Rivian’s 2024 R1T is the only EV to earn the Top Safety Pick+ rating in the pickup truck category. This is a significant achievement, as the Top Safety Pick+ rating is awarded to the safest of the vehicles.
IIHS is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which is an independent non-profit that tests vehicles with the goal of reducing accident-related deaths. They provide safety ratings to a wide range of vehicles. IIHS tests for crashworthiness – how well a vehicle protects occupants in a crash, as well as crash avoidance and mitigation – the technology on board to prevent a crash, or reduce its severity.
Top Safety Pick+
The criteria for earning a Top Safety Pick+ is challenging. It requires “Good” ratings in 2 of the tested categories – the small overlap front test and the updated side test. It also requires Acceptable or Good ratings in the updated moderate overlap front test, headlights standard, and pedestrian front crash prevention test. A “Good” rating is IIHS’ highest rating, with the ratings below it being, Acceptable, Marginal and Poor being the lowest rating.
The R1T achieved a Good rating in every category, except the Front Crash Prevention for Pedestrians, where it achieved an Acceptable grade. Other than a few small outliers, the R1T achieved the best ratings of any pickup truck tested.
Improving Ratings
Rivian’s next target for improving the R1T’s safety will likely be to hone in and focus on software for forward collision avoidance to better keep pedestrians safe. Rivian has already included a new computer, as well as a new MobilEye package on their Gen 2 vehicles, so an improved rating will likely be a matter of waiting for Rivian to gather data and train their software to better identify what is in front of the vehicle.
As Rivian continues to improve their tech, we can only expect that they’ll be picking up this award year after year. Rivian has won the award on the R1T in 2022, 2023, and now in 2024.
The other contenders for the Top Safety Pick in the pickup truck category for 2024 included the Toyota Tundra 2024 crew cab, and the Tundra once again – in its extended cab model. Both scored fairly highly, but the extended cab scored much better for rear passenger safety, unsurprisingly. What’s key here is that the R1T handily beat them both in safety across the board.
Most interestingly, the R1T is the first pickup truck to achieve the Top Safety Pick+ award and the only one of the 31 vehicles that was tested by IIHS to achieve such fantastic results. Rivian is clearly putting safety high on their list of priorities, and we’re happy to see the R1T be the truck that achieves such positive results for the first time.
