Rivian R1T earns the highest safety rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety(IIHS). The rating comes from the company funded by the NHTSA, a government agency in the US. It is one of the US’s main automotive safety rating organizations.
The rating comes after testing the vehicles under various circumstances. IIHS and NHTSA ratings have similar goals, but the organizations use different testing procedures and will occasionally reach different results. The IIHS views its work as complementary to NHTSA’s, augmenting the government agency’s five-star rating system with additional crash testing information. IIHS tells consumers that they should look for 4+ stars in government testing and either a “good” or “Top Safety Pick” recommendation from themselves.
The rating from NHTSA is not released yet for the Rivian R1T. It started the testing earlier this year. IIHS testing scores vehicles across six crash tests, and to earn a Top Safety Pick rating, a vehicle must get the highest rating in all tests. The tests are the driver- and passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength, and head restraint tests. It also must have an advanced or superior front crash avoidance system that activates to help inattentive drivers prevent vehicle or pedestrian crashes.
Crash prevention system
Rivian has the standard front crash prevention system, which earns superior ratings. In addition to these tests, to get the even higher Top Safety Pick+ rating, the vehicle must meet additional requirements for headlight quality and these headlights must be standard across all trims. As stated by IIHS, Rivian met all the requirements and gave the vehicle top reward. “The crew cab pickup meets all the requirements for the higher-tier award. All trims come with good-rated LED projector headlights and a standard front crash prevention system that earns superior ratings in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and daytime vehicle-to-pedestrian tests.”
IIHS also released photos and videos of the crash tests, showing the aftermath of the small and moderate overlap testing.
The Rivian R1T is one of two current pickup trucks to earn IIHS’ Top Safety Pick+ award, the other being the Toyota Tundra. It is the only electric truck to win this award yet. Several other electric cars and SUVs have won the award, such as the Kia EV6, Hyundai IONIQ 5, Tesla Model 3/Y, Audi e-Tron, and others. The vehicle is yet to be rated in other aspects. Furthermore, in coming years as other electric pickups are released, the rating might differ.
