2025 Rivian R1S Owner Review: Likes, Dislikes, and Bugs

Quick correction before anything else: in the Rivian service trip video, I said Rivian’s Enterprise loaner came with free Supercharging. It did not. I got billed $85. Rivian is reimbursing it, but just to be clear: free charging on the Rivian Adventure Network is only when Rivian provides you with an actual Rivian loaner, not a third-party Enterprise rental.

Now, to the review. This is the 2025 Rivian R1S Dual-Motor Performance in Glacier White with Ocean Coast interior and 22-inch Sport Bright wheels. A little over two months and 2,400 miles in.

What I Like

The color and interior. Glacier White reads differently in person than any white I’ve had on a Tesla. The Ocean Coast interior is the right pairing — dark wood trim, bronze/gold accents on the handles and headrests, and a light silver contrast stitching that catches different light at different angles. The headliner matches the interior color, which the R1T I had previously didn’t do. I can’t overstate how much I like this combination.

Third-row space. I brought Butter_EV and KobraToldYa out to see the R1S when it was brand new. Both are over 6 feet tall — Butter is 6’2”, Cobra is 6 feet. I didn’t tell them where they were sitting. They climbed in the third row, and within about 30 seconds the reaction was genuine surprise. They fit, with room to spare, and said they were comfortable. That’s two grown men over 6 feet in the third row of an EV, not complaining. The roof extends all the way across the rear of the vehicle rather than sloping down for aerodynamics — that’s the difference. Compare that to the Model Y three-row, where my son taps out after 30 minutes and climbs back to the second row. In the R1S he rides all the way through our road trips back there without issue.

Driving comfort. The air suspension with adjustable ride height and damping makes a real difference. I run it at Standard on the highway rather than letting Auto drop it to Low — the efficiency loss is maybe 2%, but you get noticeably better ride quality and more even tire wear. The caveat: the setting doesn’t stick after the car sleeps, so I re-set it every time I get on the freeway. Minor annoyance, easily fixed with a software update.

Climate. I’m running 71-73°F with ventilated seats in SoCal summer and it’s comfortable. My Gen 1 R1T required 68-69°F or lower to feel the same. The third row has its own HVAC controls — cool and recirculated air only, no heat — but it’s enough. My son hasn’t complained once.

Features I didn’t expect to care about. Matrix headlights: I ignored them until I had them, now I miss them when they’re absent. Sequential turn signals are a small thing that adds up. The roadside emergency lighting direction control (Gen 2 only) is the kind of feature you don’t need until you need it. Gear Guard uses only 1-2% energy overnight, compared to 5-10% with Tesla Sentry Mode — that’s meaningful on road trips. The Rivian key cards are numbered, which matters in a multi-EV household for telling vehicles apart. Monthly software updates, even when they introduce new bugs, signal that Rivian is actively paying attention.

What Needs Work

Audio. This is the biggest disappointment. I paid for Premium Audio. I shouldn’t have. My Gen 1 R1T with the base Elevation system sounded better. Hopefully this improves via software; it’s hard to fix hardware after purchase.

THE LIFTGATE HAS NO CUSTOM HEIGHT. This was a genuine shock. In a Tesla, you hold the button, it beeps, and it memorizes that height per location. The R1S — Gen 1 and Gen 2 — has none of that. My garage clearance is tight, and every time I open the liftgate I have to catch it manually. For a vehicle at this price point, it’s an embarrassing omission.

The seat profile bug. On a regular basis: I get in, the profile detects me, but when I press the brake, the seat stays in easy entry/exit position. I have to manually hit Restore. The problem is Restore and Remember are stacked on top of each other, and I accidentally hit Remember once — which saved my easy entry position as my actual seat profile. Had to reset everything. This isn’t an edge case; it’s frequent.

Bluetooth static. Intermittent interference when streaming from my iPhone. Disconnecting and reconnecting sometimes fixes it, sometimes doesn’t. Same phone works fine in the Cybertruck and Model Y, same issue happened on the Gen 1 R1T. My best guess is a driver-level bug, not the phone.

App preconditioning. Remote climate control fails or times out enough that I’ve basically stopped relying on it. By the time the car wakes up and responds, I’m usually already walking to it. The phone-to-vehicle communication needs a reliability pass.

Charging heat management. The Gen 2 battery is smaller than the Gen 1 but has similar range — they’ve improved efficiency. However, the thermal management is worse. In summer temps in SoCal and Las Vegas, the battery hit the thermal limit and stopped charging on multiple occasions. That never happened with my Gen 1 R1T. Vegas road trip data here.

Feature Requests

A few things I’d send directly to Rivian’s product team if I could:

• Auto-park on seatbelt unbuckle. Every Tesla with swipe-to-drive does this. It’s convenient.
• Powered seat folding in both directions. The R1S has buttons to fold the second row but not to raise it back up. For a vehicle used as a family hauler, this gets old fast.
• Adjustable throttle mapping. The accelerator pedal resistance is great for off-road feel, tiring for daily driving.
• 20-inch wheels as the baseline. Let buyers choose all-season or all-terrain at no extra cost. Charge for the 22s.
• Battery temp visible during charging. Useful, especially after hitting thermal limits.
• Ride height control from the phone app. The Cybertruck does this. Rivian should too.
• Faster Kneel Mode. Kneel Mode stops lowering when the door opens, which defeats the purpose of dropping the vehicle for passengers to exit. Faster actuation, or a mode that completes before allowing door release, would fix this.

Also worth knowing: there are active campaigns for the Gen 2, including a 12-volt battery recall affecting a reported 75% of 2025 R1s. Check your status at Rivian’s recall information page using your VIN.

Two Months In

The R1S is a genuinely good vehicle to live with. The interior quality, the third-row space, the driving dynamics, and the software update cadence are all strong arguments for it. The audio is a letdown, the liftgate height issue is baffling, and a handful of bugs need patches. None of it has made me regret the trade from the R1T. The R1S does what it’s supposed to do — it’s a capable, comfortable family EV — and the software will keep improving. It’s just not there yet on a few things that should have been sorted at launch.