Tested the new Soft Sand Mode today with R1T

[Lil'O Annie]

Hi Mike!! You've inspired us to go down to Juniper Dunes and give sand blasting a try. How did you attach your flag? Looks like you used the trailer hitch? Any Pics of your attachment?

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[Inkedsphynx]

I hate to be pedantic, but the point of a flag in sand is so someone can see your vehicle before you crest a dune and hit them head on. If you put your flag at the rear of a long truck like this, there's basically no chance it can be seen before you come up over the crest of the dune.

Please, for everyone's safety, find ways to mount your flag to the front of the vehicle, or even better, on the roof.

 

[kylealden]

2400 Wh/mi! One third of the battery to go 17.5 mi.! Looks as if this case matches some of my old predictions. If driving on sand you are going to have to keep an eagle eye on your battery condition. Consumption should be much better on hard packed sand.

Looks like he was absolutely ripping it at least some of the time, too. If you're just driving down a sandy road, I don't think this necessarily carries across. But yeah, I probably wouldn't try to cross the Sahara in a hurry.

 

[Lil'O Annie]

I hate to be pedantic, but the point of a flag in sand is so someone can see your vehicle before you crest a dune and hit them head on. If you put your flag at the rear of a long truck like this, there's basically no chance it can be seen before you come up over the crest of the dune.

Please, for everyone's safety, find ways to mount your flag to the front of the vehicle, or even better, on the roof.

Very good point! Do you have any good ideas as to how to attach a flag to the front?? Use the tow hooks somehow??

In Mike's defense, he was out on a flat beach, so probably not as much of an issue. BUT, where we are thinking of going there are some fairly high dunes. We would need to attach it to the front as you suggest. Thanks!!

 

[Inkedsphynx]

I've done everything from fabricating a mount I can roll up in the passenger window, to duct taping flags to roof racks. Really anywhere you can find a way to attach should work, tho I wouldn't tape one to the paint. Maybe something mounted to the tow hooks?

 

[mgc0216]

Sany Munro's offroading video has the flag mounted to the tow hooks. I like the use of the pipe insulation to protect the paint - although I'm surprised he cares about that based on the way he beats the heck out of the truck in this video.

ETA:

 

[bowhunter]

Hi Mike!! You've inspired us to go down to Juniper Dunes and give sand blasting a try. How did you attach your flag? Looks like you used the trailer hitch? Any Pics of your attachment?

Yeah, I just went with a simple solution of mounting a quick release holder to a hitch for a 5/16 " pole:

I have a folding aerial bracket on order, but is taking a while for it to arrive. I can share that setup when I get it in place.

I hate to be pedantic, but the point of a flag in sand is so someone can see your vehicle before you crest a dune and hit them head on. If you put your flag at the rear of a long truck like this, there's basically no chance it can be seen before you come up over the crest of the dune.

Please, for everyone's safety, find ways to mount your flag to the front of the vehicle, or even better, on the roof.

I agree that mounting it towards the front is ideal for cresting dunes and angled forward some is even better. That being said, the setup I used was fully in compliance with the area's regulations and safe for the terrain I traversed.

 

[Lil'O Annie]

Sany Munro's offroading video has the flag mounted to the tow hooks. I like the use of the pipe insulation to protect the paint - although I'm surprised he cares about that based on the way he beats the heck out of the truck in this video.

ETA:

There ya go!! Thanks1

 

[bowhunter]

Looks like he was absolutely ripping it at least some of the time, too. If you're just driving down a sandy road, I don't think this necessarily carries across. But yeah, I probably wouldn't try to cross the Sahara in a hurry.

The best efficiency that I remember seeing was 1 mi/kWh just driving on wet sand along the beach.

One interesting thing I noticed was how much this trip affected my range estimate. After the trip, my estimated miles at 70% SOC in all purpose dropped by 11 miles. I'm not sure why they leverage off-road usage into on-road mode range estimates. It also seems overly impactful, but maybe the history reset after the OTA update or it is based on a relatively short rolling data sampling.

 

[kylealden]

I've done everything from fabricating a mount I can roll up in the passenger window, to duct taping flags to roof racks. Really anywhere you can find a way to attach should work, tho I wouldn't tape one to the paint. Maybe something mounted to the tow hooks?

Seems like a suction cup tripod on the glass roof would be a pretty perfect solution here?

 

[dleepnw]

Had a blast today playing around in the sand.

Some efficiency info that may be useful for planning for this type of usage:

If you are just driving straight and flat along the beach it seemed like that was somewhere around 0.8 to 1 mile per kWh.

I may share some additional pictures/videos when my friends send me what they took, but here are few from today:

did the performance of the vehicle actually feel any different in sand mode as opposed to other off-road modes?

 

[dleepnw]

This looks like great fun.

The Rivian does things the truck in the video I've linked will never do; which is why I have a Rivian ordered. Having said that, I do wish that Rivian had a mode more like this.

Unfortunately, per the comments in some of the other off-road posts, it doesn't sound like the R1T has the hardware necessary to implement a wheel spin feedback control loop.

wow, that was impressive!

 

[bowhunter]

did the performance of the vehicle actually feel any different in sand mode as opposed to other off-road modes?

In retrospect I should have done more comparative testing (didn't even use general All-Terrain mode). Just driving straight over sand didn't really feel different between sand and all-purpose mode. Sand mode will happily let you dig your wheels down into a hole if given enough acceleration. It wasn't magic and could not get through uphill deep soft sand. The low regen worked well for easing down steep hills. Zipping around while sliding felt very solid and I always felt that I had control.

Here is a short video with it in drift mode:

 

[R1Sky Business]

I hate to be pedantic, but the point of a flag in sand is so someone can see your vehicle before you crest a dune and hit them head on. If you put your flag at the rear of a long truck like this, there's basically no chance it can be seen before you come up over the crest of the dune.

Please, for everyone's safety, find ways to mount your flag to the front of the vehicle, or even better, on the roof.

Just get 2 flags

 

[Mark_AZR1T]

What’s your paint look like now after the sand blasting?

Like a truck?

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