Rivian gave us a loaner R1T for four days last week to drive around and enjoy. We took it from the Brooklyn delivery center through New York City, into the Adirondacks, and back through the mud, suburbs, and traffic.<\/p>\n
For background, we\u2019re already gushing over the R1T from our first drive of it,<\/a> naming it Electrek\u2019s vehicle of the year 2021<\/a>, but now we\u2019ve gotten some alone time with it and have seen some of the software updates that have moved into production vehicles \u2013\u00a0and we\u2019ve got a whole new appreciation.<\/p>\n So backing out a little bit, it is important to discuss Rivian\u2019s place in the automotive world. <\/p>\n Rivian, an EV startup that has never produced a ICE vehicle, produces delivery vehicles for Amazon and two consumer vehicles, the R1S SUV and the R1T pickup. The Amazon relationship goes beyond delivery vehicles in that the online retail behemoth owns a significant share of Rivian. It also has an influence on decisions in Rivian\u2019s product, like including its Alexa Voice recognition and smart speaker technology \u2013 for better or worse \u2013 that we\u2019ll go into much more detail later. <\/p>\n The flip side to giving Amazon some of the control is that they now have an almost limitless runway of cash to scale their operations. That\u2019s important because the auto industry is scrambling for battery supply now \u2013 which is and will continue to be \u2013 the bottleneck of EV production over the next few years. <\/p>\n While Rivian has made a few R1S SUVs, it is currently making 100x more R1T pickups, and that\u2019s what we are looking at here. When I arrived at the showroom\/service\/distribution point in Brooklyn, I guessed there were 100 Rivians in the lot. I was told there were at least double that many R1Ts. There were zero R1Ses, however, but I was told that a few deliveries were happening \u2013 though those are likely for employees.<\/p>\n The service center itself was nice with many (15-ish?) bays for repairs to get done and a nice big room for waiting for deliveries. While it was packed to the gills with R1Ts, there were only a few employees around, and that\u2019s the current bottleneck for delivering vehicles in Brooklyn. There are also training sessions going on in Brooklyn for new and upcoming service and delivery centers for places like Boston and Cleveland. <\/p>\n The location of the Rivian service center\u2026.sucked. I get it \u2013 isn\u2019t easy to find good space in New York City, but locating a premium car service\/center in the center of a sketchy warehouse district was probably a bridge too far in the cost-cutting scenario. I didn\u2019t feel any danger during daylight pickup and drop-off, but I can\u2019t say I\u2019d feel great about sending my wife there with a damaged vehicle at night where she\u2019d have to walk a half-mile to jump on the L train to get home.<\/p>\n Also, you can see from my drive in video below, you are navigating a bunch of traffic-ridden, pot-holed streets which remind me why I never owned a car when I lived in the city. As a suggestion, putting this thing off the West Side Highway in upper midtown with the rest of the car dealerships and service centers would have made sense to me. <\/p>\n Wrap up in 360 (make sure to scroll around the video)<\/em>:<\/p>\n \nRivian the company<\/h2>\n
Rivian Brooklyn Service Center<\/h2>\n