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Rivian R1T: First Drive in the Electric Pickup
- chairmanwow1 5y ago“All Rivian has to do is build a ton of them, handle service and repairs, and not run out of money.” I honestly wish them the best of luck. Those are a bunch of hard things to get right and definitely the things established brands have in their favor. It will be better for the world if we can have more electric options.
- m463 5y agoSeems like a funding problem, and I wonder if investor sentiment for electric vehicles will help. During the dot-com boom, investors were clamoring to fund all kinds of companies.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mchaynes 5y agoConsidering they’re the supplier for amazons electric delivery vehicle fleet, I doubt they’ll run out of money
- belltaco 5y agoThey need profits, not just revenue, and Amazon is known for squeezing suppliers.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI think Amazon is invested too. But even as a customer, EV delivery is a big cost saver and competitive advantage for Amazon. They o Lu way they'd let them fail is if they could buy electric trucks cheaper elsewhere.
- dralley 5y agoAmazon hires contractors for delivery services, and they go bust all the time due to insane demands and low margins. Providing services for Amazon is not a ticket for the gravy train.
- ra7 5y agoAmazon is also a significant investor in Rivian.
- fastball 5y agoBusinesses frequently fail due to cashflow management issues, revenue is not a golden ticket.
- donw 5y agoAnd hire a competent designer.
- jeffbee 5y agoAnd it redefines it as a vehicle with a curb weight of 6,900 pounds which would be unlawful to drive on many American streets, if anyone bothered enforcing that. Can't wait to get hit by one.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoThere should be a tax on vehicle models proportional to how dangerous they are to others, whether that be other drivers, or cyclists, or pedestrians. Heavier cars pay more, lighter cars pay less. Cars with better collision avoidance tech pay less, cars with none of that pay more. Longer braking distance pays more, shorter braking distance pays less, etc.
- ridaj 5y agoThat has to be factored into insurance rates already
- TulliusCicero 5y agoApparently not well enough, since cars keep getting heavier and road deaths keep going up.
- ridaj 5y agoTax isn't a remedy to everything I guess
- TulliusCicero 5y agoIf you made it a tax, you could make it punitive enough to dangerous vehicles to really change behavior/design.
- m463 5y agoCalifornia already taxes trucks (like this one) based on weight.
- monkeyfacebag 5y agoI don't know anything about the author, but the breathless praise combined with questionable analysis leads me to think this is a PR puff piece. For example, > The instant you start letting off the accelerator, the motors start braking and feeding energy back to the battery pack. This is especially helpful for off-roading, which requires lots of careful stopping and starting. This could very well be true, but how did the author come to this conclusion in the context of a test drive?
- jnsie 5y agoSounds like the author is waxing lyrical about regenerative braking? A bit breathless and certainly veering into marketing (rather than analysis) territory.
- monkeyfacebag 5y agoThis is exactly my point. Establishing that regenerative braking is "especially helpful" for a particular driving context feels like a conclusion one could not reach during a test drive. More likely that the author got some talking points and maybe even data from the fine folks at Rivian.
- op00to 5y agoYes, that’s how these things usually work. Though usually the writer doesn’t handle covering the talking points like checking off a to do list.
- fsckboy 5y agoI think the article is pure PR. however, automatically engaging regenerative breaking is especially helpful for mimicking a manual transmission (without freewheel/overdrive). It's a desirable characteristic for sporty driving styles. my favorite piece of BS is "they've flipped the script!" I hope not, people already know what they want a pickup to do: haul their stuff around. They don't want their stuff hauling their pickup around, for example.
- neom 5y agoA bunch of video *overviews for it showed up on youtube yesterday, I watched a few and liked this one best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGqexebCcUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGqexebCcUo The Kelly Blue Book overview was also pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpBMld6U9B0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpBMld6U9B0
- thatswrong0 5y agoWhile that's a solid video overview of the Rivian, I don't know if I would call it a review seeing as it doesn't offer any criticism nor does it go into any depth about range.
- wrycoder 5y ago67.5 hit backbutton
- Swizec 5y agoEarly prototypes of the Rivian were used as crew trucks on Ewan McGregor's and Charley Boorman's Long Way Up series. They drove electric Harleys from the southern tip of South America up to LA. The crew drove two Rivians. Amazing cars. Looks super promising. Saw one driving around SF a few weeks back and they look fantastic, if a little toy-like. Especially the front lights look like a toy.
- vvanders 5y agoThe Ars review was fairly positive as well. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/09/rivians-67-500-314-mile-electric-adventure-truck-put-to-the-test/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/09/rivians-67-500-314-mile...
- Arainach 5y agoIt's nice to see positive reviews, but the one thing that fundamentally concerns me is design. Are people really going to spend $73K on a truck whose front end looks like......that?
- foolfoolz 5y agoF-150 gas: ~$35k F-150 lightning: allegedly ~$45k R1T: ~$70k
- josephcsible 5y agoYes, EVs cost more up front today. But you can't forget about how much cheaper they are to own: electricity is way cheaper than gas, there's way less maintenance, and they last a lot longer.
- throwaway1777 5y agoAh yes pay up front to maybe break even after driving for 6 years and 100k miles. Electricity prices are likely going higher as more EVs are built, so keep that in mind too. Or you could get solar panels, now your up front cost is even higher, but if all goes well eventually you will break even with this too and maybe even save money some day all while saving the environment (aside from battery and panel waste)
- thatswrong0 5y agoGas prices could go up higher too.
- loeg 5y agoHopefully, they will (with a carbon tax)!
- WorldMaker 5y agoPlus, EVs have to amortize a lot more R&D costs/factory capital still. Actual posted marginal costs seem similar/cheaper on paper and it seems only a matter of time before EVs at the same trim level are cheaper than their ICE counterparts. Though we'll probably see the "shell game" of EVs never having easily comparable trim levels continue to play out for at least a few more years to keep consumers on their toes (and continue to amortize R&D costs/factory capital, at least at the major manufacturers). The interesting things to watch right now for EV costs are the Chinese manufacturers with very different capital expenses (and already complete R&D amortization) entering the EU and US markets, and the German manufacturers in a sharp game right now of trying to hit 100% EV production by 2025. If the German manufacturers hit that 100% goal it will still be tough to compare ICE to EV trim levels as there won't be ICE trim levels left to compare from them, but it will also mean that they intend to hit the full breadth of trim levels and the economies of scale of delivering them all on the same base platforms.
- Animats 5y agoIt's more luxe than any of those trucks, though, and carries a starting price of $67,500. Up to $100,000. For a pickup truck? The electric Ford F-150 starts around $41,000. Which, with the base F-150 starting at $29,290, is still too much.
- throwaway1777 5y agoThe only people buying the single cabs that cost 30k are contractors and businesses. The average sale price for a Ford or a Ram these days is more like 50k.
- paxys 5y agoA majority of pickup truck sales in the USA fall in the luxury range (average price $56K). People buy them more to make a lifestyle statement than actual utility.
- m463 5y agoIt's nice that it has a dashboard in front of the driver, not off to the side. There are some things that tesla does that I think are poor design, and that is the most egregious. lack of tactile controls for critical functions is just as bad, like touch controls for turn signals... ugh.
- mehphp 5y ago> touch controls for turn signals Wait… really?
- akerl_ 5y agoNot sure what they mean. My Tesla definitely has a turn signal stalk just like every other car I’ve ever owned.
- josephcsible 5y agoThe 2021 Model S has touch controls for turn signals. The rest of their lineup still has a conventional turn signal stalk.
- vrc 5y agoSo I was a staunch physical control guy (drove a manual through 2016, with the first car lacking power steering), and now a Tesla owner. I thought I’d feel more strongly against the entire touch setup. And it does suck a lot and makes me take my eyes off the road more than I should. At the same time, my spouses Honda, which has more physical buttons than many other cars, requires fewer, but not markedly fewer eyesight departures. I guess the last car I could drive and fiddle with the controls without looking was my 2003 EP3 hatch. So I figure if all cars are going to make me look at a screen as I fiddle, in for a pinch, in for a pound.
- frosted-flakes 5y agoAnalogue physical controls are ideal. Infinite-spin dials suck (except for speaker volume), and digital buttons for controlling ranges are even worse: fan speed, temperature, blend door control, wiper intermittency rate, etc. work best with absolutely poitioned analogue controls that you can feel the current state by touch alone. Early 2000s cars do it best, in my experience.
- smcleod 5y ago3129 kg is incredibly heavy, I wonder how well the batteries cope in cold climates (say 10 to -15 degrees c) - that's been a big limiting factor for utility EVs in New Zealand and I'm sure other countries.
- newacct583 5y agoHeat pumps have largely solved the battery capacity problems with cold batteries (though not the fast charging rate). I don't have numbers for Rivian, but heater-equipped EVs from other manufacturers now routinely post numbers in frigid temperatures that are under 20% range degradation. You're basically just paying for the extra energy to run the heater.
- jillesvangurp 5y agoApparently, Rivian did some low temperature testing earlier this year: https://electrek.co/2021/02/27/rivian-tests-r1t-electric-pickup-in-sub-zero-temperatures/ https://electrek.co/2021/02/27/rivian-tests-r1t-electric-pic.... They tested with -40 degrees, which oddly is the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit. It keeps the batteries at 14 degrees fahrenheit, which is still -10 Celsius for optimum battery performance. So, -10 Celsius and above should be fine. It will obviously use a bit extra energy for that heating below that. Norway is actually banning fuel car sales in a few years (2025) and already has more than 50% market share for EVs thanks to their policies and incentives. So, while there are some challenges, it's not a show stopper for a country that regularly sees such temperatures give a large part of it is north of the polar circle (66.6 degrees). Temperature management is an issue of course but a lot of EVs actively manage the temperature of their batteries now (except some of the cheaper ones). Also, lots of ICE cars have issues with extreme temperatures. Good luck starting a Diesel with -40. The viscosity of the fuel becomes an issue. Norway works around this by having a lot of infrastructure to keep car engines heated (even petrol cars) while they park. This now doubles as charging infrastructure and of course their grid is 100% renewable (hydro). Also they use fuel additives to keep the fuel viscosity a bit lower. So, remote areas in New Zealand might be a bit lacking on the infrastructure side but as long as you can plug it in where you park, it should be fine.
- legostormtroopr 5y agoSo a few meta-comments: Business Indsider is a known click-farm, how "electric truck" qualifies as Business news is beyond me. Every post that points out the high cost of this truck in comparison to competitors is downvoted. Consulsion, this seems like an astroturfed thread to promote a new truck.
- pottertheotter 5y agoI watched a video review of it earlier today and it seems like an awesome truck (if it holds up long term). But the front is so hideous. It seems like they were so thoughtful with the rest of the design, but turned the front over to Little Tikes. I can’t believe that’s what they went with. Also, the price is way higher than I was thinking for a truck. But I’m really excited about electric trucks. I often need a truck but not every day, but the thought of having a daily driver that uses so much gas keeps me from buying one.
- yurishimo 5y agoThe price is on par with current truck prices in the category. If you haven't been paying attention, it could be easy to miss the massive markup in truck pricing over the past decade. Some of the base models are still reasonable, but there are normal people buying 60-70k "work trucks" all day now. These things will sell like crazy.
- r00fus 5y agoI saw one on the road last week at night and it looked distinctive and very appealing actually. I kind of hope that Rivian is a success that pulls Tesla back from trying to make spaceship aesthetic vehicles and put some manual affordances back in. My only gripe is the 8000lb+ curb weight. That's not going to be friendly to roads, but better an electric than a gas SUV I suppose.
- throwoutway 5y ago> But the front is so hideous. Have you seen Tesla's Cyber Truck. It's much worse!
- exabrial 5y agoJust looking at the body... while a Unibody design will work for city usage, I don't see this working for anyone that does any towing, hauling significant weight, or frequent off-roading. There's a reason the truck manufactures have stuck with body-over-frame, you separate the "hold the people" concerns from the "hold the weight" concerns to make a more durable product. Essentially, if you're using it as a car, it'll make a great car, but using it as a truck will inevitably lead to failure. If you don't believe me, ask any 4x4 Offroader, or watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKMQjm7i2Jw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKMQjm7i2Jw Speaking of reliability, the American truck market is _hyper competitive_ and that is one of the main reasons people buy the vehicles: they just don't break down. I think there's a great opportunity for truck makers here: an electric truck has far less things to break. A generation leap in reliability could be achieved. I think GM and the new Hummer has the best chance of breaking into the market in this regard.
- bluejekyll 5y ago> Unibody design It is not a unibody frame, exactly, it’s a unibody-on-frame. For most cases that seems like it should be better.
- kaczordon 5y agoYou mean the 100k Hummer? If anything the Ford F-150 is the truck that will cause this change. F-150 is the top selling car in America(1 mil units a year) it’s a big deal that it’s going electric.
- nickik 5y agoThe idea that unibody design can't be made as good for any work a truck has to do is simply nonsense. And that video proves nothing other then about the vehicles actually tested. > I think GM and the new Hummer has the best chance of breaking into the market in this regard. The Hummer is instantly expensive, far to expensive to reach any real volume.
- postingawayonhn 5y agoIt is body on frame. They just combined the cab and bed into one unit.
- bArray 5y agoLooking at the pictures of where it's being used, I don't see anything too loose, anything too steep and certainly nothing wet. It may very well certainly 'redefine what a truck can be' once it's been through half a lake - it could become a dead weight. That said, I think most people do not use an off-road truck to any extreme, and for the most part it will just function as a car with a large space for putting big items. At some point, electric trucks will genuinely be far superior off road. Given they don't require air to run, assuming the human inside can tolerate it, electric trucks really could go anywhere. I somehow doubt it's this truck though.
- rconti 5y agoR1T: "Water fording depth is more than three feet—42 inches" Ford F-150 Raptor: "Do not exceed a maximum depth of 32 in. (810 mm) and no greater than 4 mph (7km/h) to avoid potential vehicle damage." [1] https://www.adventure-journal.com/2021/09/drive-test-rivian-r1t-sets-a-new-standard-for-pickups-gas-or-electric/ https://www.adventure-journal.com/2021/09/drive-test-rivian-... [2] https://www.fordservicecontent.com/Ford_Content/Catalog/owner_information/2017-F150-Raptor-Card-Version-2_rq_EN-US_12_2016.pdf https://www.fordservicecontent.com/Ford_Content/Catalog/owne...
- bArray 5y agoI'm not defending the F-150 as the pinnacle of trucking. A common modification for people wanting to go through something more challenging than a puddle is a snorkel, but I imagine you would be very challenged to make such a modification to this EV? Also most of the time if you go through something too deep with a conventional engine it's going to bog out - as long as you don't then try to turn it over you can empty the engine of water and get it back working quite reliably. I suspect this EV will not be so robust. Anyway, as I said, this truck will likely suite most people.
- rconti 5y agoI honestly don't know, but at some water depth you have to start worrying more about water intrusion inside of the vehicle. 42" is high enough that the battery pack on the Rivian would have to be wet, if not entirely submerged. (Max ground clearance is something like 15", so I'm going with "entirely submerged"). I don't think they'd be citing a 42" fording depth if it was prone to fiery battery destruction when hitting that much water. Would be a bit of a PR problem. On a gas/diesel vehicle, if you're using a snorkel, we're talking about depths where the 12v battery is fully submerged, and apparently it doesn't short out, which is, again presumably, the same situation here. Again, at some point, on a modern vehicle, gas/diesel/electric, you have to start worrying about floating/lack of grip, water intrusion to the cabin, filling up the HVAC system, messing with various electronic components inside the vehicle. Computers, screens, wiring harnesses, heated seats. Just from reasoning it out, at a 42" ford depth, I don't have a reason to think it would fare worse than any other modern fossil fuel vehicle, even if said vehicle was equipped with an intake snorkel above the waterline. I just don't get the knee-jerk assumption that somehow it's EV-ness will make it most likely worse than a gas/diesel truck, when the very thing you're doubting is (apparently) a marketing bragpoint for Rivian. Again, this is all to take their marketing material as gospel, I recognize that.
- teleforce 5y agoFor modern truck that has mass appeal I'd suggest you look at this new Sport Adventure Vehicle (SAV) namely Santa Cruz by Hyundai. It has the potential to kick start and popularize a new vehicle segment similar to what Toyota RAV 4 did to the SUV segment back in the days. This small truck is no slouch since it can tow up to 5000 lbs trailer due to its hybrid vehicle architecture combination of both Tucson and Sante Fe SUVs. Watch it in action easily pulling an 18-foot pontoon boat [1]. I believe it's going to get PHEV or EV option soon by probably adopting electric drivetrain that is powering Kona SUV at the moment [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR8wq0VMHiQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR8wq0VMHiQ [2] https://topelectricsuv.com/news/hyundai/hyundai-santa-cruz-hybrid-electric/ https://topelectricsuv.com/news/hyundai/hyundai-santa-cruz-h...
- donw 5y agoFord's new hybrids are also seriously interesting. Having a proper truck that is also a full-on portable power station is a game changer.
- pertymcpert 5y ago> Having a proper truck that is also a full-on portable power station is a game changer. Why?
- donw 5y agoGreat question. :) If you're on a jobsite without power, a combined truck-generator saves the cost of the separate genny, setup/teardown time, fuel logistics, logistics for the equipment itself, etc. For disaster response, you show up with your fully-fueled truck, and you're providing power as soon as you shift into Park. Everywhere you go in your truck, you basically have the power supply capabilities of a small workshop. It's big.
- coolspot 5y agoI think because contractors often need to power their tools on sites that may not have a power source.
- hyperpallium2 5y agoFunfact: the first electric vehicles were trucks. Edison designed a battery for them.
- paxys 5y agoSemi related – I find the fascination with large and heavy vehicles in America incredibly bizarre. At some point SUVs and trucks started being less about utility and more a test of manliness or patriotism or something. Driving around in even a regular sized sedan sometimes feels like you are in a sketch comedy. I have seen people do grocery runs in literal monster trucks. The average price of a pickup truck sold today is $56K, very far from the "blue collar workhorse" it is advertised as. 70%+ of them will never see a day of off-road or hauling use (https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-size-pickup-truck-you-need-a-cowboy-costume https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...). Aside from the safety problems (for pedestrians & cyclists, not the driver of course), these trucks also wreck city streets, which are not designed for them. It's disappointing that this trend is continuing with EVs as well.
- canada_dry 5y ago> 70%+ of them will never see a day of off-road I remember laughing my head off when Lexus announced they were making a "Luxury SUV". I'm on my second one and it rarely even experiences a gravel road.
- Gustomaximus 5y agoAs someone who likes 4WDing we appreciate people buying these. A ~10 year old nicely devalued and non-abused SUV is a perfect car for those that want to actually 4WD. Taking a new and expensive 4WD down a narrow track with branches scraping stripes down the side would be too stressful for most.
- Gigachad 5y agoRegistration fees should be based on vehicle weight to match the cost of the damage done to the roads.
- cptskippy 5y agoAnd emissions
- 5y ago
- gHosts 5y agoI wonder what the wade depth is?
- NiekvdMaas 5y agoIt's 3 feet / 1 meter
- larrywright 5y agoBuilt in my hometown (where I still live). I’m excited to see them succeed.
- rmason 5y agoHow is Rivian an California startup? The founder is from Michigan. Rivian is headquartered in Plymouth, Michigan outside Detroit. The truck is being built in an old Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Illinois. It's a Delaware corporation. Is it because the original funding came from California?
- paxys 5y agoThe internet seems split on the location of their headquarters. Some sites say Irvine, CA, the rest Plymouth, MI.
- adrr 5y agoTheir HQ is in Irvine,CA. It says on their website on the careers page.
- fastball 5y agoThe relevant section[1]: > Rivian is based in California with a manufacturing plant in Illinois and additional locations in Michigan, Arizona, Vancouver and England. While our teams have adapted well to new ways of collaborating, we believe that having inspired physical spaces to gather and connect remains important. Looks like they moved the HQ to Irvine in 2020. [1] https://rivian.com/careers https://rivian.com/careers
- postingawayonhn 5y agoThe founder is actually from Florida (where Rivian then operating under a different name originally started in 2009). They moved the headquarters from Michigan to California about a year ago.
- georgeburdell 5y agoAs someone with two kids, I'm more interested in the R1S, and I'm confused why they're not leading with the SUV, which seems to be a less competitive market segment. The Model X is the lone electric SUV, that I'm aware of, but it has a number of features that don't appeal to the average American buyer (the stupid doors, over-use of touch screens, etc.). The R1T will compete with the F-150 lightning and Cybertruck.
- IshKebab 5y agoThe Cybertruck isn't actually going to be a production vehicle so it's really only the F-150 Lightning which isn't even released yet.
- nickik 5y agoIts amazing that people just claim this nonsense. Where are you getting this information TSLAQ twitter? Tesla is literally building a gigantic factory that they have already invested billions into and they literally have about a million people who have put money down to get a pre-order (even at 10% conversion rate that is a lot) and somehow its but somehow its not going into production? Total nonsense.
- biaachmonkie 5y agoSo your belief is that Tesla is committing fraud? That the over 1.25 million reservations the have taken for the Cybertruck is some sort of scam?
- IshKebab 5y agoWouldn't be the first time. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/why-selling-full-self-driving-before-its-ready-could-backfire-for-tesla/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/why-selling-full-self-d... Was it a scam to take $3k from people for full self driving in 2016 and still not deliver?
- Thorrez 5y agoOther electric SUVs: Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Kona Electric, Tesla Model Y, Volvo XC40 Recharge, Volkswagen ID.4, Jaguar I-PACE, Audi e-tron, Kia Niro EV.
- gbronner 5y agosadly, it isn't tough enough to support a snowplow. Because it would be the best snowplow vehicle you could buy if it was a bit tougher.
- m463 5y agoI wonder if you could just put a plow on the back and run it in reverse. As far as I know, electric vehicles can go just as fast in reverse as forward since there are no gears.
- bagacrap 5y agoI think price is part of the calculation of "best" and this vehicle is about 10x more valuable than the rusted old trucks with plow attachments I see around here.
- saberworks 5y agoOver 200 comments and nobody has mentioned privacy. Read the Rivian privacy policy, it's downright scary. They track and record everything: location, acceleration/braking, charging, etc., and they explicitly state that they will "share" all the personal information with 3d party advertisers. I don't know how anyone gets on board with this stuff. I would be in line for one of these (or any electric vehicle) but every company seems to do it nowadays, with no option for opting out.
- blue-gum 5y agoprobably because nobody read it. It should be illegal to share personal data with 3rd parties without EXPLICIT permission for each sharing instance. In order to share your x-ray/medical scans/information it must be done on a case by case basis. This should be required for all personal information