It’s hard to believe that I just crossed my two year anniversary with Rivian. I remember getting the email to purchase far too late in the evening (well after midnight). They didn’t have the configuration I was looking for (quad motor plus max pack battery) but they were offering a set of ready-made configurations available in the Gear Shop.
Yellow was a hard requirement for me. I found a truck in the gear shop that sported the Compass Yellow, but didn’t have the skid plate or the adventure tires. At the time, I decided the street tires were good enough, but I came to regret that decision in more than one way after two years of ownership.
The Case for Tires
I’ll admit, I don’t think about tires as much as I should. For most of us, in today’s modern cars (and even motorcycles), the tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) generally informs me if anything wrong with the tires. A simple check of the wear bars on the motorcycle and tire rotation every 7500 miles in the truck is all the maintenance that’s really needed. So why so much anxiety around tires at this point?
Rivian decided they wanted to offer three different rim sizes and tire options available with the truck. Because the rim dictates functionality of the truck, it’s a much more expensive proposition to switch as you are purchasing tires, rims, and finding a new home for the old rims. Let’s take a look!
20″ Off-Roaders
✅ Great in all conditions on and off road
✅ Many capable on/offroad tires fit this rim size driving down tire prices
⚠️ Reduces range by 15 percent
21″ Mall Crawlers
✅ Maximizes range of the truck at 330 miles.
⚠️ Only 2 tires made for this rim size
⛔ Discontinued by Rivian
22″ Sporty Tracks
✅ Takes the best advantage of the sporty nature of the truck
✅ Several manufacturers make offroad 22″ tires, but not as capable as the 20″.
⚠️ Reduces range by 5 percent
My tires wore out right on schedule at 30,000 miles. As I was looking at all the possible choices, I couldn’t help regretting the decision to not hold out for 20″ rims.
I appreciated getting the truck at the time that I did – and would probably make the same decision today. But, I wanted the capabilities to take my truck off pavement and into the snow more confidently. Several members of the community would say things like the 21” tires did fine on the freeway in the winter, but getting into the side streets and local hills got dicey. I didn’t want to regularly count on chains (but carry with) as part of my winter experience.
Sure, it was going to cost me 15% more in electricity, but if I truly hated it, Michelin made tires that have the range of the 21” rims in a 20” tire: enter the Michelin Defender LTX.
A buddy of mine in the local club highlighted that someone in our community was selling a set of four brand new 20 inch tires and rims at a price I would not pass up! I installed my tires at the Bay Area Rivian Club Tech Day a few weeks ago. Now it’s time to test out the new shoes!
A Quick Spin Through Tires
Tires have a few qualifying factors that are important to understand when purchasing a new set: geometry, target uses, and certification.
275/65 R20
Tire Geometry
- The first number is the width of the tire
- The second number is the aspect ratio of the sidewall (distance from the wheel to the edge)
- The last number is the diameter of the wheel.
M+S
Mud and Snow
M+S is short for “mud and snow.” It’s a branding found on the sidewall of some all-season tires. It’s important to note there is no actual testing or accreditation to earn the M+S label.
3PMS Certified
The Three Peak Mountain Snowflake symbol on a tire indicates that it has passed tests for performance in severe snow conditions: Tires with the 3PMS symbol are designed to provide better traction and control in winter weather, including heavy snow and ice.
Off to the Mountains
A good friend of mine reached out and said, “Hey! I know a great place in the mountains to go exploring.” I was eager to try out the new tires in the mountains, and had the day free so it was a good opportunity to go exploring.
The biggest difference right out of the gate was hearing the slight growl of the tires at low speed. The 21” tires are designed to optimally run on the road and the contact patch is significantly quieter than the 20” all-terrains. Every truck with all-terrain tires suffers from the noise (and some drivers even prefer it). The additional noise isn’t bothersome, but it’s definitely noticeable at lower speeds. Once at freeway speed, I don’t tell him much of a difference between the noise profiles of the 21” and 20” tires. Even driving my buddy’s truck who has 27,000 miles on his 20” tires – the noise profile isn’t demonstrably different.
Even driving around town, I could instantly feel the efficiency. With the 21″ tires, my average miles/kWh generally floated above 2.0. With the new 20” tires, I was seeing a lot more 1.x. Range at 70% charge decreased commensurately from 227 to 207. Again, this really only affects road trips as I’m generally not driving more than 200 miles in any given day.
Once into the hills, the all-terrain tires began to show their strength. We didn’t push the truck in any appreciable way as we were traveling solo, but it definitely felt better knowing we had appropriate tires than driving on borrowed rubber. The truck did not slip or spin tires at all in the slush.
This drive wasn’t a test of winter capabilities by any stretch. I could’ve taken the motorcycle up here as the roads were mostly cold and wet. The higher will be climbed, the more snow that showed up along the sides of the road. Some portions of the mountain had tons of snow and other portions were devoid of any of the white stuff. Crazy. I would have thought the snow would have been more even.
It was fun to get out of the truck and go exploring by foot. We didn’t necessarily have the right boots or snow pants so it wasn’t going to be a long exploration out into the forest. However, the three of us had fun escaping into the winter. The closeness of so many different geographies and climate conditions one of the many reasons I love Northern California. In a little under three hours, one can go from the relatively mild Bay Area into full on winter!
As we were walking around the mountains, each of us started to experiment with our phone cameras to capture the landscape. During a three year stent away from a traditional SLR camera, I doubled down on learning all of the features of the iPhone camera. The iPhone has significantly more capabilities than the surprisingly good defaults. I ❤️ my phone’s camera, but I do appreciate the quality of a good SLR camera.
It’s easy to zoom in 3x from the camera’s home screen. However, sliding over to portrait mode, gives a few more options for creative control worth exploring. Let’s take a look at the three pictures below to show the capacities of the iPhone camera.
In the first image, I used photo mode with a 3x zoom to get the exposure and composition correct.
In the second image, I used portrait mode instead. Portrait Mode still uses the 3x zoom, however, Portrait Mode adds an aperture feature to set the depth of field. To set the aperture, click the icon that looks like (f) icon. I chose to use a shallow depth of field (f/1.8), so that the viewers eyes instantly focused on the rock and the person rather than getting lost in the details of the tree and the branches.
In the third image, I called out to the subject so that I could photograph him looking into the camera.
A great day in the snow, that’s for sure!
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