The 2022 and 2023 Rivian R1T pickup trucks receive the coveted 2022 IIHS Top Safety Pick+ rating. This is a safety rating that is difficult to get. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) puts every vehicle through rigorous tests. The Top Safety Pick+ rating is the highest safety rating a vehicle can receive, and the top safety rating is getting more challenging to reach every year.
The pickup trucks must withstand a battery of crash tests and protect their occupants from serious injury. This is made more difficult by the fact that electric pickup trucks weigh more than their internal combustion counterparts. A heavier vehicle has more kinetic energy, so the structure must be designed to handle it.
Having poor headlight performance is where most pickup trucks fail to get the highest Safety Pick+ rating. This is generally because most pickup trucks start as work trucks in the $30,000-$40,000 price range. The Rivian R1T pickup has a starting price of $73,000 (according to the Rivian website). All Rivian trucks are equipped with LED headlights that passed the IIHS test with a Good rating. The Rivian website says that if you reserve an R1T pickup now, these will start deliveries at the end of 2023 (about a year from now). The company still needs to catch up to build and deliver existing orders.
Here are the latest rating for the other full-size pickup trucks. At present, the new Toyota Tundra is only other full-size pickup truck that reached the Top Safety Pick+ rating.
Here is the Rivian R1T pickup on the Ike Gauntlet™ – the world’s toughest towing test.
