Buying a Rivian R1T electric pickup truck was a miserable experience.
May one man’s suffering with the Rivian R1T shed some light.
I will start this by saying I have zero buyer’s remorse. Within about a day of driving the Rivian R1T—even in unfinished pre-production form, as was the case on our cross-country, Trans-America Trail journey—I knew I simply had to have one. Moreover, the R1T impressed every single editor on the TAT goat rodeo and we even named it our 2022 MotorTrend Truck of the Year, the highest honor in the biz. And so, on Flag Day, June 14, I took delivery of my “Spinach Omelet” electric pickup truck. Why Spinach Omelet? I went for the unusual but gorgeous color combo of Compass Yellow over Forest Edge. Yes, my 835-hp pickup truck has a vegan “leather” interior the color of day-old guacamole. The R1T is superlative. I love it.
But buying it? I’d rather visit my periodontist and get my gums scraped.
The process began when I put down a $1,000 deposit, and luckily I did so before Rivian jacked the price of the truck by 20 percent. Soon after, a very friendly Rivian Guide—a specific customer service agent who helps each buyer through the process—contacted me to see if I had any questions. As I’d already driven the truck 1,850 miles across six states, I had just one: When will I get mine? The conversation went something like this:
Me: Can you tell me when I’ll get the truck?
Rivian Guide: I’m sorry, I can’t answer that.
Me: Well, can you tell me if I’ll get it near or if I’ll get it far?
RG: I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that.
Me: Will I get it in 2023?
RG: I’m sorry, I can’t say.
If you can picture my eyes rolling up into my brainpan, that’s good because that’s exactly what happened. If you don’t know, I’m a cast member of the popular automotive podcast “Spike’s Car Radio.” I used this big megaphone to tell the above anecdote on an episode. A month or so goes by and I get an unexpected phone call from my Rivian Guide. I’m paraphrasing here, but they said, “Hey, what if instead of the truck you ordered, we got you an identically spec’d Launch Edition R1T? It would only cost you $400 more, and you’d get it in July instead of unknown?” I quizzed them pretty hard. For real, it’s identically spec’d? With yellow paint, a green interior, underbody armor, the off-road recovery kit, ski racks, all that? Yes, I was assured. My exact spec. For only $400? How could I not?
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I agreed and was then told to just go and fill out the eight-step buying process on the website. When I heard “eight steps,” I got nervous. Sounded like too many. More than an hour later, I was thinking about smashing my laptop against the wall. I’d managed to complete perhaps 5 of the 8 steps and my blood was boiling. The one that killed me—aside from essentially being forced to sign up for Rivian’s Nationwide-backed insurance to get to the next step—was the value offered for my trade-in. I had a 2014 Ford Fiesta ST in good, slightly modified condition with 43,000 miles on the clock. Rivian’s website offered me $10,400. I not only balked, I called my Rivian Guide and said something like, “are you kidding?!” No, I was told, that’s what the computer offers and there’s nothing they can do about it. Fine, I’d just sell the damn thing privately.
In May, I received a call from a different, equally friendly Rivian employee at the company’s delivery center in El Segundo, California, just 0.5 mile from MotorTrend HQ. “Your truck’s here. We’re so happy you went with such a bold colorway.” Whoa, whoa, whoa. It’s here? (Also, I still needed to sell the Ford, which I was able to do rather quickly for nearly 50 percent more than Rivian offered.) Because I was leaving for Pikes Peak practice, we settled on the day after I returned, June 14, for handover. Sunday evening, June 12, I’m told by my friendly Guide to make sure I bring a certified or cashier’s check with me on Tuesday. “What?!” I rudely exclaim. “You’re telling me this now? I’m in Colorado, and flying back tomorrow, landing after my bank is closed and I have to work the morning of the 14th? How can I get a cashier’s check?”
Then I’m told there’s another option. I can just simply link my bank account to my Rivian account and pay that way. All I have to do is go to the website and link the two. Thirty minutes and dozens (fine, hundreds) of swear words later, I determine that, nope, there’s no freaking way to link my bank account to my Rivian account via the blasted website. I call my Rivian Guide back to explain this and ask for assistance. I mentioned that when I picked up my Alfa Romeo Giulia that I also custom ordered, I was in and out of the dealership in 26 minutes, and that it would have taken less time but they forced me to drive the car around the block. I’d just wasted more time than that on the Rivian website, and I’m furious. My Guide had no answer, so I needed to delay delivery until I had a chance to get a certified check.
The next day I’m told, you know what, Rivian will accept a personal check from me after all. I’m not optimistic an anonymous buyer would get the same pass, but at least we’re back on. I’m leaving out details of the seemingly never-ending series of documents to sign (it was like buying real estate), but mercifully they’re all electronic-signature-type things. The next day I get to the MotorTrend office at 10:15 a.m. and the thing I’m supposed to be doing gets canceled. I call my Rivian Guide and arrange to grab the truck then, not at 2:30 p.m. as scheduled. Thirty minutes later, I arrive at the delivery center but am informed my early arrival will mean things will take a while. Now, I know they’re not putting gas in the thing, so I have no idea what the holdup is, but my gorgeous new truck was parked right out front by about noon.
I guess the delay wasn’t because they were checking the paint, because a brief once-over revealed the paint-protection film on one of the gear-tunnel doors was defective, and my truck went away. It’s fixed and 90 minutes later, I’m driving home. Hurray! Although, it must be said three hours to turn over my truck that I’d learned had been sitting there for days if not weeks is crazy. But hey, the Rivian R1T is fantastic and worth the wait.
An electrician came over just before I sat down to write this, to install the Rivian charger that the company had shipped to my house. After about 90 minutes it was ready and we tried to pair the unit to the Rivian app. No luck. We pored over the instruction manual, and tried to pair it three more times. Still no luck. A solid red light then illuminated, which is a signal you need to contact Rivian. After 20 minutes of being on hold, my electrician left for other jobs. Eventually, I spoke with someone who told me I needed my electrician to proceed. Long story short—and many more privately spoken foul words later—my electrician agreed to come back.
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Rivian wanted him to confirm the charger was getting power from the breaker (it was, to the tune of 240 volts) and confirm that everything was hooked up and set correctly. It was, as verified by sending photos to Rivian for analysis. Bum charger, it turned out, and Rivian is shipping a new one. Meaning that as of this writing, I cannot charge my brand-new electric truck at my house. This is awful because I have to deal with the often unreliable Electrify America charging network. I know this will all get resolved and I’ll soon be blissfully motoring along in my Spinach Omelet R1T, but man, I didn’t know I had so much swearing in me. You learn something new every day.
The Rivian buying experience needs improvement.
I wrote this screed after burning an entire day’s worth of time dealing with a defective Rivian charger and a new company’s processes. My R1T’s VIN ends in 05020. I don’t know the actual production numbers, but seeing as my truck was built in May, I’d guess the 7,000th R1T hasn’t rolled off the line yet. Lamborghini builds more cars in a year than that. True to its word, Rivian shipped out a new charger, got a third party to come remove the busted one and install the good one, and all that only took a few days. Since then, the Lieberman household has been experiencing trouble- and gasoline-free charging and driving, and my Alfa Romeo wound up in the shop.
So, why write this? Rivian needs to get its buying experience in order. True believers like me who know how good the truck is will put up with this sort of nonsense. But with electric Ford trucks coming on strong, the buying experience needs to be as simple as possible. Tesla, despite numerous other faults, has mastered this process. The cars just show up at your house. Easy as that. Rivian can get there. When it comes to cars, like so many things, it’s the little things that count.