What it's like to go electric with Rivian

The Street

Our automotive reporter and self-proclaimed EV skeptic James Ochoa spent a week behind the wheel of the Rivian R1S.

Transcript

00:00And for the past week, I've been driving this, the 2025 Rivian R1S.

00:05And while there's a lot to love in this EV, there's a lot to learn for someone switching

00:11from gas to electric.

00:12And honestly, from what I've learned, it's quite a ride.

00:16First thing I really have to complain about is the key.

00:21There is no key.

00:22The guys at Rivian provided me with one of these.

00:25To actually start the car, not just unlock it, to start the car, you go down here.

00:31And because the car is electric, it's already started.

00:35When you climb in, I mean, you're treated to an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous interior.

00:43Very very clean, very very nice.

00:45It's dominated by this huge, huge screen right here.

00:50Because this car has no buttons, have a guess where you would actually adjust the mirrors.

00:57Display, access, no, it's not anywhere here.

01:01Update service, here, no, it's not here, it's not here.

01:06You wanna know where it actually is?

01:09Here.

01:11For some reason.

01:13This is where you adjust your mirrors.

01:15This is where you adjust your steering wheel.

01:18That took me 30 minutes to figure out.

01:20It's not okay.

01:22Everything here just seems kind of tailor made to the whole EV driving experience.

01:29What's that, you see that right there, 222 miles?

01:32That's still an ambiguous 222 miles that we still have.

01:37I don't wanna find out what I need to charge.

01:43But so far, there's not really a lot I could really complain about in terms of the actual

01:51driving experience.

01:53Except for one really, really important detail that really separates the whole EV experience

02:01from the gas experience.

02:04And that is something called regenerative braking.

02:08Now to put regenerative braking in very, very simple terms, the vehicle's brakes are

02:16not just the actual brakes, which you see inside of the wheels.

02:21Rather, the brakes are also a part of the engine, if you could kind of say.

02:28So in the 0.1 seconds that it takes for me to lift my foot off of the gas pedal to the

02:35brake pedal, the car is already, in essence, braking for me using regenerative braking.

02:41Now regenerative braking has its advantages, but I think the biggest disadvantage, it will

02:48dramatically change the way you actually drive.

02:51Your body is slowly starting getting used to how the car will actually react to certain

02:57things.

02:58I think it's going to be more jarring if someone goes back from an electric car to a gas-powered

03:07car.

03:08Day three going into this, I'm really starting to see past the fact that this is electric

03:15and really starting to see something beyond, can we say like the gimmick?

03:21I have 149 miles left in the battery before it really needs to be plugged in.

03:27149 miles is quite a distance.

03:31I'm pretty sure there's a lot of stuff we can do with this thing before I need to recharge

03:36it.

03:37Right now I currently have 126 miles on the clock, 125 now, oh gosh.

03:45For what I'm doing right now, I'm relatively unafraid.

03:49Right now it's one o'clock, I'm going to go to a restaurant I've actually haven't been

03:56to in a while.

03:57Man, I really do not want to street park, look and feel like Meadow Soprano doing the

04:05whole thing.

04:06Actually, I'm pretty sure it'll fit.

04:09God, it's not going to fit, is it?

04:16I'm down to 16% battery left.

04:19I think today is the day we're going to charge.

04:22Okay, so I have found a easy go station, at least for this car, it says like 410 miles.

04:31I mean, that's for if you charge up to 100% and then you go all the way down to 0%.

04:38410 miles is what they get in a laboratory setting.

04:44This is the real world, this is not a laboratory.

04:47There's one, two, three, four, five stalls and all five of them, okay, another EV has

04:55joined the line.

04:57EV charging Battle Royale over here.

05:03Finally, oh Nelly, yes, absolutely.

05:09So I think the only thing we could really do right now is honestly just wait.

05:16Yeah, yeah, good times.

05:19So that right there, it's saying I have 13%.

05:23What the, wait, what?

05:24Why is it 60, 67?

05:27So basically, like yesterday's experience is not representative of like all EVs, most,

05:34if not a lot of batteries that are installed in many of the EVs that you see on the road.

05:42They have much smaller batteries than this thing.

05:45Knowing the size of the battery is really important because that really determines how

05:51much electricity is going to be going into the car, how much it's going to cost, and

05:55also how fast it's actually going to charge up.

05:59I mean, this is a big battery.

06:00It took a heck of a long time to charge.

06:03We were at a quote unquote quick charger.

06:06You're essentially paying for the service that these people provide.

06:10I mean, at this point, I really is starting to think that having an EV is kind of less

06:16about what an EV can do for you and more about where it can actually take you.

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