Towing boats with Rivian R1T & R1S -- add your experience / results

[RivWO23]

I took delivery of my R1T quad in December '22 and absolutely love it! I wanted to start a thread dedicated to towing boats to help perspective and existing owners get an idea of what to expect.

I got the truck and boat on a CAT scale yesterday to determine exact weights of the truck and boat. The truck weighs 7,120lbs and had absolutely no problem pulling my 8,960lbs 2022 MasterCraft X24. Tongue weight was 920lbs.

My boat dealer is about 4 hours away from me and I was due for regular maintenance service. I took the opportunity to see how well the R1T would tow. Typically, I get around 2.3-2.5mi/kWh in temps above 50F and not towing. I was expecting a significant reduction in range from what I've read from others. Here's my data from the trip:

Leg 1:
- Started at 95% charge in northern Indiana
- Ended at 9% charge
- Drove 101 miles to an Electrify America off the interstate in Ohio
- 55F and little to no wind
- Averaged 0.93 mi/kWh
-Charged up to 82% which took 44 minutes

Leg 2:
- Started at 82% charge
- Ended at 3% charge
- Drove 90.9 miles to an Electrify America near Ann Arbor, Michigan
- 65F and little to no wind
- Averaged 0.9 mi/kWh
- Charged up to 75% which took 43 minutes

Leg 3:
- Started at 75% charge
- Drove 40.2 miles to dealer
- 70F and little to no wind
- Averaged 0.98 mi/kWh
- Left boat at dealer and headed home. I had to stop and charge one more time to get me home.

What should have been an 8 hour trip ended up taking 10.5 hours. This wasn't terrible as the charging stops gave me a chance to stretch and catch up on emails. Overall, I was really pleased with how well the truck towed. I could definitely feel the boat back there, but never felt pushed around or underpowered. Here are some of my takeaways from the trip:

- I had to unhook at 1 of the 2 charging locations I stopped at.
- Slowing down can make a substantial difference in range. Going from 70 to 65 got me around 0.1 additional mi/kWh.
- The boat sits significantly above the top of the truck which I believe creates more drag than I was hoping for.

Hope this is helpful information and curious what other are experiencing.

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[azbill]

I am getting .94 mile/kwh with mine. The lake I go to is 35 miles from me, so it works without charging.

 

[moosehead]

Nice! The X24 is a beast of a boat and a tow load. Moar pics please.

 

[northmyrtle]

Our R1S is the best tow vehicle we have owned thus far. Came from a Tahoe hybrid which was a great tow vehicle but the Rivian drives and rides like the boat and trailer aren't back there.

We get about .95 mi/kWh towing to lake about 10 miles on country roads. No significant highway trips yet.

the range estimate drop changing to trailer mode seems overly conservative initially but usually seems to climb as we start driving.

 

[VFUNARI]

I have a 26 foot Monterey 262. On mostly flat terrain I got a little better at like 1.25. The dry boat weighs about 6500 but with fuel and toys it’s at least 7500, dual axle iron trailer weighs about 1-2k. Super easy on throttle. Going to launch first time in Dana point, hopefully next week try lake Perris. Trying to be strategic about lake

I’m think of storing it at a place half way to lake so I won’t even half to worry about the lake drive andbringing it home. I dread showing up in a Walmart parking lot and navigating with that big boat having to unhook etc in a place Ineverbeen. I think ifI make a trip and have to do this with boat I’ll try to do early morning or late when traffic in city or roads and parking isn’t as big a problem.

I used to tow with f250 and rivian does tow better

 

[RivianRunner]

- Slowing down can make a substantial difference in range. Going from 70 to 65 got me around 0.1 additional mi/kWh.
- The boat sits significantly above the top of the truck which I believe creates more drag than I was hoping for.

Hope this is helpful information and curious what other are experiencing.

So was the 0.90 mi/kWh going 70 and 0.98 mi/kWh going 65 mph or how fast were you towing for the numbers listed above? Efficiency numbers are all but meaningless without having a good idea of the speed through the air.

I see what you mean about the boat sitting above the truck. I bet you could improve it by another 5% if you could tow with the suspension raised a few inches. You would need a receiver with more drop built into and I don't know if your tow stability would be impacted in an unsafe manner or not.

The way the air flows between the tow vehicle and the trailer is surprisingly important to the amount of drag created. A more practical solution might be a large foil on the back of the R1T to direct the air to a more favorable direction if you were planning to tow long distances much. It looks like the bow of the boat is catching too much of the airflow off the back of the bed which would create quite a low-pressure area behind the boat.

Of course, the large canopy and frame for the tow bit is adding a huge amount of additional drag. It would help to remove the big bundle of fabric if it comes off easily.

 

[jsully19]

This is very helpful and interesting!

We took delivery of our R1S in April. I’ve owned MasterCraft boats for over 15 years. We now have a 2023 Mastercraft XStar and pull it with our F250. I’d love to tow the XStar with our new R1S but the Rivian delivery team in Arizona told us not to tow the XStar because the weight of over 8,000 lbs and it was too heavy for the R1S to trailer safely. They said both the R1T and R1S have a maximum trailer weight of 7,700 lbs.

Did you have any performance issues trailering the X24 with your R1T? What are your thoughts about the “maximum trailer load of 7,700 lbs”? Do you think there are any warranty issues trailering above the max recommended weight?[/QUOTE]

 

[racekarl]

This is very helpful and interesting!

We took delivery of our R1S in April. I’ve owned MasterCraft boats for over 15 years. We now have a 2023 Mastercraft XStar and pull it with our F250. I’d love to tow the XStar with our new R1S but the Rivian delivery team in Arizona told us not to tow the XStar because the weight of over 8,000 lbs and it was too heavy for the R1S to trailer safely. They said both the R1T and R1S have a maximum trailer weight of 7,700 lbs.

Did you have any performance issues trailering the X24 with your R1T? What are your thoughts about the “maximum trailer load of 7,700 lbs”? Do you think there are any warranty issues trailering above the max recommended weight?

The R1S is rated to tow 7,700 lbs, but the R1T is rated to tow 11,000 lbs.

 

[DesertFishing]

Great thread. Towing range has been on my mind since reserving my R1S. It arrived two weeks ago. I have only hooked up the boat once (5,500#) for a local lake and the Rivian did very well. I live on a hill and the torque is just amazing. It's different than having to mash the gas in my Land Cruiser (8,100# tow capacity). More stable and enjoyable. Living in Washington, to get to some of the best boating vacation areas, you need to tow over mountain passes. I don't think it will be possible without the Tesla network, but I'll need to get 100 miles going up some serious elevation. I'm going to make some test runs and will post the results.

 

[EarlyAdptr]

 

[Deacon]

I took delivery of my R1T quad in December '22 and absolutely love it! I wanted to start a thread dedicated to towing boats to help perspective and existing owners get an idea of what to expect.

I got the truck and boat on a CAT scale yesterday to determine exact weights of the truck and boat. The truck weighs 7,120lbs and had absolutely no problem pulling my 8,720lbs 2022 MasterCraft X24. Tongue weight was 680lbs.

My boat dealer is about 4 hours away from me and I was due for regular maintenance service. I took the opportunity to see how well the R1T would tow. Typically, I get around 2.3-2.5mi/kWh in temps above 50F and not towing. I was expecting a significant reduction in range from what I've read from others. Here's my data from the trip:

Leg 1:
- Started at 95% charge in northern Indiana
- Ended at 9% charge
- Drove 101 miles to an Electrify America off the interstate in Ohio
- 55F and little to no wind
- Averaged 0.93 mi/kWh
-Charged up to 82% which took 44 minutes

Leg 2:
- Started at 82% charge
- Ended at 3% charge
- Drove 90.9 miles to an Electrify America near Ann Arbor, Michigan
- 65F and little to no wind
- Averaged 0.9 mi/kWh
- Charged up to 75% which took 43 minutes

Leg 3:
- Started at 75% charge
- Drove 40.2 miles to dealer
- 70F and little to no wind
- Averaged 0.98 mi/kWh
- Left boat at dealer and headed home. I had to stop and charge one more time to get me home.

What should have been an 8 hour trip ended up taking 10.5 hours. This wasn't terrible as the charging stops gave me a chance to stretch and catch up on emails. Overall, I was really pleased with how well the truck towed. I could definitely feel the boat back there, but never felt pushed around or underpowered. Here are some of my takeaways from the trip:

- I had to unhook at 1 of the 2 charging locations I stopped at.
- Slowing down can make a substantial difference in range. Going from 70 to 65 got me around 0.1 additional mi/kWh.
- The boat sits significantly above the top of the truck which I believe creates more drag than I was hoping for.

Hope this is helpful information and curious what other are experiencing.

 

[Deacon]

Towing my 22' Carolina Skiff is no problem - don't even know boat is back there. The boat ramp is only a mile from my house so no concern about range. I take it to service center about 40 miles so charging is not an issue. The back up camera makes it much easier to hook up than on my old Silverado. I love it!

 

[RivWO23]

This is very helpful and interesting!

We took delivery of our R1S in April. I’ve owned MasterCraft boats for over 15 years. We now have a 2023 Mastercraft XStar and pull it with our F250. I’d love to tow the XStar with our new R1S but the Rivian delivery team in Arizona told us not to tow the XStar because the weight of over 8,000 lbs and it was too heavy for the R1S to trailer safely. They said both the R1T and R1S have a maximum trailer weight of 7,700 lbs.

Did you have any performance issues trailering the X24 with your R1T? What are your thoughts about the “maximum trailer load of 7,700 lbs”? Do you think there are any warranty issues trailering above the max recommended weight?

The R1T's capacity is 11,000 lbs compared to 7,700 for the R1S. The change in capacity is due to the difference in wheelbase from what I understand. I highly doubt you would break anything on the Rivian that would result in a warranty claim. I'd be more concerned about problems with insurance if towing over capacity. You have a lot of $ tied up in a R1S/Xstar combo (although it would look sweet)!

I didn't have any performance issues while towing my X24. There is plenty of power and the regenerative braking worked great. The truck felt plenty stable on the interstate at 70 MPH.

 

[VFUNARI]

So was the 0.90 mi/kWh going 70 and 0.98 mi/kWh going 65 mph or how fast were you towing for the numbers listed above? Efficiency numbers are all but meaningless without having a good idea of the speed through the air.

I see what you mean about the boat sitting above the truck. I bet you could improve it by another 5% if you could tow with the suspension raised a few inches. You would need a receiver with more drop built into and I don't know if your tow stability would be impacted in an unsafe manner or not.

The way the air flows between the tow vehicle and the trailer is surprisingly important to the amount of drag created. A more practical solution might be a large foil on the back of the R1T to direct the air to a more favorable direction if you were planning to tow long distances much. It looks like the bow of the boat is catching too much of the airflow off the back of the bed which would create quite a low-pressure area behind the boat.

Of course, the large canopy and frame for the tow bit is adding a huge amount of additional drag. It would help to remove the big bundle of fabric if it comes off easily.

A couple more thoughts I’ve heard wind resistance Is more important than weight here depending obviously on incline and speed. I’ve heard people wrap their boat or cover so nothing gets underneath. And tow with their cover. Having a Bimini or tow tower will hurt. I’ve made my to tower easily collapsible by using thumbscrews instead of the hex mounted screws. So I can collapse everything high undercover.

you need a trailersble cover though and I don’t go over 60 when I’m trying to get someplace without charging.
on my last tripthe odometer actually went up after driving a distance. So it does auto adjust

 

[Epicloop]

Great thread. Towing range has been on my mind since reserving my R1S. It arrived two weeks ago. I have only hooked up the boat once (5,500#) for a local lake and the Rivian did very well. I live on a hill and the torque is just amazing. It's different than having to mash the gas in my Land Cruiser (8,100# tow capacity). More stable and enjoyable. Living in Washington, to get to some of the best boating vacation areas, you need to tow over mountain passes. I don't think it will be possible without the Tesla network, but I'll need to get 100 miles going up some serious elevation. I'm going to make some test runs and will post the results.

You should be fine, I managed 132miles with 10% remaining towing 7000lbs through the Cascades(Manning Park) the return trip will be better. Just keep speed to 60mph.
30% flat 50miles(30%) 43% up the pass (41miles) & only 17% (41miles) down going east.

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