Rivian R1T’s 21,000km TV torture test

High-profile electric vehicle start-up Rivian has put two pre-production examples of its R1T dual-cab pick-up through an unusual 21,000km torture test as support vehicles for the latest instalment of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s ‘Long Way’ TV franchise.

This time it’s Long Way Up, with movie star McGregor and his actor mate riding electric Harley-Davidson Livewires from Patagonia in South America to Los Angeles.

To stick with the EV theme, Rivian was approached to provide two R1Ts to travel along as back-up.

The only problem was this was March 2019, Rivian wasn’t exactly flush with R1Ts and the vehicle was still in heavy development.

But the answer was still yes to the request.

“I was just, like, ‘This sounds like the most amazing, like from a brand perspective, doing something that is so just big and bold and adventurous and unproven’,” Rivian’s chief engineer of special projects, Brian Gase, told Car and Driver magazine.

Not only did Rivian have to prepare two vehicles for the 100 day journey that crossed 13 countries, it also took responsibility for building a network of about 240 Level 2 chargers at 140 locations along the route to supply the R1Ts and Livewires with electricity.

Rivian can probably afford it. Among the new-generation of EV wannabe it has some of the most solid backing, with Amazon, Ford and Cox Automotive investing billions of dollars between them.

The two R1Ts that ended up being used were test vehicles, the second of which was only built and had all its software and thermal system checks completed six hours before it was scheduled to ship to South America.

Rivian says it learned a lot from the trip, as noted in a 2019 blog post on its public website that didn’t go into the reasons behind the trip.

Rivian cycled test teams in and out through the trip who assessed different aspects of the vehicles, as the blog noted:

“South America’s mountain ranges offer the perfect opportunity to demonstrate quad-motor torque vectoring.

“To gain the most traction for a given driving scenario, such as exiting a corner at full throttle, the brain of the R1T is constantly optimising power distribution.

“This ability to instantly – and independently – apply torque at each of the four corners, combined with the R1T’s chassis control systems and low centre of mass, results in a vehicle that’s planted to the ground, even on loose-gravel hard turns like these.”

This Rivian video posted only recently gives another taste of the experience.

The basis of the R1T is a bespoke skateboard chassis that houses four 147kW electric motors producing a staggering combined 1400Nm of torque.

Three battery options will be offered – 105kW, 135kWh and 180kWh.

The R1T is claimed to hit 100km/h in around three seconds while being able to deliver a range between 370km and 650km, despite being 5.5-metres long and a hefty 2.6 tonnes.

The R1T can tow up to 5000kg but payload is limited to 800kg, which places it lineball with orthodox ‘1500’-spec US pick-ups, such as the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado and RAM.

The first production R1Ts are scheduled to go on-sale in the USA in June 2021, a delay from earlier in the year prompted by COVID-19 complications. The R1S SUV based on the same architecture goes on-sale in August.

The R1T’s US starting price is US$69,000, or about $96,000 Aussie.

Long Way Up premieres globally September 18th on Apple TV+. It follows Long Way Round (2004) and Long Way Down (2007).