late 2019 we weren't able to configure it until late 2022 that's when we were able to actually do you know make the truck order it the way we wanted and then we took delivery of it in March of 2023 and we were kind of fortunate that we did put in that reservation so early because if we were to order that same truck now instead of costing 79 000 it would cost about ninety five thousand dollars that's how much things have gone up so um with that in mind Jake let's kind of start off the topic the conversation really before we get into what it's like to drive this thing but where is the r1s as far as SUVs within the market like who is it competing with who is it for what is it for sure so first of all let's talk electric vehicles right electric vehicles well there's Tesla and there's the rest of them yeah and most electric vehicles are still Tesla they really dominate the market so Tesla they have a little variety of vehicles right they got the the model S the model y the thing is is that what they're missing and they have you know quite a bit of sedans and if anyone's been looking at the market lately not a whole lot of sedans sedans aren't very popular so rivien came up with a great idea it's like let's kind of do Tesla but let's do it in the market that everyone is buying so what is that simply pickup trucks three row SUVs and not Tesla Model X's with Falcon Wing doors or whatever but like Square two box you know three row SUVs um those are really hot in this market so really when you come down to it that's kind of rivian is these days it's kind of they're filling in those little the blanks in the Tesla Model uh model line of let's and when you look at these vehicles right I mean we've we've tested the the pickup truck and and now looking at three recipe it feels very Tesla yeah it really does um you know I mean it was almost like the infotainment system is almost kind of like yeah the steering wheel controls are the same basically a lot of the same frustrations or conveniences either way but very similar you know it's funny you bring that up Jake because it's almost like they they must have known that going in that we're going to fi I mean you'd think they said we're gonna go where Tesla isn't right I mean like how did they or or did they just guess that Tesla wasn't going to have a pickup by by now or they weren't going to have because like you said yes the the model X is a three row SUV but it's not a very practical three-year-old SUV by any stretch of the imagination so they they kind of just slid in there and they had a lot of time because I mean Tesla you know they Telegraph their product line way ahead right I mean they've been talking about you know the Roadster and the and the Cybertron and it's still not here so it's very clear where they're heading and they're like hey there's this giant market for three row SUVs and pickup trucks let's jump on it let's jump on it yeah uh okay so you talked about some of the kind of Tesla stuff but there's some non-tesla stuff as well you know well Tesla has some gimmicks with some of their cars we've talked about it before and rivian has sort of some gimmicks or features whatever whatever you want to call them such as the same things we saw in the uh the r1t pickup rechargeable LED flashlight that's tucked away in the driver's door a removable rechargeable Bluetooth speaker that's underneath the center console and there's an onboard air compressor with a hose and Joe just first of all are they gimmicks or are they actual valuable features and let's start with one that I think probably is valuable which is the air compressor and tell people why why would you put an air compressor on a vehicle like this yeah I think yeah there is a value to it depending on how well how well it works or how long it lasts depending on you know I don't know you know you wonder there's a lot of aftermarket air compressors is it as good as that I don't know but yeah you run into a situation especially if they're marketing it for like off-road use or whatever you can run into a situation where you may push the bead off lose some air whatever it may be have a puncture and you do want that you know capability of being able to inflate out in wherever you are off on a trail is pretty pretty big deal or if you air down so to speak you know a lot of times in really serious off-road situations which I don't know anyone would take their 80 000.95 and a series but you know quite often true off-roaders like let some air out of the tires when they get into these situations so then they with this onboard air compressor they can air it back up when they head back out to the road which is kind of neat but what about these other things Jake Bluetooth um speaker flashlight like you don't you you couldn't buy any of those yourself so so let's let's let's talk gimmicks right okay and and you know one person's gimmick is the other person's surprise and delight and doing product differentiator and all these different things and yes we talk about Tesla which has everything from video games to You Know karaoke and whatnot and fart noises of course you're gonna say it you gotta call that and and um certainly look the reviewed ones make a lot more sense in the context I mean there's also like you know we didn't talk about the camping mode where it where we'll you know adjust the the level for you the level for you if you're sleeping in the car or whatever but you know I you'd probably afford you know a nice setup if you could afford this car anyway beyond that um but here's the thing um look this is nearly a hundred thousand dollar vehicle and you could go get a you know 88 Civic and put in the trunk a Bluetooth speaker a air compressor um rechargeable flashlights all for less than 100 bucks I mean honestly there's other ways to do this I mean you could put a little you know cubby in the back and put your own stuff with some USB charging right and you'd be all set so so I mean to differentiate differentiate such an expensive vehicle by literally a couple things you go and get it you know the corner uh you know you know the Mart so not really Beyond I mean being a three-row SUV that's electric that's still fairly new but it does it's not breaking ground the way the pickup did in a sense like with that gear tunnel and stuff like that I mean that's they just did some really cool things with that this one has most of those same things yeah but nothing really it's a three-row SUV you know there's nothing really game changing about it other than yes it's a big boxy uh SUV which is surprisingly absent from the market and Joe fits really quick I mean yeah 835 horsepower just give people an idea of what it's like to floor it you know yeah all the way to the floor when you get all that power at once yeah so like in the past when you're driving you know traditional cars you actually like travel to the speed you're trying to get at with these EVS you just go directly to the speed you're at it feels like you know it's like slingshot effect or right you feel like you're driving a laser beam not a car really but yeah it gets to 60 and I would assume similar to the truck so it's going to get to 60 in around 4 seconds just under four seconds which is quick yeah I mean you can feel if you floor it which I I'll be honest uh it's I haven't gotten bored yet of at from low speeds just flooring the accelerator pedal because it's you know we for years journalists have talked about you know oh this pins you back into your seat these types of EVS truly do pin you back into your seat and you can feel the tires like squirming trying to get any little bit of traction but and it does a great job putting that power down when you think about it yeah if you look at our track actually where I do the launches from 60 or you know doing our quarter mile 5 500 meter runs you can see rubber down on the track but the wheels are never spinning they're just right at that limit of where they're just scrubbing like most efficient way to put the power down but it's putting those tires like to the to the ultimate test right there I'm gonna throw out just Counterpoint um you know I mean it goes back to the old adage that's it's much more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow and yeah I don't know how great of an idea is this giant Behemoth of a vehicle going zero to sixty in four seconds and they'd be on I actually drive in um the other day took out you know NRL lab we're done tests you know but the uh the GT86 the gr86 gr86 the um yeah they keep on changing the team on it you know the Scion you know yeah exactly so I took I took that out and you know it's it does not go zero to 164 seconds um anything near that but it's really fun because you got to work in order to do it right and this is effortlessly goes so fast that it's like you don't have time to engage when you drive a manual you have like six seconds to engage with the vehicle this is like yeah it's four but it feels like just a blink of an eye really it's like a Quantum gauge right it's like I'm stopped and now I'm going 60. now I'm going 100 you know your Speedo losing chunks of 10 mile an hour increments you don't see these gradual like increases in speed I'm not gonna say I can't sit here and say that it's not thrilling to floor that thing right I'm not going to say that and now you're talking acceleration versus handling and yeah gr-86 acceleration I'm like it's more fun well you know it's it's a it's just I mean you would this thing it's amazing but here's here's what I will say I think where you're sort of going with it besides the fact that maybe it's not as fun for some people and also I miss the I miss the engine sound too I really do I'm sure uh the revving high and everything but I think where you're sort of going is maybe this isn't the smartest thing for a vehicle this heavy to be able to accelerate that quickly just anyone can get it get in the car get in the truck and just floor you know it before you know and that was the other thing that so the power is amazing it's awesome and when you're doing like a say you're on a two-lane road and and you need to get around slower traffic and you punch it all the way to the floor which you don't need to to do this because it has so much power if you do by the time you're through that passing zone you are going ridiculously around so there is something I think where you're sort of going Jake is that maybe these aren't this artist this isn't the smartest way to do an electric vehicle yeah well I mean the question is you know I mean obviously we're in the business of raiding vehicles and you know we have a whole lot of different metrics and you know a lot of these you know again like if this went 0-60 in six seconds would that be kind of fast enough to get into traffic oh yeah you know is it that much better that it goes 0-60 in four seconds I mean for some people it's ridiculous it's an amusement park ride but you know does that make it safe for your family too right when you're competing with other manufacturers or just seeing sky's the limit in terms of acceleration it's like who's going to be the one to say enough is enough I don't know yeah well it's kind of funny because I love it it wasn't that many years ago that there was like this horsepower War whether it was and torque Wars with uh you know uh with the diesel pickups and everything everyone thought when are these horsepower Wars gonna end and then it seemed like oh maybe they are going to start ending and now they're just doing the same thing with the EVS they're just the exact same thing but sticking with it there are even with how quick it is and whatever there's actually some issues with the way that the power is delivered right and can you speak a little bit either one of you that just the the kind of the abruptness that has to do with the regenerative breaking right yeah so yeah exactly so first there's the regen issues but I'll start with acceleration in the throttle or accelerator whatever we're calling it now being a little touchy where you're rolling in and then you're kind of you almost get this little bit of like uh you're scared because as soon as the power hits it's pretty hard so you're trying to you know almost you want to creep right and it's very difficult to do that in slower situations and as well as with regen it's almost like the polar opposite where you're trying to come to a stop smoothly in the brake pedal you'll find just has a excessive travel and it's a little touchy too so as soon as you finally get feedback you get too much feedback and it's kind of you know accelerators the same brake pedal is the opposite same frustrations in a different it's kind of jerky you know it's very difficult especially if you're trying to you know gently get around like a garage space or something like that it's worse situations right so it's funny because this they have two different levels of regenerative braking that you can set it to standard and and high but they're both high and higher and you know one pedal driving which this is capable of which is basically you can come to a stop without ever having to touch the the actual physical brake pedal and it's possible to do with this truck in either of its modes and no question one pedal driving with a regener braking does take a different mindset right a different driving style you have to be smoother you have to be thinking about it because we're so used to regular gas cars right you just when you're even thinking about slowing down you just let off the accelerator pedal and it basically keeps going exactly but with this and in many electric cars you have a mode where you can do that too right and they don't have that here and and you don't that's a mistake right I I really do think it is I think a lot of people will get into it and be turned off because they'll want no certainly there's the one pedal drive you know thing and some people like that and it works but a lot of people who don't want that jerkiness and to not give you that selection although it turns out there is that solution we have breaking news today you found a hack for this um only abrupt throttle I am very um I have to admit I actually read the the manual very very no you did not I know I know I'm the only one but um you can turn off that regen that heavy regen and there's one way to do it is you have to go into a snow mode so if you go into snow mode you have the option of really having a very low regen or no late regen where you could actually Coast that like a normal car right so so I'm driving the car around in snow mode and you know at 70 degrees and I'm like this is actually way more pleasant I was gonna say is there a downside it doesn't appear to be so if you go and you could see in some of the modes first you go in sport you could see like the range changes and whatnot and it didn't really seem to change much at all so I'm like I think I would drive this car around a snowboard because you know it doesn't make my passengers nauseous when I constantly slow down every time I'm off the throttle so there's there's a tip for everyone right winter all year round how do I hack your Vivian again one pedal drive is I try to get used to it but I I don't like it I just feel like every they should just like you mentioned they should just have the options to be able to utilize Coast because I love that's how I usually that's how I prefer to drive one pedal drive I find myself always like misjudging this stop getting off the pedal too early and then having to roll back on or then touching the brake to soon getting back to the throttle and just frustrating and here's another thing that I recently realized that I had a sneaking suspicion was the case but I am now pretty darn positive is the case which is that they when there's a certain and JQ can probably speak more to this but when the the vehicle is breaking through gen breaking up to a certain amount of of force the brake lights have to come on either they have to come on or everyone puts them on well so what I found is I'm all think I'm doing this you know one pedal driving never having touched the brake pedal but what is happening actually is the brake lights are coming on a lot when I don't necessarily want them to but you're on the highway and like you're flashing I don't want to do that to people so that is kind of a downside to especially one like this where it's really hard to just be very gentle with the accelerator pedal so there are some downsides to it and so I'm I might be going because I've been this big I love trying to see if I can get it to stop you know to let off the accelerator pedal at the exact right point to then let it come to a stop it's a lot of distraction and words really it's a lot of work like hyper-miling when you really focus on trying to get them you just called me a nerd didn't you yeah yeah um speaking of nerdiness Joe let's talk about I know you love track handling I know that uh I don't know why that's nerdy that's not nerdy at all but this thing I mean speak to just how sort of crazy it is that this big heavy vehicle can handle as well as it does assuming you agree that it does handle yeah it does it handles real well it actually because you know you have lower center of gravity with the battery and it stays very flat there's not that much body roll the steering is pretty responsive but yeah I feel in the just as fast as as it is like when you're on our track you're getting from between turn to turn like the straightaways in between really quickly so you find yourself actually you can misjudge a turn if you don't you know you have to know to let up earlier because these cars go so fast but yeah handling in general is pretty pretty impressive for a vehicle that weighs what almost like seven thousand Pounds it's really heavy yeah what happened is that the people who were who used to be in charge of making like sports cars they're all working on EVS now and certainly I mean with rivian I mean actually if you go back in history they were looking at making sports cars but but these are today's sports cars and you know what's really weird just to throw it out I mean not a lot of electric sports cars are there because they don't need to be right I mean what the the high performance sports cars of the day now are sedans by Tesla SUVs and pickup trucks by rivian and I mean why not make it it's like you don't need to because if you might as well have four doors if you can well and that's not the practicality so you think about a sports car right like um we're gonna go Way Off Script here but there's no script let's get real but um sports cars are made in a certain way to be low to the ground so they handle better and low center of gravity right right when you got an EV it doesn't matter if you're an SUV or a sedan you got a low center of gravity because you get that big battery at the bottom so that's why all these SUVs are really sports cars they don't need to make those compromises because they have low surrender gravity they're unbelievably quick they could put the power down I mean they're doing all the sports car stuff but just with the body of whatever you want on it except the funny thing about this one Joe is that the truck the r1t rode pretty well yeah this thing I think it rides worse don't you yeah it's pretty like a sports car yeah seriously yeah it's firm there's a lot of impacts that just punch right through and some you know it's pretty unsettled for what you would expect out of most SUVs that are you know pretty compliant this thing is it feels like like we say it again a sports car type you know ride Comfort I think it rides rougher uh less refined than most SUVs out there honestly and I think this would it would be again we we still it has to go through our whole test program and everything but I think that would for me that would be a big sticking point but maybe the bigger sticker sticking point might be controls and I know Jake you love to talk about controls oh geez let me just so we have a first drive of the r1s up on our website consumerreports.org and johnlinkov friend of the podcast wrote the r1s's interior controls are identical to those of the r1t meaning they also mirror Tesla's overall approach of shove it all in the center screen which I think totally captures tell us like why of all things that you copy why would someone copy Tesla's controls well I mean look I I think a lot of it's almost like they want to get that Tesla customer so I mean say you had I mean there's a lot of people who have Tesla Model 3 right I mean that's a very common vehicle and a lot of people are like okay maybe I don't want a small sedan I want to move up to a three-row SUV or a pickup truck so I think it's more about just someone who's gonna hop into that one and feel like totally comfortable wow this is the same kind of environment yeah they already know what to do it's like getting these phone manufacturers that kind of copy each other where you know they're gonna you can kind of already be comfortable getting the newest phone or version of that right it's kind of you already you know it's easy easy to get used to I think it's just you know it's it's that mindset so it's just kind of like just it's almost like in the same product portfolio yeah you know and um you know again it's not it's not as bad as that I mean look there is a screen in front of the driver you know unlike on the Tesla Model three in the Tesla Model why you have you have that but it is super familiar you know in terms of how it how that big screen functions and like like Joe said like everything from the steering wheel and how you adjust the mirrors and how you adjust the steering wheel it's like oh it's a carbon copy and they're unlabeled steering wheel buttons I mean the fact that you have to go through the touch screen first if you want to make an adjustment to the to the steering wheel to the power steering wheel or the mirrors you have to first go through the touchscreen to say that's what you want to do and then you do the con you do the adjustments with the steering wheel controls which are unlabeled that said they show you on you know on the screen which way to move it you're playing a video game adjust your steering wheel and same with the adaptive cruise control right like well I can't remember which one wait which side is the volume which side is this Tesla model three for for four years you'd be used totally fine and actually engaging the the crews the after Crews and the lane centering it's the exact same way as on the double tap on that so it's about familiarity and where you're what you're comparing to well I mean the assumption is you're not moving from a Highlander to this you're moving from a Tesla and it's cool to know what those controls do without other people knowing right you're kind of create a handshake yeah yeah you're not in the club I'm totally not in the club uh also just from a safety standpoint I think it's insane that the that the emergency flashers button this is one of my everyone has their pet peeves right Gabe has his Gabe shanhars is is lumbar support mine apparently is is is emergency flashers buttons that are in weird locations and it's up on the center console you would the purpose of an emergence of the emergency flashers is we need to press them because you need to tell someone behind you hey slow down and I don't want to be fiddling around that's just stupid but um I will say at least the seat heater buttons are always on the touch screen visible you can always get to them which in you know there's some cars where you can't even do that so there's a lot to talk about with this r1s and we have a lot more information up on our website consumerreports.org a full first drive uh and it the r1s is going into our test program very soon it's just about up to our break-in miles and then stay tuned obviously for the full road test results uh as soon as we're done with that so with that let's move on to the audience question of the week folks don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips of talking cards at icloud.com that's the best way to reach out and talk to us and you know we do love those videos um and wouldn't you know we have one this week this is from Scott in Winnipeg Canada so let's roll that clip right now hi talking cars I just have my Subaru Forester in for service and it's making me look forward to when we are going to be replacing our 2013 Toyota Highlander in the fall we are looking for something that would be at least a five thousand pound towing capacity but something more fuel efficient and that is seeming to be something that is hard to find I have looked at the XC90 plug-in hybrid as well as the Grand Cherokee 4xe but neither of those rank very well on your reliability rankings I've also looked at the possibility of the 2024 Grand Highlander but I'm concerned that it won't have the fuel economy that we're looking for anything that you could point us towards would be greatly appreciated thanks so much and keep talking cars all right so I always love when people end their videos with and keep on talking cars I so thanks Scott for that that's kind of a neat thing people do uh so Joe this is not an easy question he basically admitted that uh so maybe almost a unicorn is what can you how can you help him I think the best thing you can do maybe is do nothing and kind of stick with what he's got because what do you do when you're kind of making all the correct decisions or doing what you should be or what we think you know and um kind of just ride it out and see what comes out down down the road wait for um the newer Highlander or wait for yeah the grand Highlander yeah I feel like it I don't know there's something to be said about just doing nothing when you have a decent option I know he wants better fuel economy but when you're kind of already getting the best of what you're gonna get maybe I don't know you just be complacent with it yeah Jake so first of all auto manufacturers if you're listening make this guy a car yeah um because really you know he's right um you know when you go to the hybrid SUVs you're usually cut to 3 500 pounds right why not just figure out how to make the thing pull five thousand if that means a little bit more powertrain cooling then so be it um but I'm with Joey over here um you know look you've got yourself a Highlander um you know those that at around 10 years they're just starting to get broken in they have a long life I think the one thing you could start thinking about I mean we we talk about bikes right I mean you know you have a mountain bike and you have a road bike right and you wouldn't want to do uh Triathlon you know Road Race on your mountain bike why not have the right tool for the right right job and I know it's difficult sometimes to have multiple cars but you know maybe the right answer is go get an EV for your everyday driving or commuting keep that Highlander don't rack the miles up on it only use it when you do need to tow and you do need to go on that trip but think about what you need daily so a lot of times we do see that people will get an EV and something for those trips and have the right tool for the right job if if you could afford that but again in terms of affording you might be a whole lot better off keeping this older Highlander and getting a more affordable EV than trying to get that vehicle that somehow does everything how about an EV for towing yeah I would avoid that we have a story on that I'm sort of I'm sort of hinting at which we just recently I want you to finish what you're going to say to be very patient we we just did a story it's up online where we towed a 10 000 pound trailer behind a rivian R1 our rivian r1t and our Ford F-150 Lightning and the results were kind of amazing like they did a great job Towing in most ways lots of power but the driving range went down to less than a third of what the EPA rates them at so Towing yes long range Towing no they're not even close to there yet if you're just Towing around just spend more time charging than you will exactly and think about trying to pull that big rig into uh you know a DC fast charge application but you were going to say something I guess in terms of back to his question there's always you know you got to ask yourself he's trying to compromise between two things right and he's got to just think about you know what's more important to him and then that can start leading him down maybe other routes if he does want to just pursue after getting something whether it be fuel economy or fuel efficiency or um yeah Towing so what's more important to them I kind of came up with sort of the same thing you guys are saying except what I thought was well he said he wanted better fuel economy than his 2013 Highlander so 2023 Highlander with the turbo four yeah uh gets you know better fuel economy than his did back in 2013 and can still tow 5000 pounds so he could also go that route sure uh it's not rated for more than five thousand pounds and 20 22 or whatever it gets is not amazing MPG I'm sure that's not what he's looking for and but it is one thought he could just get a newer Highlander get better fuel economy than what he's currently getting and still be able to tow so that's one option sure not bad uh all right that's going to do it for this episode if you want to learn more about the topics and the cars that we talked about you can click on the links in the show notes don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips to talking cars at icloud.com this episode was produced by Dave Abrams and edited by Anatoly schumsky and Andrew Balise thanks so much for watching and we'll see you all next week ha foreign foreign\n"