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If you’re like me, when somebody says “Rivian,” an image of a Compass Yellow R1S pops into your brain. That’s an outdated vision, though, since Rivian hasn’t actually offered that color in years. But there’s hope, not only for the school-bus shade but even bolder or more offbeat finishes to return or make their way to the electric truck and SUV maker’s products for the first time. You might have to try to nab ’em quickly before they sell out, though.
The Drive recently sat down with Rivian’s Chief Design Officer, Jeff Hammoud, who shared that the company is looking into ways to bring those more niche choices to the few buyers that want them, on a limited-time basis.
Take the Miami Edition R1S from last fall, for example. The company created just 10 of them, all white with a blue-stripe wrap along the sills and pink badging, tow hooks, and interior trim. It wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but Hammoud knows that, which is why it makes more sense to build such vehicles in low numbers, and release them into the world more like limited-edition fashion items.
The Miami Edition Rivian R1S. Rivian
“We see them as like cool sneaker drops, where we could do these other editions that come out,” Hammoud said. “They’re for a low, little run. And while the Miami one was very bold, a lot of people loved it and some people were like, ‘I wouldn’t drive that.’”
Less extreme but still not exactly mainstream design options, like a Compass Yellow-type hue, could slide into the configurator for a short time, before being replaced with something else similarly bold. Rivian actually did this back in December with Borealis Purple, a color that buyers could only order for a few weeks before it was removed from the online configurator. Hammoud knows what colors like that mean to passionate owners.
“When you design a car that has to meet the masses and a lot of people, you automatically have to go to a little bit more safer, more neutral,” Hammoud said. “But then we also see that with our colors. Like our Compass Yellow is one of our lowest take-rate colors when we had it, but the people who have it absolutely love it. And that’s where we want to be able to offer some of these things in ways that cater to some of those customers who are a little bit more adventurous, but still meeting our core demographic.”
Update May 28, 12 p.m. ET: As fate would have it, minutes after publication of this story, Rivian announced it was briefly reviving the Forest Green interior option for the Dual Motor with Max battery R1S and R1T. What timing!
A Rivian R1T in Borealis Purple. Rivian
Fortunately, even as Rivian focuses on launching the smaller R2, Hammoud doesn’t expect such options to dry up for the R1 series.
“I think whether we just do limited runs or just, what we want to do as well is like, we have these few color slots that we’re going to play with,” Hammoud said. “And for all of it, whether it’s R1 or it’s R2, we’ll keep planning to change those. Could we be a little bit more adventurous with those? Because it keeps the product fresh, allows people to get a new color. But you’re always gonna have your core colors that are, you know, black, gray, white, like silver. Those are, you know, the core colors.”
On one hand, you can appreciate how a small manufacturer like Rivian needs to prioritize building what people largely buy. On the other, what Hammoud’s discussing bleeds into FOMO consumerism, which has unfortunately permeated far more than footwear in modern commerce. Hopefully, none of Rivian’s fan-favorite colors die off for good, and are cycled back into the fray in reasonable timeframes.
Speaking of which, if Rivian’s taking requests, I’ll put another one in for Compass Yellow. You just don’t see it enough on the road, and there’s really only one way to change that.
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
