Rivian has just brought the R1T electric pickup truck to the market in September 2021. As a brand that specializes in producing electric vehicles, Rivian has always been compared to Tesla, the pioneer of electric vehicles that has already reached the market. Including product quality issues such as exterior appearance, paint quality and finish
The Average Car Guy channel has just stirred up the details of the Rivian R1T, focusing on paint quality, panel alignment, and exterior fit and finish.
The video shows a lot of orange peel on the R1T’s paint, though it’s not clear without a closer inspection. On closer inspection, orange peel is on every panel of the vehicle, and the owner says the R1T has more orange peel than any other car he’s ever owned.
The orange peel in question has nothing to do with color, but the skin of the fruit. Basically, car paint can dry out with a texture that is not smooth. You can see it at 2:40 in the video above. It’s even clearer on the truck door handles, which you can see from 5:45pm in the video.
There’s also a coin-sized ding on the lid of the truck frunk. Even though it’s clearly visible at the right angle and in the right light, most people probably wouldn’t notice it without looking for it. As far as panel gaps are concerned, the spacing is consistent and the alignment is excellent in most cases. However, the charging port door and the driver’s side door handle both appear to be a little deeper than they should be.
In the end, Average Car Guy admits he doesn’t really care about the R1T’s minor fit and finish issues. He says that if you really pay attention, you can probably come up with all sorts of reasons not to enjoy the things you have.
Interestingly, it seems that some video viewers tend to feel the same way. One note that they would be much more concerned about a bit of orange peel than an obvious panel crack or other flaw.