Out of Spec: Rivian R1T Highway Range Test

[moosehead]

Yes, his truck has 20” ATs. Start of trip with full charge the system told him he would have 293 miles and when he returned to the office after confirming on Google maps he got about 290 miles. He had a tail wind headed east and a headwind coming back. Pretty good overall!

Thank you for this distilled version. Saved me from another OOS video that is twice as long as it needs to be.

Sorry to be the whiner here as the nerd in me appreciates the effort, but the bloviating and need for editing seem to overtake the actual facts presented.

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[BillyBob]

Thank you for this distilled version. Saved me from another OOS video that is twice as long as it needs to be.

Sorry to be the whiner here as the nerd in me appreciates the effort, but the bloviating and need for editing seem to overtake the actual facts presented.

Actually this was done as a livestream broadcast on You Tube. Total length as he drove around Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska was over 5 hours! I just went to the beginning for a minute or so, then to the end to get the recap.

 

[moosehead]

This is about the range I'd get from my Taycan 4S on 20" tires doing the test the way he did, maybe a bit less.

Good result but not amazing….

The Rivian is what, 2’ taller than a Taycan?

I’d say that is pretty amazing range when comparing a refrigerator to a bullet. Newco startup to stellar legacy of Pcar engineering.

 

[Guy]

This is about the range I'd get from my Taycan 4S on 20" tires doing the test the way he did, maybe a bit less.

Good result but not amazing. I'd like to see the test in All Purpose mode as it sounds like conserve isn't the most enjoyable to drive in, especially for those of us with beat up highways.

I'd also like to see the test at 80-82ish MPH, which is the real speed most of us will highway cruise at. There tends to be a large efficiency drop from 70 to 80.

It is a good result given it is much less aerodynamic than your Taycan, heavier and more off road capable (hence the off road tires). Choose standard tires, and not conserve all the time and above 300 seem easily attainable.

 

[Guy]

Thank you for this distilled version. Saved me from another OOS video that is twice as long as it needs to be.

Sorry to be the whiner here as the nerd in me appreciates the effort, but the bloviating and need for editing seem to overtake the actual facts presented.

You don’t have to watch or just get the cliff notes. I am glad someone is putting in the effort for testing.

 

[SANZC02]

The Rivian is what, 2’ taller than a Taycan?

I’d say that is pretty amazing range when comparing a refrigerator to a bullet. Newco startup to stellar legacy of Pcar engineering.

Yes, they have always said they spent a lot of time on aerodynamics for these R1 vehicles.

Looks can be deceiving, my Jeep GC does not look all that efficient but I can get 24 mpg on a fairly flat highway between 75 and 80. An example is Interstate 15 between Vegas and SLC.

 

[Davethadog]

2.2mpk is wild but then again my ram gets 12mpg…

If a gallon of gas is 33.7 KWh it really puts in perspective just how efficient electric motors are even if batteries are not particularly energy dense…yet.

 

[COdogman]

Thank you for this distilled version. Saved me from another OOS video that is twice as long as it needs to be.

Sorry to be the whiner here as the nerd in me appreciates the effort, but the bloviating and need for editing seem to overtake the actual facts presented.

I feel ya. I really like their videos - they always do their best to get people the information they want. But it is definitely hard to find time to watch many of them. It took me almost a week to find time to watch the first video because I just don’t have an hour+ each day to watch YouTube videos. This one was 38 minutes LOL

 

[Taycanfrank]

The Rivian is what, 2’ taller than a Taycan?

I’d say that is pretty amazing range when comparing a refrigerator to a bullet. Newco startup to stellar legacy of Pcar engineering.

The Taycan has a 93.7 kWh battery vs 135 for the R1T and it's Porsche's first EV whereas Rivian literally only exists to create the R1T/S.

This wasn't an insult to Rivian or touting Porsche, I could not care less about any car manufacturer, I was just making a comparison as someone who's done a lot more road tripping in EVs than almost anyone on this forum. I find the Taycan range acceptable for longer road trips, of which I've done many, but the Taycan also charges much faster than the R1T. The range on the Rivian looks to be fine, well done Rivian, but it's the charging they need to focus on improving.

The result is certainly not amazing for a 135 kWh pack. That's just above 2 mile/kWh in pretty excellent conditions which is, again, a fine/good/acceptable number for the size of the R1T but not outstanding.

 

[Davethadog]

The Taycan has a 93.7 kWh battery vs 135 for the R1T and it's Porsche's first EV whereas Rivian literally only exists to create the R1T/S.

This wasn't an insult to Rivian, I was just making a comparison as someone who's done a lot more road tripping in EVs than almost anyone on this forum. I find the Taycan range acceptable for longer road trips, of which I've done many, but the Taycan also charges much faster than the R1T. The range on the Rivian looks to be fine, well done Rivian, but it's the charging they need to focus on improving.

The result is certainly not amazing for a 135 kWh pack. That's just above 2 mile/kWh in pretty excellent conditions which is, again, a fine/good/acceptable number for the size of the R1T but not outstanding.

If you compare the efficiency of the rivian to other EVs and compare them to their relative ICE counterparts, the efficiency of the rivian seems to be pretty much on par.

 

[SANZC02]

I wonder what size the battery actually is? They stopped saying size awhile ago, probably just to prevent people from making noise about useable size.

100% to 0% used 124 kWh, if it is 135, based on calculating the number of cells (7776 @ 17.2 watts hours per cell) I wonder how much is buffered above 100% and what is buffered under 0%. It also seems to indicate there is room still to play on the charge curve but how much with less than 9% buffer on the pack.

 

[RexRemus]

This is about the range I'd get from my Taycan 4S on 20" tires doing the test the way he did, maybe a bit less.

Good result but not amazing. I'd like to see the test in All Purpose mode as it sounds like conserve isn't the most enjoyable to drive in, especially for those of us with beat up highways.

I'd also like to see the test at 80-82ish MPH, which is the real speed most of us will highway cruise at. There tends to be a large efficiency drop from 70 to 80.

You understand the Taycan is a slippery little tear drop and this is a literal brick that weighs quite a bit more on AT tires - in my book that actually makes it pretty impressive. Any truck will never match a sedan or similarly sized, heavily aero optimized vehicle on pure efficiency, but ~300mi on a full charge is actually better than expected with the speeds and tires used.

 

[SeaGeo]

It was surprising that the truck said 124KW used down to zero. The pack is 135 and the thought had been that was very close to the useable amount. Maybe not.

Yeah, it hasn't been particularly clear. And tbh I was thinking the final pack size was 133kwh.

I'd personally call this a pretty fantastic result. @Taycanfrank you gotta remember they almost hit EPA with the lower efficiency tires that rivian says causes a 10 to 15% hit in range. The Tacan is absurdly slipping by design, and about as tall as a Chihuahua, so I also think it's pretty hard to qualitatively compare the two. If you look at a typical truck drag coefficient and the R1T dimensions I think you come away pretty impressed.

 

[SeaGeo]

I wonder what size the battery actually is? They stopped saying size awhile ago, probably just to prevent people from making noise about useable size.

100% to 0% used 124 kWh, if it is 135, based on calculating the number of cells (7776 @ 17.2 watts hours per cell) I wonder how much is buffered above 100% and what is buffered under 0%. It also seems to indicate there is room still to play on the charge curve but how much with less than 9% buffer on the pack.

I think the EPA docs suggested 133kwh.

 

[SANZC02]

Yeah, it hasn't been particularly clear. And tbh I was thinking the final pack size was 133kwh.

I'd personally call this a pretty fantastic result. @Taycanfrank you gotta remember they almost hit EPA with the lower efficiency tires that rivian says causes a 10 to 15% hit in range. The Tacan is absurdly slipping by design, and about as tall as a Chihuahua, so I also think it's pretty hard to qualitatively compare the two. If you look at a typical truck drag coefficient and the R1T dimensions I think you come away pretty impressed.

I can tell you, if I can get that on the R1S with the 22s I would be thrilled. That puts me over 200 miles at 85%, I was estimating around 175.

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