Image: Ben J
A Rivian electric ute has been spotted in Victoria, giving a rare glimpse into the popular American-built EV on Australian roads.
Two photos of the white ute were taken and shared by EV enthusiast Ben J on the Electric Vehicle for Australia Facebook group, showing the parked vehicle with its door opened. The sighting was in a suburb near Geelong.
The spotted vehicle was in a left-hand-drive configuration and was parked fairly close to the kerb with its driver-side door opened.
From the front, the Rivian R1T had its light bar and headlights on at the time which clearly sets it apart from any other utes currently for sale in Australia.
There was also a photo of the rear with its rear tail light bar illuminated underneath which Rivian branding can be spotted.
On the back of this post, another electric car fan also spotted the vehicle in Geelong: “Was charging tonight in Geelong”. Another fan of the Rivian said: “Would buy one of those”.
Some even compared it to Tesla’s Cybertruck which has been on a roadshow in Australia over the last couple of months: “This looks a lot better than the CT, not that its a hard feat”.
This is quite a rare sight as previous Rivian vehicles in Australia had been for mining applications as bought by a partnership between Mining Electric Vehicle Company (MEVCO) and Rivian Automotive.
The vehicle spotted near Geelong is likely a test vehicle that has been bought in by manufacturers for benchmark testing but that’s yet to be confirmed.
In its local market of the US, the Rivian R1T has a starting price of $US71,700 and is around $US10,000 more than the F150 Lightning truck.
The R1T went on sale in the US nearly 4 years ago in November 2020. At that time it was announced with a “Launch Edition” as well as the Adventure Package and Explore Package which were delivered from 2022 onwards.
Since then, multiple iterations of the Rivian R1T have been released with the latest version being offered in dual-motor, tri-motor and quad-motor configurations.
It’s also available in three variants with the base “Adventure” variant. It is followed by the Premium and top-spec Ascend variant.
On top of that for the 2025 version, Rivian has also shifted its battery chemistry to Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) helping it reduce costs as the brand plans to roll out multiple more affordable models in the coming years.
Rivian has also created a website for the UK which features these upcoming affordable models, hinting at right-hand-drive production down the track.
While we wait for updates from the company on right-hand-drive Rivians, it’s still good to see a ground-up electric ute on Australian roads.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.
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