Thank RivianOwnersForum.com for this heavy hauler.
There is not a single electric pickup truck for sale so far. What we have are doubts about towing capacity, charging docks for pickups with trailers, and so forth. The Tesla Cybertruck has made waves with its exoskeleton structure and unusual design as a consequence of that. On another note, the Rivian R1T appeals to a more conventional customer, one that would love to have a Heavy Duty version, for example. This is what the guys from RivianOwnersForum.com addressed with the rendering above.
The artist behind the rendering is not named, but we salute him. The R1T looks really nice with the extra set of wheels and enlarged rear wheel arches. Dually pickup trucks can carry a lot more weight and also tow larger stuff, but they get much lower fuel economy numbers for being dually alone.
While that is not a big issue with combustion-engined pickup trucks and their massive engines, fuel tanks, and energy consumption inefficiencies, electric pickup trucks have a challenge ahead.
The more weight they carry – such as large battery packs – the less they can carry or tow. That is why Tesla had the exoskeleton approach for the Cybertruck: to make it as light as possible even with a massive pile of cells.
In that sense – and unless ingenious solutions emerge – the R1T HD rendering is as impressive as it is surrealistic. Towing a large trailer such as that one would make the range drop drastically. Electric pickup trucks will probably need very streamlined trailers, eventually with a battery pack of their own, to travel far and without hassle.
Would you buy an R1T HD regardless of that? What if its range was reduced to a third or even less of the original one with the extra capability? Is there a way to overcome this? Let us know what you think below.
Source: RivianOwnersForum.com
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