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