Here’s What It Costs To Drive A Rivian R1T For A Year

The first time you see a Rivian R1T electric pickup truck driving around, your first thought is probably, “what in the heck is that?” The second thought was probably, “how much does it cost?”

If you want the short answer, the Rivian R1T electric pickup truck has an entry-level MSRP of $69,900. Of course, if you want the full picture, you need to add what it costs to maintain and repair, how much you’re likely to spend on a base model Rivian R1T after making all your loan payments, and whether it really saves you enough money on gas to even out. Here’s what you can expect to spend on a Rivian R1T per year.

What’s The Average Purchase Price For A Rivian R1T?

The Rivian R1T starts out at an MSRP of $69,900, but that’s obviously not going to be what the final bill looks like. There are delivery fees, state taxes, dealer fees, acquisition costs and so on to consider, and that’s before we even get into interest rates.

If we’re looking for the average cost of purchase, most buyers will be making monthly payments, so we’ll want to tally up twelve months of installments, plus a down payment, and all associated taxes and fees to get an idea of what your first-year purchase costs are going to look like.

Assuming an average 9.6% near prime new car loan interest rate on a 60-month loan (the average rate according to Experian), the tally looks something like this after subtracting the $3,750 partial tax credit for which the R1T is eligible in 2024 if the model you opt for costs less than $80,000. That’s the budget cap for SUVs and trucks, though there is a loophole when it comes to leasing.

What Will It Cost You To Lease A Rivian R1T?

Rivian advertises leasing rates as low as $559 a month. Even if you’ve never considered a leasing arrangement before, it might not be such a bad idea to lease the EV in this instance. It makes sense once you compare the Rivian R1T’s price range between buying and leasing.

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A buyer located in Georgia commented on the r/Rivian subreddit recently, sharing their own lease details for a $90,550 R1T, minus the $7,500 tax credit, with a monthly payment of $846.72. When it comes to leasing, there are no restrictions on the $7,500 tax credit. If you’re leasing an EV, you get that money. Period.

This puts the first-year cost at $18,724.20 after eleven more months of payments. Each year after that, assuming they stay on the same lease arrangement, it will work out to $10,160.64 in monthly payments. Your mileage may vary, and we don’t have this user’s credit score handy, but this wouldn’t be an atypical leasing arrangement, and it shows that you’re going to spend around $6,000 less each year leasing a $90,000+ R1T than you would buying one in the least expensive configuration.

The main difference is that you don’t get to keep a leased R1T at the end of the agreement. Exploring depreciation and maintenance costs, you can consider whether you would want to in the first place.

How Much Does It Cost To Keep A Rivian R1T On The Road?

In order to keep any new vehicle on the road, we’re considering three key costs: maintenance, refueling, and insurance.

Basic Maintenance For A Rivian R1T

With the Rivian R1T being one of the newest EVs on the market, we don’t have extensive repair and maintenance estimates on hand. You’ve likely read horror stories about $20,000 dent repairs, but that’s covered by insurance. If we’re talking routine maintenance, here’s what Rivian recommends and what that’s going to cost you.

Kelley Blue Book estimates a national average mileage of around 13,489 miles per driver, so it would take a little over eight years to rack up all of these maintenance expenses, which comes out to 15 tire rotations, 5 comprehensive inspections, two brake fluid flushes, a coolant change, and a drive unit fluid change. Add that up, divide it by eight, and you’ll be spending around $785 a year on basic maintenance.

How Much It Should Cost To Insure A Rivian R1T

Rivian offers its own car insurance plan underwritten by Nationwide and Cincinnati Insurance, and this insurance plan can be based on telematics. This means that the R1T will track your driving behavior, and your rates will be adjusted appropriately. As such, it can be difficult to estimate a ballpark average, but the insurance experts at SmartFinancial suggest a monthly insurance cost of just under $230 a month, or $2,758 a year. In short, Rivian’s own insurance might seem steep at first, but if you stick to decent driving habits, it will eventually come down.

How Much Charging A Rivian R1T Should Cost

The average driver will put 13,489 miles on their vehicle in a year. The base R1T comes with a 105 kWh battery with a 270-mile battery range. To reach 13,489 miles would require about fifty charges from zero to 100%, for a grand total of 5,250 kWh. The national average cost of electricity right now comes out at sixteen cents per kWh, according to May 2024 data collected by Energybot. This gives us a home-charging total of $840 a year.

According to data collected by Enel X Way, public Level 2 chargers will typically cost you up to twenty-five cents per kWh, or $1,312 for a year, while Level 3 fast chargers will run about thirty-six cents per kWh, or $1,575 to $3,150 a year.

To get an idea of what you might have spent on gas, look at a comparable Ford F-150. It will average around $2,607 a year in fuel at 21 MPG combined, according to the EPA. So, as long as you’re not specifically seeking out the most expensive level three chargers, you’re saving money charging your R1T.

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It is also possible to save a bit of money by charging your vehicle with a two-way charger. Bidirectional vehicle-to-home charging, which allows your Rivian to send power back into the grid, can make a marginal difference in your power bill and even allows your R1T to power your home during a blackout. This capability was added to Rivians via an over-the-air update in 2023.

Knowing where the best charging stations can be found is one of the toughest parts of driving an EV right now, but a recent software update for Rivian owners is able to point drivers to the best stations, and away from the more expensive ones.

Add all of this up, and you have an average annual cost of $840 to keep a Rivian R1T full of electricity using a home charger.

How Well Does A Rivian R1T Hold Its Value?

The Rivian R1T has only been out for a couple of years, so we don’t have any hard data for five- or ten-year depreciation. Kelley Blue Book puts the fair purchase price for an entry-level Rivian R1T for sale at around $55,492. The 2022 model launched with a starting MSRP of $67,500, which gives us an annual depreciation rate of 17.79%. Most vehicles will lose 20% of their value in the first year and then 15% annually thereafter for the first five years or so. This would put the R1T roughly on par with the industry average in the first two years.

Here’s What A Rivian R1T Should Cost Per Year

After the first year, which would include the added expense of a down payment starting somewhere around $7,287, and before depreciation, your average Rivian R1T driver is spending about $14,543 each year to lease the truck, or $20,811 to own. These are just averages, of course. The final cost of a purchase will vary from driver to driver. If you have excellent credit, if you’re bringing in a high-value trade-in, if you’re cashing in on credits and financing provided by your employer, you could be spending a lot less.

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On the other hand, you could be spending a bit more if an insurance provider sees you as a risk. You will also need to keep in mind that you might need to buy a new battery pack after 8-15 years, and that can cost upwards of $15,000.

These numbers simply provide a ballpark estimate to let you know whether a Rivian R1T is really within your budget, and if you still think it’s worth the purchase once you factor charging, maintenance, insurance, and interest into the equation.