Rivian releases new electric pickup test video, explains balance of off-road and on-road performance

Rivian has released a new video of their testing program for their R1T electric pickup truck and explained how they are trying to achieve a balance between off-road and on-road performance.

Over the last few months, Rivian has been releasing a series of videos about their testing in the Arizona desert.

Today, they released the latest video of the series and in it, they highlighted their work in balancing the performance off-road versus on-road.

Rivian has been advertising their electric vehicles as “adventure” vehicles for outdoor people who want to electrify their adventures.

But for many pickup owners who like to use their vehicles on off-road adventures, they also need their vehicles for daily driving and that should be especially true for Rivian’s electric vehicles since they are going to be a lot cheaper to operate on a daily basis than gasoline and diesel trucks.

In the video, a Rivian engineer explains how they manage the balance:

“You’ll generally have to make a bunch of compromises to make something really well. You can be really good off-road but on road it will be really soft whereas our vehicle it has such a broad spectrum of performance. We look at what makes it good on road and what makes it good off road and we minimize the number of compromises to make it good on both, and that’s why we arrived at the solution that we did/ That’s why we have 4 independent motors so that we can optimize grip off road but also optimize the handling balance on road.”

The engineer also mentioned the air suspension that changes height for different situations.

Here’s the new Rivian video in full:

Last week, Rivian updated their production timeline for the R1T electric pickup and R1S electric SUV and confirmed that the first deliveries have been delayed to summer 2021.

Electrek’s Take

These videos have been very helpful for reservation holders like myself to give us something to gnaw on while we wait.

I really want to buy one of the first electric pickup trucks to hit the market.

Right now, I have reservations for both the Rivian R1T and Tesla Cybertruck, but I am also open to other vehicles, like the electric Ford F-150.

At the moment, it looks like they will come out around the same time in late 2021 to late 2022.

I want to make an informed decision and I don’t think that will be possible until next year when we get more details about the vehicles.