Most three row family SUVs are built around a simple, sensible mission: carry seven people and their stuff in comfort, get decent fuel economy, and never, ever attempt anything more adventurous than a gravel parking lot. They are appliances, and mostly good ones. The Rivian R1S looked at that entire category and decided to do…
When Rivian arrived, nobody had heard of it. It was a startup with no history, no dealer network, and no proof it could build anything at all, going up against Ford and Chevrolet and Tesla in the electric truck race. On paper, it should have been swallowed whole. Instead, the little company that came out…
Some car companies announce a new vehicle, build the hype, and then quietly delay it. Rivian announced a new vehicle, had a tornado rip the roof off the factory where it was being built, started production anyway five days later, and then delivered a vehicle that one reviewer called his best car of the year,…
The Rivian R2 Performance and the Tesla Model Y Performance carry the exact same $57,990 sticker, and once each company adds its destination and order fees, the out the door totals stay within a rounding error of each other. So the money can’t settle this one. The cars have to speak for themselves. And these…
The midsize electric SUV is where most of America actually shops, which is why it’s the most crowded and competitive corner of the whole EV world. Three of the most interesting choices come at the same buyer from completely different angles. The Tesla Model Y is the best selling EV in the country, the efficient,…
For years, if you wanted a genuinely premium three row electric SUV, you looked to the established German and legacy brands. Then two young American companies decided they could do it better, and they showed up with wildly ambitious three row electric SUVs that make the establishment look a little sleepy. Rivian, the adventure obsessed…
The electric pickup has become one of the most interesting corners of the whole EV world, and two trucks capture the split personality of the category better than any others. On one side is the Rivian R1T, the truck from an ambitious young company that reimagined what a pickup could be, all clever storage, refined…
Most electric pickups try to look like the gas trucks people already know, just with a plug where the fuel door used to be. These two did the opposite. The Tesla Cybertruck showed up looking like it drove out of a science fiction movie, a wedge of bare stainless steel with straight lines and no…