Rivian R1T: Electrifying the Outdoors | Leg 1 of 5 Nags Head to Dalton

Tackling the Trans-America Trail–a route of interconnected, non-paved roads that runs from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean–is hard enough with a gas-powered vehicle. But what about in an electric pickup truck? Strap in with the editors of MotorTrend as they overland from coast-to-coast via the TAT in the groundbreaking fully-electric Rivian R1T. Read all about the adventure right here. ➡️

Damn we can put you right here ah look at that wow i first pitched this story i think 2017 it’s 20 21 i am in my 30s now a lot of time has passed hello we’re invading your space already all right we have to come check out the tracks rj the the founder and ceo of rivian he came to our offices uh to show us the r1t virtually him and one of his guys gave me a uh

A vr headset and i put it on and also in front of me was this really cool like pickup truck that i’ve never seen before you look like the rivian’s giving birth to you so many people you know at that time you know a few years ago we were just making electric vehicles that were commuter cars like the chevy bolt which great car but not particularly interesting and

Here was someone with a vision to make a car that people actually want to buy a pickup that people actually want to buy so they can go off-road but it’ll be as luxurious as a range rover and it’s fun to drive as a sports car 24-year career i have never seen a press car that had its own can opener or a knife most automakers know not to give journalists knives i

Immediately started thinking of story ideas for that and i was really into over lending still am and i kind of just stumbled upon the transamerica trail and was like that that’s what we’re going to do we’re going to be the first to do this to cross the transit backup trail electric vehicle it does start now you’re uh that’s it our electric adventure is starting

Now let’s do it this is your two-year dream it’s yeah it’s been a while country and electric car wow off-road starting backwards off-road the transamerica trail is kind of like the ultimate great american road trip you’re starting in north carolina on the atlantic ocean and driving largely on unpaved roads to the pacific ocean in oregon you know it’s kind of an

Insane thing to do in all honesty holy crow we as motor trend are going to cross the country using back roads and and no roads in an electric car like people are not buying electric cars because they’re going well what if i out of my usual routine instead of going from home to work i suddenly have to pick up the kids because my husband got sick or my wife got

Sick or oh what if i have to go to the grocery store and i run out of power we’re going to the middle of freaking nowhere i’ve been uh thinking about this project staring at the maps for more than a year and so to be out here on trail with the motor trend team with with our vehicle team has been super fun the piece that took us the longest to solve for

Was just the appropriate daily mileage to hit how do we do it in a way that’s aggressive and time efficient but also manageable for the people who are on trail driving not wearing them out you know making sure they’re getting enough sleep stuff like that oh cool um man i don’t even know where to start today long long story short uh we did our drive we left

At seven in the morning we arrived in lovingston virginia um from nags at north carolina at uh seven o’clock in the afternoon i’m really proud of our progress today 12 hours of driving is a lot some really honestly great driving roads like man um i lost my train of thought because it’s late and i’m tired and uh yeah peace also who says peace anymore what am

I like thirteen anyway hey so the irony here is we were just in the car discussing because i’m trying to watch my speed because it’s really rocky and i’m worried about a tire and i’m just saying to christian what do you think you know should i be worried about the tires he’s like no i think you could put on a little bit more speed and not worry about them so

Much and then we find out we didn’t realize we had a flat tire so yeah guess slower would have been better i’m thinking this is the first of many tires we’ll go through this trip these guys put the spare on and repair the tire that i thought i destroyed but didn’t in about 60 seconds is what it felt like i’ve seriously never seen tires come off a car and onto a

Car so quickly it’s like being in nascar so yeah we’ll continue on our way what 10 minutes after we stopped would you say yeah this is incredible it’s been something on this trip that like the pavement just boom it ends and all of a sudden you’re on gravel and you have to adjust your driving style because as as we learned uh the hard way to our detriment you

Can really screw up a tire on some of these really rough uh rock roads but the rivien has a lot of drive modes and there’s really a lot of differentiation between them because they have an air suspension they have this fancy hydraulic damper and roll control system where all four axles are intertwined they change their pedal travel they change the regenerative

Braking response so the road changes instantly and you change modes with the screen and the truck changes instantly before christian is my co-pilot i’m like christian give me rally mode christian give me drift mode christian give me all-purpose mode but there really is a mode for every every type of driving it’s like two different vehicles it’s it’s wild ah well

This is uh different so look at this i think it says on their 1928 ford so it’s kind of funny so here’s our tie-in right you ready for this like this was the most modern thing you could buy at least from ford because you know ford kept on with that model t right right into the 20s long after it was obsolete but then he came out with this so just like our rivians

Like this is this was super modern had traditional controls before too long it would have a v8 engine yeah this might have gotten at least from ford fanatics the same kind of stairs we’re getting in our riviens i can imagine well hello here i am you know today it really really occurred to me kind of how monumental it is what we’re doing and what these what

These uh trucks are doing i mean we are crossing the country off-road almost entirely off-road in electric trucks we’re the first ones to do this and i told christian like when we’re old men and we can see these vehicles in a museum somewhere and say we drove that car part of the way across the country we were the first ones or something like that i do plan

To talk in this voice when i’m old i’ll fake it but i’ll talk like this so thank you for watching good night well our support really didn’t even get as much as we did these charges appear to be really slow so yeah we didn’t get it we didn’t get quite as much charge as we need so we’re just plotting an extra stop we’re gonna turn off the route for a few miles

To uh hit a fast charger juice up and then away we go the minor perils of electric car travel so our 12-hour day is now looking like 13 hours what’s an hour when you’re not getting any sleep i’ve been doing this for about 10 years now i’ve driven lots of cars i’ve spent countless thousands of dollars on fuel there’s probably a sense of guilt as we watch like

Kind of the world change you get more extreme weather events i don’t fault anyone for it you know these are all decisions made way before our lifetime we inherited this system but it doesn’t mean we can’t change it and change it for the better and hopefully leave a better world for you know the people that follow us and so it’s really great to me that vehicles

Like the r1t kind of allow you to continue to do the things you already love to be outdoors to explore to go off-roading to haul stuff to drive quick on a good road without the environmental guilt the damage the noise the air pollution it’s definitely a hard transition i think we’re making but long term it’ll be worth it i’m positive for that today despite

Being you know 14 hours on the road um it’s tough to complain that’s weird as that is just the roads were so so epic um you really have to see this to believe this and i really think the next waves we could be in for a shock when they see how grueling this is and how you know it’s rewarding but grueling it’s like a good workout this is 43 days it is a

Endurance race it’s a marathon it’s a relay race actually if you really think about it it just made sense to not be selfish and not do the whole thing myself as much as i might want to and to hand it off to you know my fellow editors i’m actually really looking forward to seeing you know what people the next wave like you know miguel cortino i talked on the

Phone yesterday he’s super excited to get behind the wheel and i can’t wait to see his reaction and and how he enjoys the trip we’ve been in virginia for a very very long time but the cool thing to me is like i look at these these beautiful mountains in the backdrop these these tree strewn mountains where it looks like you know nothing that doesn’t walk on all

Fours would possibly go but that’s what we’ve driven through it’s given me a new appreciation for hitting the back roads i mean i always put google maps when i have the time i always put avoid highways you know and take the take the secondary roads and i thought i was seeing the landscape then but boy this is terrific it’s it’s emotional it’s spiritual i think

If everybody even with what little i’ve seen if everybody could get out and just drive this little piece that we’ve seen i think it would it would just it would just change we’re gonna say battery so we got we got 299 miles of range i think yeah 199 but we’re very low on saltwater taffy i should have this could be a real problem should have had a five pound

Box why didn’t they buy that five pounds i know we ate a whole pound of taffy yeah what is wrong with this

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Rivian R1T: Electrifying the Outdoors | Leg 1 of 5 Nags Head to Dalton | MotorTrend By MotorTrend Channel