First Towing Test in my R1T

[clownsmashd]

Did a short 52 mile loop to weigh truck and camper and get a feel for how it drives. Was extremely windy and raining. Compared to the Nissan Pathfinder I used to use to pull the camper, this drives so much better. No impact on acceleration and no straining going uphill. I did a few miles on the highway going 65 and again no effort getting up to speed. I did the first half of the loop without my sway bars installed and then installed them for ride home. They weren't installed when I took the weight and thus the imbalance front to back on the truck. I did notice quite a difference without the sway bars especially since it was so windy today so will continue to always use them. I had hoped to not use them anymore since weight distribution is not needed if trailer is under 5K and truck has built in sway control. Not using them would make for easier unhitching when charging if necessary but the drive difference with and without was significant enough to continue to use them.

Some things that occurred and towing remarks:
1) truck is supposed to go into towing mode automatically once it senses a plugged in trailer. This appeared to happen briefly as the camper lights came on then went off. I'm having a bit of trouble getting the power cord from camper to insert all the way into the R1T. When I got into the truck cab, the options on the towing mode screen were all grayed out and my monitor for the rear camera on the camper wasn't detecting the camera. As soon as I pressed the brake pedal power was supplied to camper and camera turned on. Not sure if this is normal.
2) While driving, a warning would pop up that trailer brake is now available and another warning after that the rear sensors were disabled. This popped up occasionally for a total of 10 or 12 times over the trip. However, none of the towing associated screens ever turned off or disabled before or while these warnings popped up and there never was a loss in the rear view camera. These pop up warnings were quite annoying. Not sure if I just need to clean the trailer cord contacts. Would be nice to know what sensor or power line is used to detect the trailer presence so I know where to dig deeper.
3) Can't set the trailer brake properly because you can't disable regenerative breaking. Normally you should drive around 20mph and coast and then apply the trailer brakes to stop both vehicles but can't do this since you can't coast due to regenerative breaking. I just set it to 5 and never noticed any pushing of the camper on the truck while breaking so it wasn't too low. However I don't want it to be too high because then I will be losing regen as too much breaking is coming from the trailer. Really need a mode to be able to set the trailer braked properly.
4) Before I hooked up the trailer the truck was at 85% battery with range of 248 miles. As soon as it went into tow mode it dropped the estimate to 120 miles which is expected. After about 5 miles of driving and the initial efficiency being around .9 miles/kwh the range estimate started slowly climbing. After a few miles it went all the way back up to 220 miles. It never went back down to matching the efficiency of the current data. Hoping this is just a one time glitch as this can really throw of when you need to charge.
5) Overall efficiency was 1.09 mi/kWh. Only about 10% of driving was highway but it was extremely windy and raining. I'll probably stick with my estimates of 1.0 mi/kWh but will see after we take camper for first real trip in a few weeks at over 200 mile distance. Camper is very lightweight and is why we could tow it with a Nissan Pathfinder (5K towing capacity) but it is very boxy and not aerodynamic at all. Efficiency really is impacted more by aerodynamics than weight. I'll take the 1.0 mi/kWh vs the 10 miles per gallon we were getting towing this with the pathfinder.

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[Thedude]

1. Mine pops up the tow mode selection as soon as my trailer is plugged in.

2. My truck recently started doing the same. I’m pretty certain it is another case of the last update having unintended side effects because it never did it before.

3. Yep, noticed the same thing. I don’t think the trailer brakes are engaged at all unless you use the actual brake pedal. I have noticed no difference between regen on gain 1 or gain 6 when testing but can feel the difference when braking with the pedal. I find that I almost never need the brake pedal or trailer brakes unless stopping suddenly or I’ve been in a long downhill and ran out of regen.

4. Towing range estimates have been screwed up for the last six months. Every update changes it but it’s still wrong. When I first got the truck it was able to give accurate numbers.

5. Efficiency of 1mi/kWh is about right, I vary between .85-1.15 depending on the terrain and speed I’m driving.

 

[moosetags]

Thank you for the towing information. We are scheduled to take delivery of our R1T on April 26th at the Factory in Normal. We are bringing our Airstream Travel Trailer up there and plan to tow the Airstream back to Florida with the Rivian. The Airstream weighs about 7,000# with a 900# tongue weight. We will be using a ProPride Hitch System.

Brian

 

[ironpig]

I had trouble with the connection the first time I hooked up my trailer, but I just re-seated the connection and it's been fine since. I just make sure it's totally pushed in when I hook it up.

The range calculations are also not incredibly reliable when starting out, so definitely use your own calculations. I just assume kWh per mile knowing that I usually do better than that, but that I don't ever want to come up short towing horses so I'm ultra conservative.

 

[Scotch no ICE]

I have done a fair bit of towing and experienced the same electrical oddities you mentioned. This cleared up when I went beck and pushed the tow cable in really hard into the Rivian tow socket. there might be some newness involved here, it seems to be getting easier.

 

[Jilllellsasser]

How do you manage charging stations while towing? I will be pulling a two horse trailer.

 

[Thedude]

How do you manage charging stations while towing? I will be pulling a two horse trailer.

With very few exceptions you have to drop the trailer in order to charge.

 

[mike22co]

Thanks for the post and the info from @Thedude on Colorado. I'm' R1S reservation and have a Jayco X20D trailer to take all around Colorado. I am very curious how the regen will work on the hills around here.

Question: does the auto-hold work with the trailer attached? If you are stopped on an incline with the trailer attached, does it hold or do you need to apply brake to keep from moving in reverse?

I'd love to start up some documents on various trips with a trailer and where charging occurs, at least in Colorado to have some baseline for planning.

 

[jakef801]

A couple of notes and observations from doing a lot of towing (Cargo Trailer, 25ft boat, dual snowmobile trailer) Certainly, many on here are aware of these, but some may not be if they haven't done much towing. I just share this in the hopes that people will tow as safely and responsibly as possible (it always blows me away seeing what people tow with their half tons or less - most recently, a Frontier towing a 5th Wheel. The truck was on the verge of doing a willy. Goes without saying what this does to vehicle and trailer control. I always wonder what Highway Patrol does, if anything at all, when they see this type of situation - It has a high potential for death:

1) Payload and tongue weight are vastly more important than towing capacity. Just because the R1T has a towing capacity, doesn't mean that you can simply tow anything up to 11,000 lbs. The R1T has a payload capacity of 1,760 lbs. Payload capacity tells you how much the people, gear, pets, and everything else in or on the truck can weigh before the truck is overloaded. For trailering purposes, tongue weight (the downward weight the trailer exerts on the hitch) counts against the payload.

2) I have had to drop a trailer on many occasions at EA stations, especially in Nevada and California. More often than not, several chargers are occupied, and several are non-functional. In places like a WalMart parking lot, it's very likely you won't be able to pull in with a trailer (be it there are other people charging, or you'll be blocking a drive aisle). There are exceptions where the EA stations are on the fringes of the parking lot at any given location. Spending a lot of my time in UT, WY, and ID, I can very often pull in adjacent to the chargers simply because very few people (especially in WY and Eastern ID don't drive EVs). In Garden City, there are 2 ChargePoint locations and I have yet to see another person charging at either station. Same goes for the EA at Smith's (Kroger) station in Evanston, WY.

 

[Indy avocado]

3) Can't set the trailer brake properly because you can't disable regenerative breaking. Normally you should drive around 20mph and coast and then apply the trailer brakes to stop both vehicles but can't do this since you can't coast due to regenerative breaking. I just set it to 5 and never noticed any pushing of the camper on the truck while breaking so it wasn't too low. However I don't want it to be too high because then I will be losing regen as too much breaking is coming from the trailer. Really need a mode to be able to set the trailer braked properly.

I have used the accelerator pedal to hold "neutral" throttle and then used the manual trailer brake button (knob) to test the strength of the trailer brakes.

You also get brake lights and no trailer braking when in regen - the correct combination

Question: does the auto-hold work with the trailer attached? If you are stopped on an incline with the trailer attached, does it hold or do you need to apply brake to keep from moving in reverse?

Yes, auto-hold works while towing.

 

[Thedude]

1) Payload and tongue weight are vastly more important than towing capacity. Just because the R1T has a towing capacity, doesn't mean that you can simply tow anything up to 11,000 lbs. The R1T has a payload capacity of 1,760 lbs. Payload capacity tells you how much the people, gear, pets, and everything else in or on the truck can weigh before the truck is overloaded. For trailering purposes, tongue weight (the downward weight the trailer exerts on the hitch) counts against the payload.

I don’t think any R1Ts have actually been produced with a 1760lb payload. That was advertised when there was still a base model Explore package available, without that lower wor package most of the trucks seem to be in the 1300-1600lb range.

 

[jakef801]

I don’t think any R1Ts have actually been produced with a 1760lb payload. That was advertised when there was still a base model Explore package available, without that lower wor package most of the trucks seem to be in the 1300-1600lb range.

Agreed. I was being gratuitous in posting that number. Many other sites state that the payload is 1360lbs.

 

[clownsmashd]

What I really should have done is detached the trailer, weighed the truck again to get just front and back and then re-attached trailer and the sway bars and weighed yet a third time. Then I would get a better idea of what the actual tongue weight is. I believe it's around 300lbs for this trailer. Another thing I forgot to note is that the weight was taken without me in the truck or on the scale. I had to get out of the truck to press the intercom to get the weight and I was off the scale when he took it.

I thought I read somewhere that the trailer brakes do apply when regen activates but I couldn't tell. On the mainly flat ground I drove over the regen was plenty to stop and hold vehicle and trailer in place.

 

[Thedude]

What I really should have done is detached the trailer, weighed the truck again to get just front and back and then re-attached trailer and the sway bars and weighed yet a third time. Then I would get a better idea of what the actual tongue weight is. I believe it's around 300lbs for this trailer. Another thing I forgot to note is that the weight was taken without me in the truck or on the scale. I had to get out of the truck to press the intercom to get the weight and I was off the scale when he took it.

I thought I read somewhere that the trailer brakes do apply when regen activates but I couldn't tell. On the mainly flat ground I drove over the regen was plenty to stop and hold vehicle and trailer in place.

With a 3700lb trailer you should have a tongue weight around 450lbs. Only 300lbs would be borderline unsafe.

 

[beinenson]

Another towing story - so "exciting"!

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