Adventures with our 2025 Rivian R1S dual motor max pack

[crazysccrmd]

Your rave reviews of the dual motor really make me curious about the quad motor!

The quad is good, but not great, off-road. A conventional ICE vehicle with lockers performs far better than a quad Rivian with its current software implementation. Individual motors sound great but if the software controlling them isn’t done right (like on the Rivian’s now) they suffer from issues with threshold to detect slip prior to limiting torque and balancing it across all four motors as each encounters different degrees of traction. Right now a wheel will slip, spin, cut the motor and then not allow a small application of power to continue moving so you end up powering over/through obstacles almost like you’d have to do with a 2wd truck by using momentum rather than finesse.

 

[Jeremy P.]

For Thanksgiving we towed a small uhaul 1100 miles to Minnesota (with the equipment to put solar on my in-laws house!) I signed up for the tesla supercharging membership and used tesla fast charging for all but one stop each way. We were fortunate to have an open space to pull into at each stop without waiting. We also had level 2 charging at our overnight stays and at our destination. It was a balmy 3 degrees the morning we left for home!
Without the trailer the travel time wasn't much different than in the past (especially with 3 kids).


Staying entertained while charging!

 

[BrazilianT4R]

The Rivian is quite impressive indeed but I must say your pictures are bloody awesome!

 

[Jeremy P.]

I took my family on a trip to southern Utah over New years in order to do some desert exploring. Our first day was traveling from western Colorado to Escalante, Utah with a short detour into Capitol Reef national park to hike down capitol gorge. We arrived at the canyon county lodge with 12% and plugged into the tesla destination chargers. It's so great to be able to add 125 kwh for free overnight! The next day we headed through Cannonville and hiked the Willis creek slot canyon, which was interesting with a layer of ice through most of the narrow sections. We then headed down Cottonwood road, went by Grosvenor arch and hiked the cottonwood narrows. We continued down Cottonwood road, which fortunately was dry and fairly smooth, and came out on highway 89 and made a quick stop at the toadstools, an area with interesting rock formations. We stayed in Kanab that night at the LaQuinta which also has tesla destination chargers and really cheap rooms at this time of year! We arrived with the battery at 50% so it was no problem charging back up to 100% overnight.

 

[Jeremy P.]

The next day we went out to Wire Pass, a slot canyon that joins the Buckskin Gulch slot canyon in the Vermillion Cliffs national monument. I aired down to 30psi shortly after getting onto House Rock Valley Road because it had a lot of washboard and loose chunky rock on it. After wire pass we continued south and took blm road 1079/1084/1323/1086 to get to White Pocket, an amazing sandstone area with endless features to explore. The route we took was not recommended on the blm map because of deep sand, so of course I needed to take it! I used snow mode since I have a dual motor R1S, non-performance and it was no problem going through the sand, although I could tell at certain spots where other vehicles had been stuck in the past. I parked in the lower parking lot at white pocket which has a sandy downhill approach but again it was no problem driving back out. We took blm 1086/1087/1017 out which had much less sand but much more washboard. I didn't air up until back at the motel but still arrived with 48% charge after about 150 miles of highway and offroad.

 

[Jeremy P.]

On our last day we checked out the sand caves just north of Kanab, went through the Best Friends animal sanctuary so the kids could beg for more pets, and went out to peek-a-boo (or red) canyon. The route out to the canyon was much deeper sand than the day before, especially since I took route 102L instead of 102 and because it's mostly utv's going out there which are constantly churning the sand and creating super-sized (about 8-12" deep) washboard, always at the run-up to a hill. I started without airing down but soon dropped down to 30 again which makes a huge difference in the sand. After taking route 102 out we aired up and headed to home, charging at the Richfield supercharger enough to make it home 220 miles, which used 80%. Overall the trip was about 950 miles and as always a trip like this leaves me wanting to go back and explore more!

 

[Jeremy P.]

Here are a couple video clips of driving out of white pocket, and taking a shot at going back up the (ridiculously steep) hill where route 102L drops down into red canyon (route 102 is the typical route to take).

Rivian R1S driving out of White Pocket lower parking area #rivian

youtube.com

R1S dual motor on steep sand hill

youtube.com

 

[AbleGuy]

This thread has been a very interesting and helpful real world report on the utility of this truck.

The pictures you posted were very scenic too. Thank you for sharing your report with us. It was a classic fit for what the expedition Portal is supposed to be all about!

 

[ThundahBeagle]

The Rivian is quite impressive indeed but I must say your pictures are bloody awesome!

Right?! Yep

 

[fourfa]

Great pics. No luck getting a permit for The Wave?

 

[Ex Animo]

Nice trip report and photos! A few years ago we thru-hiked Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon to Lees Ferry over 3 days. It was on of the best backpacking trips I've ever been on, up there with trekking in Nepal. That whole area is just awesome, spent a week exploring Grand Staircase and Capital Reef back in 2016. Happy to hear those areas are easily doable with a EV!

 

[Jeremy P.]

This thread has been a very interesting and helpful real world report on the utility of this truck.

The pictures you posted were very scenic too. Thank you for sharing your report with us. It was a classic fit for what the expedition Portal is supposed to be all about!

I'm glad you like the pictures; I figured it would be helpful for people to learn about our real world experiences with our Rivian.

 

[Jeremy P.]

Great pics. No luck getting a permit for The Wave?

We didn't try; maybe we'll see if we can get a permit next time!