As the wheeled world slowly transitions from gasoline in 120 years, the electric pickup revolution seems to be led by Rivian. Or is it?
Rivian claims that, unlike its competitors Tesla, GMC and Ford, it is actually providing electric trucks for real people. Although early reports stated that "people" seemed to refer to Rivian employees who were doing the equivalent of Beta testing for the company, Rivian insisted that this was not the case. It says that actual human buyers outside the company have already received R1T, and many others will receive theirs in the coming months.
"Yes, there are non-employees driving their trucks today," a Rivian spokesperson said when we asked. "There will be more R1T deliveries in the rest of this year, and as we continue to enter the next phase."
At the same time, another company representative stated that deliveries of the R1S SUV will begin "before the end of the year."
Little-known fact: When Rivian was founded in 2009, the first car would be a sports coupe that looked a bit like a larger version of the Hyundai Veloster. By 2013, the product will appear in customer garages. Deadlines in the electric car world come and go, and no one except car writers seems to worry too much about it. Try to start a car company yourself and see how easy it is.
At the same time, GMC claims that it will install Hummer electric vehicles in customer lanes by the "fall of 2021". This gave them about two weeks. Ford's promising F-150 Lightning electric pickup trucks will be delivered "spring of 2022", which will keep them until June 21. What about Tesla Cybertruck? who knows? I just called them...wait, the phone hung up! Regardless, Rivian is (more or less) leading the electric pickup revolution. So congratulations to them.
As you may have read recently, a lot has happened to Rivian. It just completed an IPO and raised $12 billion from it. Two years ago, Ford invested $5 billion in Rivian, of which three-quarters came from Amazon, and $350 million came from a company called Cox Automotive, followed by various investment rounds after billions of dollars. The company's market capitalization reached US$179 billion earlier this year and then stabilized at around US$110 billion at the time of writing. It is being sued by its former marketing director, and according to her, she was recently fired because she was marginalized and ignored.
In all this news, there are actual vehicles under construction, and we had the opportunity to drive one later last week.
Rivian parked multiple R1T electric pickup trucks on the tarmac of the SoCal Foothill Private Airport and demonstrated everything from charging the truck’s 135 kWh battery to cooking popcorn on the $5,000 optional slide-out "Camp Kitchen" . It can be said that R1T is a feature-rich miracle, with gadgets everywhere.
Let's start with the basics. R1T has four motors, one for each wheel, and all four are mounted on the inside of the wheel to reduce unsprung weight. The total system power is up to 835 hp and 908 lb-ft of torque, which is not only enough to tow the claimed 11,000 pounds (!), but also can travel at 0-60 mph in three seconds (the published test is 3.5 seconds, We got 4.1 handheld timing running in an unscientific way, but that was on A/T tires). The EPA estimates the range is 314 miles. Independent motors on all four wheels not only help with handling and four-wheel drive, but also allow it to complete the tank steering tricks we saw in Internet videos some time ago. Although there are rumors that this particular technique has not been incorporated into the current trucks.
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It uses an independent air suspension, and you can raise and lower the ride height by up to 6 inches depending on the object you are driving. Active damping can adjust the impact stiffness according to the riding mode and driving style, and the hydraulic roll control not only helps to drive smoothly in corners, but also reduces "head bumps" when off-road, preventing your head from hitting the roof rail Climb over the noise and potholes.
Look under the R1T, you will see a very flat bottom surface. Large pieces of steel, aluminum and carbon fiber protect the landing gear and battery pack with seemingly seamless wind-proof flatness. Between the rear of the cabin and the front and bottom of the truck bed is what Rivian calls a "gear tunnel". This is a crawl space of 22.7 x 25.4 inches. Everyone seems to want to sneak in. The tunnel is where the optional $5,000 slide-out Camp Kitchen is located, which contains titanium cutlery, electric stove, and cute little sink. Yes, you can easily install a dual-burner Coleman stove on the backsplash, but Yuppies in Silicon Valley does not make a dual-burner Coleman camping stove. The gear channel doors can also be used as seats, and each door can hold 250 pounds.
The total storage capacity of the R1T exceeds 62 cubic feet, including the front luggage compartment, the space in and under the bed, the under-seat compartment of the cab, and the center console and gear channel. The bed itself also has a "weatherproof" roller shutter. The bed is 54 inches long with the tailgate facing upwards and 83 inches long with the tailgate facing downwards. In every Rivian sold, there is an air compressor with an air hose that can reach all four tires and can pump up to 150 psi of air into any of them (although please do not pump in 150 psi ). convenient. By cooperating with Yakima, you can add various racks to your Rivian. On the demonstration day, they installed the Yakima canopy tent on the beam of the truck compartment and sold for US$2,650. There are also racks for stand-up paddle boards, kayaks, snowboards and bicycles.
Inside, the R1T is spacious and comfortable, with all the modern facilities we expect in a luxury car and many of the features we see on various Teslas. For example, the two wheels on the steering wheel spokes perform many of the same functions as the Model X. There are two internal themes: Adventure, with beautiful embossed wood panelling, and Explore, with matte black finishes and "vegan leather".
The configurable 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster is located directly in front of the driver, while the 15.6-inch horizontal touch screen allows you to control almost all systems on the truck, from ride height and driving mode to climate control and WiFi. In fact, R1T offers LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, wireless charging, six USB ports, four 120-volt sockets and Alexa. There are even the coolest Bluetooth speakers that can be pulled from under the center console to play music or use as a camp lantern.
After mastering all the specification sheet information, I started. Of course, R1T is very quiet, and as soon as I got out of the parking space, I was encouraged to put it on the floor. Like many large modern electric vehicles, the R1T provides an impressive actual acceleration of the neck bite. I tried several slalom on the airport runway, and found that the vehicle body has minimal roll due to the hydraulic roll control functioning. We reached a section of pitted dirt, lifted the suspension through the touch screen, and danced on the hardest dirt that Agua Dulce had to provide.
Longer rides were originally preferred, but so far, the R1T seems to be good.
The Launch Edition starts at US$68,575, or US$74,075, and this is the version now delivered to real buyers. These are higher than the starting price of Ford Lightning, which claims that the price of a work truck is $39,974, but you can load Lightning for more than $90,000. Before removing them from its website, Tesla listed the Cybertruck at between $39,900 and $69,900. Don't know when it can be used. All of these are still lower than the GMC Hummer EV, which starts at $108,700.
When competitors from long-established automakers put their electric cars on the market and enter the garage, the real problem may arise next year. In fact, in two to three years, after some quality control questions have been answered, we will learn more about the brave electric future we are entering. It's like, how far you can actually drive with 11,000 pounds on a trailer (early experience touted on the Internet suggests that you can drive about 100 miles on this electric car and other electric cars). In addition, what will happen to these things in the first winter? Cold weather does impair the range of an electric car, especially when you run a heater in it. So there are some unknowns, but the known ones are promising.
Are you interested in electric trucks? Think they will find many buyers? Share your thoughts on Rivian RT1 and other upcoming electric pickups in the comments below.