Forged Wheels on the Rivian R1S Added Seven Miles of Range. The Other Changes Were the Point.

Gjeebs replaced the stock off-road all-terrain wheels on a 2026 Rivian R1S with a set of forged 20-inch Atomic Wheels AWX units wrapped in Hankook iON HT tires, then ran a structured efficiency comparison. The new setup weighed roughly 14 to 15 pounds less per corner than the outgoing wheel-and-tire combination. Measured on a 20-mile test loop in conserve mode, efficiency improved from 2.64 miles per kilowatt-hour to 2.69 miles per kilowatt-hour, projecting 372 to 379 miles of total range. Seven miles gained. The range number is not the story here, and the video does not try to pretend otherwise.

Tire selection matters a lot on a vehicle as heavy as the R1S, and EV-specific rubber is still a relatively short category. The Hankook iON HT is built around the load requirements of large electric SUVs and includes a foam inner liner that dampens road noise before it reaches the cabin. Standard highway all-terrain tires generate significant harmonic noise at speed, which is one of the most common complaints from owners who run their R1S on pavement most of the time. The stock 22-inch sport bright wheels available from Rivian add range on paper but add meaningful noise and ride harshness in practice. What the Atomic Wheel and Hankook iON HT combination does is occupy the middle ground: lighter than the off-road setup, quieter than the sport wheels, and visually neutral enough to still look like a truck rather than a crossover. TPMS sensors from Batch, which supply 88 percent of OEM applications, come pre-installed on the wheels, which eliminates one complication from the swap process.

The install required a specific procedure for the Rivian's air suspension: within the vehicle settings, the driver needs to navigate to the tire change mode, switch the drive mode to all-terrain at its highest setting, and then jack the car using Jackpucks to access the correct lift points. The air suspension raises the car to 14.7 inches of ground clearance in that mode, which makes wheel access straightforward. Torque spec for the lug nuts is 140 foot-pounds. After the swap and a short drive, the TPMS sensors paired automatically with the vehicle. The efficiency delta of seven miles is modest, but the reviewers consistently noted that the car felt lighter in steering, quieter at highway speed, and more composed over small road imperfections than it did with the all-terrain setup. Those are daily-driving qualities that a range figure does not capture.

Bottom line: If you bought an R1S and spend most of your time on pavement, swapping to a road-focused wheel and tire setup is worth considering for comfort and cabin noise alone. The range gain is real but small. What you are actually buying is a quieter, more polished daily driver that still looks the part. The 22-inch Rivian sport wheels will get you more range, but at an NVH penalty that Gjeebs confirmed in back-to-back comparisons. The Atomic Wheels and iON HT combination sits in a sensible middle that the stock lineup does not offer.