I've Driven My 2022 Rivian R1T for 50,000 Miles and 15 Road Trips, It's Better Than My Manual Tacoma Ever Was

By all accounts, the Rivian R1T shouldn’t exist. Not just because it’s an electric truck from a startup headquartered in Normal, Illinois, a place whose name is about the only thing ordinary in this saga, but because it has the audacity to go head-to-head with automotive titans. The Ford F-150 Lightning, Tesla’s angular, stainless-steel Cybertruck, and even a smattering of body-on-frame SUVs that masquerade as pickups. And yet, here it stands. Four all-terrain tires. Four motors. Over 800 horses. 50,000 miles on the odometer in three years, driven, not dreamed, by one real-world owner who decided to take a chance on a new American automaker and, in doing so, discovered something special.

“I first ordered my truck in February of 2020. I received it in July of 2022, an 8k VIN manufactured on June 14th, 2022 (thanks u/rivianroamer!).

My truck is my daily driver. We are a two-EV household, with Model 3 as our other vehicle. I’ve been on over fifteen 500+ mile road trips, mostly around the southeast, bringing my two Boston Terriers along for most of the rides. I’ll gladly answer any questions in the comments below and hope many of you find the same joy I find every time I step into my truck! If you’re somebody in the market for a Rivian, its free to use my referral code :) JR1810294

Truck Stats

2022 R1T Launch Edition, Quad Motor, Large Battery, Limestone, 20” All Terrain Dark Wheels, 1,048 Days to reach 50,000 miles, Replaced my first set of Pirelli Scorpion tires at 46,000 miles, You don't have to drive it like a sports car all the time!

Daily Use

Charge to 70% almost every night

Drive ~30 miles per day

4-5 road trips of 500+ miles per year

Range Degradation and Efficiency

100% displayed charge: All Purpose: 285 miles, Conserve: 313 miles

Real life longest drive: 263 miles @ 70mph average (100% to 0%)

5 trips over 250 miles

$760 in home charging in 2024

Service History

8/22: Plastic trim alignment (mobile)

10/22: Upper control arm recall (mobile)

1/23: Radar calibration (Atlanta SC)

3/23: Seat belt recall (mobile)

4/23: Windshield replacement, half shaft update, HV Battery replaced for engineering investigation purposes at 12k miles (Atlanta SC)

4/23: Pinch sensor hood alignment (mobile)

9/23: Charge port harness replacement at 19k miles (Atlanta SC)

12/23: Interior rattle fix (mobile)

1/24: Accelerator pedal recall (mobile)

7/24: 12V battery replacement at 33k miles (mobile)

9/24: Navigation unit reflash, PAAK reflash (mobile)

10/24: Replace HVAC module, carpet and insulation (Atlanta SC)

3/25: Windshield replacement (Duncan SC)

4/25: Pinch sensor hood alignment (mobile)

The Good

The truck simply rocks. I haven’t owned many vehicles so saying “best vehicle I’ve ever owned” seems kind of pointless because it blows all the others out of the water. (My previous vehicle was a 2018 Manual Tacoma). The driving experience remains great. This is partly due to the nature of EV’s, but really the interior experience and comfort just puts me in a good mood. OTA updates remain one of the best features of owning a Rivian. It sounds repetitive, but some updates really make the truck feel like you just stepped into a new car.

Ride quality continues to get better with every update. Software updates to improve ride quality is such a neat part of the ownership experience.

Putting the truck into sport and smashing the pedal will put a smile on anybody’s face even 3 years later.

The seats are in great shape. The materials used inside are holding up fantastically to daily use. Genuinely impressed.

No new rattles have formed over time. The early ones I had fixed stayed away and there haven’t been any new ones for ~25k miles.

I ceramic coated my truck on day one, and the paint has held up really well. I thought early on it felt “thin” but it’s remained in good shape. Atmos in my Meridian sound system has had some nice updates.

Service center locations are spreading. What used to be a 5-hour drive to Atlanta is now less than an hour to the nearest SC.

The community: Rivian owners are incredibly helpful when issues arise and I genuinely love chatting about everything Rivian with many of you.

The Annoyances

PPF was easily one of the best investments for longevity of the front fascia paint. A+ bug smashing vehicle. Camp Speaker is kind of a dud. Connectivity is tough.

Arrival estimates in miles and no negative value is easily the hardest part of road trip estimates. Well documented software bugs with some of the load times, but nothing that makes me want something else. I find it difficult to clean the plastic exterior trim. Simple Green and some washcloth scrubbings get it, but it’s an extra step in cleaning that can be time consuming to make it look right.

 

Disengagement of Driver+ can be exhausting when you aren’t expecting it. Full alarms and slow down when you least expect it. No need to scream! Now that I type these out, its exciting to think many of these can be solved with software.

Most asked questions 3 years later. Rivian? Who makes it? How far can you go?”

Reddit user Jrh20racing, who turned his R1T into a daily commuter, a long-haul cruiser, a dog-hauler, and perhaps even a spiritual successor to the kind of vehicle that means something to the person who owns it. In his own words, the Rivian “blows all the others out of the water,” including his previous ride, a 2018 manual Toyota Tacoma. And that’s not said lightly. That’s a truck people worship. But when you swap a manual shifter for four torque-vectoring motors and 835 electric horses, things change.

2025 Rivian R1S Reliability & OTA Updates

• The R1S launched in 2022 and was frequently rated among the least reliable EVs by Consumer Reports (with a score around 14/100). However, it also achieved top marks in customer satisfaction, highlighting that buyers value its adventure-ready design and features despite Common problems reported by owners included trim fitment issues, dashboard rattles, wind noise, and occasional electronic oddities. These were mostly resolved with minor visits to service centers or through mobile repairs
• The 2025 Gen‑2 R1S addressed many earlier small issues, yet some owners continue to report residual quirks. This suggests that while manufacturing and quality control have improved, full reliability maturity is still in progress
• Since launching, the R1S has received over 500 OTA updates across 30+ major deployments over 2½ years. These have enhanced everything from off-road modes (like Rally Mode for dual‑motor models) to ADAS, performance, and remote diagnostics, showcasing Rivian’s strong commitment to continuous software improvement

Now, let’s get the big red flag out of the way, 14 services in 36 months. At first glance, it feels like a reliability red alert. But dig deeper, four of those were actual mechanical issues. 

The rest? Recalls, rock-chipped windshields, and minor tweaks like pinch sensor alignments after glass replacement. And get this: most of those were handled by Rivian’s mobile techs at his home or office. No dealership lobbies. No stale coffee. Just someone showing up with a van and a solution. One commenter summed it up best: “Still my favorite vehicle I’ve ever driven.” That’s not the kind of thing you say after 14 service calls unless the experience matters.

It’s not about numbers on a spec sheet. It’s about how the car feels. Every software update doesn’t just tweak, some transform. The suspension tightens up, the regen tuning gets more intuitive, and the interface becomes more usable. “It sounds repetitive,” writes Jrh20racing, “but some updates really make the truck feel like you just stepped into a new car.”

What Makes Rivian Stand Out in 2025

Critics, and there are always critics, will point out the imperfections. The Camp Speaker is a dud. The Driver+ system sometimes disengages with the subtlety of a fire alarm. And the range estimator, for all its code, still can’t show negative mileage during descent. These are valid complaints, but they’re also fixable. The hardware is solid. The interior materials have aged well. Even the Pirelli Scorpions held out until 46,000 miles, on a 7,000-pound truck that can do 0–60 in three seconds. 

And what about utility? This is a truck in the truest American sense. It tows. It hauls. It plays dirty. It drives through weather that’d strand most compact SUVs. Owners report no tire bias, no weird tread patterns from constant torque assault. Some use it hard. Some drive it gently. Either way, it holds up. One RivianForums.com user noted they were still seeing even wear at 15,000 miles, saying, “I do not drive gently.” This is not a delicate electric flower. This is an electrified battle axe with cup holders.

Rivian Company Growth & Evolution

• Founded in 2009 by RJ Scaringe (as Mainstream/Avera Motors), Rivian pivoted to EVs by mid‑2010s. They acquired and repurposed a former Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Illinois in 2017, scaled to ~3,000 employees by late 2020, and exceeded 9,000 by late 2021
• Rivian went public in November 2021, raising $13.5 billion at a lofty valuation ($100 billion). They began delivering the R1T truck and subsequently the R1S SUV, pushing vehicle deliveries from ~24,000 in 2022 to over 51,500 in 2024
• Despite steep net losses (over $4.7 billion in 2024), Rivian hit its first-ever positive gross profit ($170 million in Q4 2024) on $1.7 billion quarterly revenue. This signals improved cost efficiency, even as full profitability remains a longer-term goal
• Rivian forged a high‑stake joint venture with Volkswagen, backed by a $5.8 billion investment, to co-develop software-defined vehicle platforms. Meanwhile, they expanded beyond consumer models, moving into electric delivery vans for fleets (initially Amazon, now broader), and began planning R2/R3 for lower price segments

What makes the R1T fascinating, and why it resonates more than the Cybertruck’s cold brutalism or the Lightning’s mainstream caution, is its character. It’s not afraid to be weird. It's not afraid to be luxurious. And most importantly, it’s not afraid to be American. Not the flag-waving, tailpipe-blasting caricature, but the kind that invents, reinvents, and refuses to compromise. It doesn’t fit into one segment. It’s not chasing F-150 volume or Model Y sales. It’s something else entirely. Something born in Normal, Illinois, and raised on the backroads of Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee, Boston Terriers in tow.

So what’s the final verdict, three years and 50,000 miles later? “The truck simply rocks.” That’s it. That’s the line. There’s no asterisk, no qualification. Rivian’s R1T isn’t perfect. But it doesn’t have to be. It’s meaningful. It’s evolving. And in an industry bloated with sameness, that makes it not just a good truck, but a great one.

Image Sources: Rivian Media Center

Noah Washington is an automotive journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. He enjoys covering the latest news in the automotive industry and conducting reviews on the latest cars. He has been in the automotive industry since 15 years old and has been featured in prominent automotive news sites. You can reach him on X and LinkedIn for tips and to follow his automotive coverage.