Rivian R1T All-Electric Pickup Truck
November 29th, 2018I’ve mostly stopped posting about future electric vehicles (you can’t even shake a stick at all the announcements), but the Rivian R1T is particularly interesting.
Days before the Rivian R1T was officially announced, Elon Musk said that Tesla will be bringing their pickup to market much sooner than previously indicated. It’s easy to see why, if you look at what Rivian has just announced.
What’s happening with electrification and the other big players in the pickup truck sector?
With Ford, who wants to increasingly focus on milking truck profits, it could get ugly over there in a couple of years when Rivian and Tesla enter the pickup truck market. Ford only has a hybrid F-150 planned for 2020.
How about GM’s plans for an electric pickup? Maybe after another couple of decades. *chortle* A bit like fusion power plants. *snort*
My take on EVs has always been that performance and eventual cost savings will make them attractive options. Internal combustion vehicles simply can’t compete with electric models in terms of performance. Ask Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, etc. who all got it wrong, got their asses kicked by Tesla, EVEN IN GERMANY, and are now tripping over each other trying to catch up.
The same thing that happened to the smug German luxury brands is going to happen to pickups.
The electrification of the truck market is the next multibillion dollar opportunity that the traditional American automakers will fumble.
Ah well, maybe they’re planning to ask to be bailed out by the government again.
Via: Electrek:
Following the unveiling of the Rivian R1T all-electric pickup truck, we took a closer look at what is becoming one of the most anticipated EVs scheduled to come out in the next two years.
Here’s a ton of pictures, videos, and GIFs of the Rivian R1T, and why I ordered one.
As we already reported, the R1T’s specs are unbelievable.
It’s equipped with 4 electric motors, each a 147 kW power capacity at the wheel, while the total power output can be configured to different levels from 300 kW to 562 kW (input to gearbox).
The different power levels match different choices of battery packs, which are another impressive feature since they have the highest capacity of any other passenger electric vehicle out there: 105 kWh, 135 kWh, and 180 kWh.
Rivian says that it will translate to “230+ miles, 300+ miles, and 400+ miles” of range on a full charge.
They’re talking about a charge rate of up to 160 kW at fast-charging stations and an 11-kW onboard charger for level 2 charging.
Related:
Could Rivian Founder Become Elon Musk of Electric Pickups?
Sedans Aren’t Dead. American Sedans Are.
Those smug German luxury brands may have pooh-pooh’d their way into giving TESLA a sizable headstart in the market, and the cache of being first to market surely gives Elon a thrill, but the gazillions they’ve dumped into development over the last 3-5 years is about to arrive in showrooms around the world. And all that brand loyalty they’ve cultivated over the years — and their experience with the actual engineering — is most likely going to expand the market and general acceptance. It may (or may not) actually damage Musk’s market share, but the process will be VERY interesting to observe no matter how things shake out over the next 3-5 years. FYI : TESLA purchased a local firm in nearby Prüm (Germany) a couple years back, Grohmann Engineering, who build complex automated machinery for electronic manufacture. As their machines are used by most of the world’s major automakers and electronic sub-contractors, it’s developments like these that really catch my eye. When the news of Grohmann being acquired hit the local news, it was a personal Twilight Zone moment of sorts, as the company was/is a large customer of an auto ID company I spent several years with in my previous life stateside.