If you’ve been considering buying a Rivian R1T electric truck as soon as they’re available, but are waiting to see how they handle driving through a hedge and smacking into cars in a parking lot, boy are you in luck. It seems that’s exactly what happened to a camouflaged R1T prototype, as seen in photos taken by a user on the Rivian Owners Forum. Nobody appears to have been hurt, thankfully, in this inaugural wreck of a Rivian R1T.
It’s not entirely clear what caused the crash, but from the pictures it appears that the Rivian hopped over a curb, drove up a grassy embankment, through some hedges, and then into two parked cars, a Mercedes-Benz and a Ford Explorer that it hit hard enough to push it out of its parking spot.
The damage to the Rivian doesn’t seem too bad; the bumper is banged and scraped up, and that front fender appears to be pretty kinked, but he front fascia and light assemblies appear to be intact, if misaligned.
The Explorer’s hood is a mess, and the Benz has significant damage to its door and likely front fender.
It’s a weird crash, overall. Was the driver not paying attention and just plowed through those shrubs? Was there a medical issue? A failed attempt at a shortcut? It’s not a terribly common sort of driving error, turning off the road and making a beeline for shrubbery.
We’ll reach out to Rivian and see if we can find out anything else. When and if we do, we’ll be sure to update.
UPDATE: We got a response from Rivian:
“A Rivian-owned prototype vehicle was involved in an accident near our Irvine facility yesterday. The Rivian employee at the wheel was uninjured, and the accident’s cause was driver error. All safety features performed as intended.”
That doesn’t tell us too much, other than it’s driver error, which doesn’t seem too surprising.