Rivian R1T in World’s Toughest Towing Test on Ike Gauntlet [by TFL]

[E.S.]

Now that I think about it, I am thoroughly surprised we haven't see any company develop a trailer that is tailored towards using heavy brake regeneration to work in tandem with a EV's brake regen, thus providing an additional source to put back energy into the EV's batteries ?

Not to mention your gas loving customers that it will piss off and will go elsewhere when they see you installed an EV charger.

They want to be that closed minded all because a gas station is also accommodating EV charging? They can go f*%k themselves. Like installing a charger will change anything regarding all the gas needs they've already, and will continue to, cover. That mentality just makes not care if I lose their $$ to someone else.

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[Joints4Sale]

I really am not in favor of this trailer coast concept.

Trailer brakes are one of those things you don’t think about until you are emergency braking for a road incident and the trailer passes you in the next lane cause you reduced the braking force. Unless you are a fruit ninja world champion your thumb is not going to respond fast enough in an emergency situation.

It’s also worth noting our gain was set up pretty conservatively, wasn’t dialed in to be especially aggressive on the brakes.

I agree. Sacrificing safety for fuel economy is not the answer. I’m speculating about the trailer brake system actually engaging on your test run. The easiest way to confirm my speculations would be to use a FLIR camera to monitor the brake temperature on the trailer.
Rivian should be able to confirm it’s behavior but they are lacking in communication with its upcoming customers. Perhaps you could ask them. If my speculation is correct then it would be an easy fix in the software to allow the gain to be tuned properly and only have the trailer brakes engage with brake pedal activation to maintain towing safety.

 

[the long way downunder]

I really am not in favor of this trailer coast concept.

Trailer brakes are one of those things you don’t think about until you are emergency braking for a road incident and the trailer passes you in the next lane cause you reduced the braking force. Unless you are a fruit ninja world champion your thumb is not going to respond fast enough in an emergency situation.

It’s also worth noting our gain was set up pretty conservatively, wasn’t dialed in to be especially aggressive on the brakes.

Except the Rivian, like many (most) modern tow vehicles have trailer stability.
It would be interesting to hear from Rivian on exactly how they've implemented trailer stability – does it apply the trailer brakes (anti-jackknife) or just independently apply the left and right rear brakes of the tow vehicle (anti-sway)?
Perhaps tow tests should start with calibrating the trailer brakes and checking the tire pressures of the tow vehicle and the trailer.

 

[moosehead]

Disclaimer: Sorry for eye bleeder post. Hope only a few sadistic folks choose to read it.

Conclusion

Despite towing pros and range cons, overall this early tow test met if not exceeded my expectations for the R1T. While we never intended to use the Rivian for multi-state long hauls, it completely satisfies our 90-100 mile, high elevation tow needs in Colorado. We would have home charging stations in Denver and up in Winter Park (90 miles into the Rockies).

I would give it an 8 based on this video alone, and also presume that Rivian can make improvements from the takeaways (noted below). Boulder to Silverthorne in these conditions in an EV is stunning. Same for the return trip to Boulder starting at 55% SOC.

The IKE & Heavy Tows

As other CO locals know but others may not fully appreciate, the IKE is the real deal. To call it the World's toughest tow seems a bit dramatic, but not necessarily an exaggeration. The Ike run from Silverthorne to top of Ike tunnel is 8 miles from 9k' elevation to 11k' elevation - the run from Denver to top of Ike tunnel is 45+ some miles from 5,300' to 11k' elevation and may be the tougher overall section.

Rule of thumb for ICE is that for every 1k' elevation above sea level, one loses 3% horsepower, which I can verify seat of pants in automobiles and boats. Add 7% grade and mileage plus weight and resistance, traffic, exposed sidehills, etc. Having done 6.5k - 8k lbs of boat and 3-5k lb camper tow loads on the Ike, Berthoud Pass, Trail Ridge Road RMNP, Independence Pass, Bear Tooth Pass into NE gate of Yellowstone, and long hauls through CO/WY/MT, IME the IKE is going to produce the most stress on a tow vehicle and driver with heavy load.

Note bigger rig towing is stressful in general with the first priority being safety, closely followed by performance and stress on the vehicle. It's not just tow setup/suspension, drivetrain power, and braking for ICE vehicles, it's also engine cooling, trans cooling, and massive MPG inefficiencies. Even veteran towers get tired faster as pucker factor burns a ton of calories both mentally and physically.

+1, there is NFW anyone should turn off an electric brake controller on the IKE or grades like it, you are otherwise asking for evasive maneuvers, runaway truck, or a jack-knifed rig. It was noticeable that Andre was so chill during this entire test, which is a testament to the R1T's tow abilities.

R1T Ike Notes

The lowest 44 kW charging draws @ 41% SOC are concerning. Not being pollyana here but one would hope Rivian can address the charge curve, fix the mileage error seen at the end of the trip in Boulder, add an odometer and perhaps battery therm, and improve other valuable takeaways from this and other TFL tests.

As TFL notes most would not unhook at a charging station for both convenience and safety, add the WDH equipment and it is a bigger hurdle to do so. Pull through challenges are real as is reversing a tow rig, turnaround, width, and traffic circulation whether gas or electric. Real estate square footage is expensive. It already is a challenge during peak camping and boating season in the Rockies. Hopefully all EV charging networks take these inputs and come up with design solutions given nascent charging system development.

Best guess is that even though the friction brakes were not engaged on the IKE downhill into Silverthorne, the 7-pin electronic trailer hookup would activate the trailer brakes anytime the R1T's truck brakes are engaged whether regen or friction. Would appreciate the electric engineers here chiming in further on this?

Temps were somewhat warm to start the trip at circa 39F early in the video, and 27F at the tunnel or so. Most winter towing here at least is lighter loads of snowmobiles and a few hearty campers. Would be interesting to see what battery temps the IKE produces and how that may help address charging curve improvements.

We use various rigs for our heavy tows including a 6.2L Sierra Heavy Tow Package with aftermarket air bags. She gets 20MPG unladen highway but drops to 9 MPG with long distance boat tows of circa 8k lbs, well below that if on high mountain passes.

 

[mike22co]

I've been thinking about this test this morning and one point keeps sticking with me: the R1T didn't need to brake at all going down the mountain into Silverthorne. That is really amazing to me! That downward side has not one but two runaway truck ramps on it.

I think this is a benefit to EV that we can't underestimate or give credit to for helping make the drive "easier" and more comfortable.

It's one reason I think it would be very interesting to see Tesla Semis on this stretch of I-70 to only pull trailers over the mountain and back. Let the rig drive unhitched while the Tesla Semi does all the work and we could have much more safety on the roads, along with increased overall speeds for a highway that only has 2 lanes in each direction without much room for expansion.

 

[kylealden]

Yes gain set the same for the whole test. Of course there is a potential that as the truck slowed the trailer brakes activated, the only way to completely prevent this would be to set the gain to zero. That would be super reckless in practice as i’ve driven around some of those blind freeway turns and had to do very brisk and sudden stops, not something you want to do towing 8,000+ with trailer brakes disabled.

I had this problem towing with my Tesla. It’s especially a pain when you’re driving around at low speeds and the one-pedal driving is modulating the trailer brakes like crazy.

IMO the solution here would be a separate setting (aside from the trailer brake gain) to disable trailer braking on regen only - e.g. trailer brake only when the truck’s mechanical brakes are activated. That way you max out regen potential but have full braking available on demand.

 

[kylealden]

She wants me to eventually get something like an Airstream.

Edit: But even then, I don't see us towing it cross country. I think Its much more likely we'll be towing it to our property in Fairplay, which is a bit south of Breckinridge. There are some ChargePoint DC Fast Chargers in Fairplay.

Don’t forget you can L2 charge at most trailer-friendly parks/campgrounds. Unless you’re really trying to max out cross country range, traveling with an EV+trailer is very pleasant - they tow great and you charge at campsite along the way. It just limits you to 150 miles or so per day unless you want to deal with unhitching for DCFC.

 

[branden]

It would be very interesting to see how that develops over time. For gas stations that don’t get much business it makes a lot of sense. It would be additional source of revenue that helps them sell food and snacks too since EV drivers have more time to kill. However for a busy gas station with limited land, they have to make that electricity very expensive to make economic sense; letting a Rivian sit there for an hour should be as profitable as 10 F150 ICE going through.

If I had a gas station, I would make sure, I have the fastest charging available earlier than everyone else. I wouldn’t be surprised if cost per KWh increase at slower charge rate especially at busy times
to encourage you get out of there and open up the space for the next EV. If that happens, it may push manufactures to improve their charging curve even more.

Real estate space is a very real concern with DCFC installs at C-stores, especially with the increased dwell time of EVs charging vs ICE fueling. I think we'll start to see cool innovations on the billing and equipment side as more C-stores add charging.

Like some others have commented, I have to believe regular gas stations will start adding EV charging at some point. Will that take 10% market penetration by EV vehicles, or something less? Hopefully one of the national chains, maybe BP (now stands for Beyond Petroleum after all) will show some foresight and start converting one gas island per station to electric, or add them at the side of the station lot where a truck and trailer can pull in easily without blocking traffic. As someone pointed out, the electric vehicle would need to sit there somewhat longer than a gas vehicle, but a lot of people in gas vehicles are inside the gas station for 15 minutes or more by the time they hit the restroom, meander the shopping isles, stand in line for awhile, etc. So a 30 minute partial charge stop might only be displacing two gas vehicles. Hopefully Rivian trucks will be able to charge more quickly than what was shown today as Rivian improves it's software and battery technology.

7-11, Circle K, TXB and others have announced plans to make significant DCFC investments. Many BPs already have (slow) DCFC. Many Sheetz, Wa-Wa and Meijer locations host Tesla Superchargers.

To the above, I don't think people realize how incredibly expensive & labor intensive it is to install & maintain a 150kw charger, let alone a 350kw charger. While it might seem convenient to an EV owner, a gas station is absolutely making more money more easily by selling gas.

Saturation of EVs would have to be well over 10% to make it economically viable to swap space you can use to sell gas for electricity and you'd have to charge just an absurd amount for the electricity.

Installation (infrastructure) and hardware costs for DCFC are immense, and demand charges from utilities are nuts. Luckily, hardware costs will go down over time and we'll hopefully see changes on the utility tariffing side as well.

https://findanyanswer.com/what-is-the-profit-margin-for-gas-stations
from this link: "But before you cry foul, you should know that after all the ups and downs in a year, gas stations do not make much money from selling gasoline. After credit card fees and other operating costs, net profit for gasoline sales averages 3 cents a gallon, according the National Association of Convenience Stores."

I agree, more EVs will be needed on the road before C-Stores start installing DCFCs.

C-stores are already installing DCFC.

This only proves my point, though. It's all the more reason you wouldn't put a huge amount of money into installing and maintaining a supercharger!

People in EVs are still going to stop at gas stations for snacks, it's the easiest place to do it. Why spend hundreds of thousands to convert a gas stall to an electric stall and then have to pay to maintain it? Not to mention your gas loving customers that it will piss off and will go elsewhere when they see you installed an EV charger.

Many realize that if they don't adapt, they'll go out of business at some point.

Here's a great look at what the future of convenience stores will look like:

 

[branden]

I had this problem towing with my Tesla. It’s especially a pain when you’re driving around at low speeds and the one-pedal driving is modulating the trailer brakes like crazy.

IMO the solution here would be a separate setting (aside from the trailer brake gain) to disable trailer braking on regen only - e.g. trailer brake only when the truck’s mechanical brakes are activated. That way you max out regen potential but have full braking available on demand.

You need the balance of trailer braking with a heavy load.

 

[SeaGeo]

Unless you are a fruit ninja world champion your thumb is not going to respond fast enough in an emergency situation.

?

Totally agree.

It does seem like there should be a software approach that manufacturers can take to help address this and safely maximize regen. I am a little curious if regen may have been a little limited by thermals too after pulling that up the mountain. That's a lot of energy to use in a short period of time.

Did you guys have a chance to try the teardrop trailer? I'm personally pretty interested to see how thst impacts range (definitely the most realistic case for me).

 

[Whmorken]

Disclaimer: Sorry for eye bleeder post. Hope only a few sadistic folks choose to read it.

Conclusion

Despite towing pros and range cons, overall this early tow test met if not exceeded my expectations for the R1T. While we never intended to use the Rivian for multi-state long hauls, it completely satisfies our 90-100 mile, high elevation tow needs in Colorado. We would have home charging stations in Denver and up in Winter Park (90 miles into the Rockies).

I would give it an 8 based on this video alone, and also presume that Rivian can make improvements from the takeaways (noted below). Boulder to Silverthorne in these conditions in an EV is stunning. Same for the return trip to Boulder starting at 55% SOC.

The IKE & Heavy Tows

As other CO locals know but others may not fully appreciate, the IKE is the real deal. To call it the World's toughest tow seems a bit dramatic, but not necessarily an exaggeration. The Ike run from Silverthorne to top of Ike tunnel is 8 miles from 9k' elevation to 11k' elevation - the run from Denver to top of Ike tunnel is 45+ some miles from 5,300' to 11k' elevation and may be the tougher overall section.

Rule of thumb for ICE is that for every 1k' elevation above sea level, one loses 3% horsepower, which I can verify seat of pants in automobiles and boats. Add 7% grade and mileage plus weight and resistance, traffic, exposed sidehills, etc. Having done 6.5k - 8k lbs of boat and 3-5k lb camper tow loads on the Ike, Berthoud Pass, Trail Ridge Road RMNP, Independence Pass, Bear Tooth Pass into NE gate of Yellowstone, and long hauls through CO/WY/MT, IME the IKE is going to produce the most stress on a tow vehicle and driver with heavy load.

Note bigger rig towing is stressful in general with the first priority being safety, closely followed by performance and stress on the vehicle. It's not just tow setup/suspension, drivetrain power, and braking for ICE vehicles, it's also engine cooling, trans cooling, and massive MPG inefficiencies. Even veteran towers get tired faster as pucker factor burns a ton of calories both mentally and physically.

+1, there is NFW anyone should turn off an electric brake controller on the IKE or grades like it, you are otherwise asking for evasive maneuvers, runaway truck, or a jack-knifed rig. It was noticeable that Andre was so chill during this entire test, which is a testament to the R1T's tow abilities.

R1T Ike Notes

The lowest 44 kW charging draws @ 41% SOC are concerning. Not being pollyana here but one would hope Rivian can address the charge curve, fix the mileage error seen at the end of the trip in Boulder, add an odometer and perhaps battery therm, and improve other valuable takeaways from this and other TFL tests.

As TFL notes most would not unhook at a charging station for both convenience and safety, add the WDH equipment and it is a bigger hurdle to do so. Pull through challenges are real as is reversing a tow rig, turnaround, width, and traffic circulation whether gas or electric. Real estate square footage is expensive. It already is a challenge during peak camping and boating season in the Rockies. Hopefully all EV charging networks take these inputs and come up with design solutions given nascent charging system development.

Best guess is that even though the friction brakes were not engaged on the IKE downhill into Silverthorne, the 7-pin electronic trailer hookup would activate the trailer brakes anytime the R1T's truck brakes are engaged whether regen or friction. Would appreciate the electric engineers here chiming in further on this?

Temps were somewhat warm to start the trip at circa 39F early in the video, and 27F at the tunnel or so. Most winter towing here at least is lighter loads of snowmobiles and a few hearty campers. Would be interesting to see what battery temps the IKE produces and how that may help address charging curve improvements.

We use various rigs for our heavy tows including a 6.2L Sierra Heavy Tow Package with aftermarket air bags. She gets 20MPG unladen highway but drops to 9 MPG with long distance boat tows of circa 8k lbs, well below that if on high mountain passes.

Great critique! No word waste or eye bleed — just better informed. One question, are you really ready for Bear Tooth Highway run with a boat? ?

 

[moosehead]

…One question, are you really ready for Bear Tooth Highway run with a boat? ?

Ahoy neighbor. You are correct, no heavy boats on the Bear Tooth. We towed a meager pop-top over the BT, and my buddy following in a full-size RV almost rolled it all the way down to the valley. Not much room for error up there. He had the last laugh when I learned our soft-side was not sufficient in brown bear country.

Berthoud Pass, CO tops out at 11k’. We haul this from Denver 6X or more each summer.

We also had a tow struggle from Vernal, UT up into Flaming River Gorge. The engine was screaming at 35 mph and transmission fluid temps were frightening.

 

[fastwheels]

Real estate space is a very real concern with DCFC installs at C-stores, especially with the increased dwell time of EVs charging vs ICE fueling. I think we'll start to see cool innovations on the billing and equipment side as more C-stores add charging.

7-11, Circle K, TXB and others have announced plans to make significant DCFC investments. Many BPs already have (slow) DCFC. Many Sheetz, Wa-Wa and Meijer locations host Tesla Superchargers.

Installation (infrastructure) and hardware costs for DCFC are immense, and demand charges from utilities are nuts. Luckily, hardware costs will go down over time and we'll hopefully see changes on the utility tariffing side as well.

C-stores are already installing DCFC.

Many realize that if they don't adapt, they'll go out of business at some point.

According to this article, Shell and BP are going to be building out EV charging pretty fast over the next few years and I suspect the rest of Big Oil is too...

For BP, car chargers to overtake pumps in profitability race | Reuters

 

[hroussel]

OK since nobody has posted the energy numbers yet here's a quick calculation comparing energy use between the Rivian and a traditional ICE pickup (using numbers for a Tundra taken from a recent TFL IKE challenge).

The Rivian used 16% of battery. Assuming 125kwh available (taken from another thread; is the exact number known?) that would mean 20kwh used in that 8 miles.

For the Tundra, the 4.7mpg they got means 1.7 gallons used in that same 8 miles. Converting to kwh (1 gallon = 33.7kwh) gives over 57kwh. So almost a factor of 3 in efficiency. Not bad!

Earlier in this thread someone mentioned a best case of 8mpg for the same stretch. That would give then 33.7kwh, so still a significant 60% more energy used.

I'm curious to see the result of their next test with towing on a flat road and comparing energy consumption with an ICE vehicle (also a Tundra?).

 

[Max]

We towed a meager pop-top over the BT, and my buddy following in a full-size RV almost rolled it all the way down to the valley. Not much room for error up there. He had the last laugh when I learned our soft-side was not sufficient in brown bear country.

.

It looks like it was rental. Do you happen to know what brand/model it was? And how it worked out for you? It looks like something like this may be better for range behind Rivian than a full size trailer.

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