Rivian revealed what at first looked like a very lightly updated R1 model line that appeared almost identical to the vehicle it’s been selling since 2021. However, the exterior changes do not indicate how much work has been done to these trucks under the skin. Once you discover all the changes, you understand why Rivian bills these revised trucks as a new generation.
Jordan Schiefer of Out of Spec Reviews lined up pre- and post-refresh R1S SUVs to see what’s different and whether the new truck is more than just a facelift. In this lengthy video, Jordan, with a voiceless Kyle Conner behind the camera, goes over all of the visible changes and the ones you can’t see.
The biggest change under the skin is using drive units that Rivian now makes in-house. All pre-refresh R1 trucks with more than two motors had Bosch drive units, but now Rivian makes its own. It’s currently only building dual-motor vehicles, but it plans to launch tri-motor and quad-motor R1s with much more power than before.
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The big changes are under the skin
With new motors, batteries and mechanical improvements (including the addition of a heat pump that R1 trucks didn't have before regardless of version), the revised R1S and R1T promise to be a lot better than before.
The quad-motor will get a power boost from 835 horsepower to 1,025 hp, while torque will go up from 908 pound-feet to 1,198 lb-ft. Rivian says this will give its trucks an acceleration time from a standstill to 60 mph of under 2.5 seconds. The new tri-motor will have more power than the outgoing quad-motor, 850 hp, and can complete the benchmark sprint in a claimed 2.9 seconds.
Another significant under-the-skin change is the switch to an LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery pack for the base dual-motor R1 and adding a heat pump. It gives the R1T and R1S an EPA range of 270 miles on one charge. Out of Spec put a second-gen R1S dual-motor through the 70 mph range test, and the real-world highway result was 241 miles.
In this video, they go through more minor changes, like how the front and rear light bars are different. In revised R1s, you now get an emergency function that uses the rear light bar to direct traffic around the vehicle if it’s stopped in a dangerous, low-visibility area—it lights up segments on the light bar to indicate the direction to go around the stopped truck.
They also point out that the front light bar is more different than you might be able to spot at first glance. Whereas the pre-refresh truck had a diffuse effect on the whole light bar, the new one has more depth to it and looks quite different in person—let us know in the comments which style light bar you prefer. You can easily tell the difference if you have the older truck parked next to it like they have in the video.
Pre-refresh trucks seem to have better-quality door handles and door-opening mechanisms. The R1S they had in the video had squeaky handles, which was not a problem for the older version, even after a few years. They also point out that the door itself feels lighter and that there are subtle differences in the plastic used for the door card—this could be evidence of cost-cutting.
Other differences they found were the number of cameras on the side mirrors, the charging port, the interior, and the driving modes. If you want a complete breakdown of everything different between the two generations, this video should answer most of your questions.
