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Has anyone Towed a trailer, boat, camper with their new R1T?

Max

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May require a change in how and what you tow until battery tech and infrastructure improves. With a 400 mile pack, aerodynamic load and driving on country roads around 50 mph, it should be doable. Stop and go should not be as bad as it is on ICE due to regen. Basically it requires more patience.
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ajdelange

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May require a change in how and what you tow until battery tech and infrastructure improves. With a 400 mile pack, aerodynamic load and driving on country roads around 50 mph, it should be doable. Stop and go should not be as bad as it is on ICE due to regen. Basically it requires more patience.
Don't count too much on regen unless you are towing a trailer with no brakes of its own or a trailer whose brakes you have disabled both of which I would question doing. Even in such cases regen is limited by limitations on how much regen the battery will accept. For example in the Tesla's it seems to be limited to about 0.75C (and less than that when the battery is cold).
 

Max

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Don't count too much on regen unless you are towing a trailer with no brakes of its own or a trailer whose brakes you have disabled both of which I would question doing. Even in such cases regen is limited by limitations on how much regen the battery will accept. For example in the Tesla's it seems to be limited to about 0.75C (and less than that when the battery is cold).
I see your point however I heard regen on Rivian is mighty healthy and if you reduce trailer brake and slow down gradually at the lights instead of flooring it and slamming the break at the last moment, you should be able to minimize the loss. Then again, I don't have a real life experience comparing the two to see if unanticipated stop and go losses is more than gain in range due to low speed. Love to see a real life comp of two Rivians shooting for the same destination with the same load, HWY vs back roads. I do think that minimizing positive and negative acceleration and driving slow will piss off a lot of people so another thing that is required for towing long distance is a sunny attitude.
 
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Babbuino

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Mmm this makes me wonder if I should get the towing kit from Rivian just to have it handy... any idea how much weight can Rivians tow strap handle?
 

ohmman

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Regarding regen braking while towing, I will sometimes turn down the braking when I'm on slower highways where sway isn't much of a concern. You definitely don't want to get in a situation where you are putting a lot of the trailer's energy forward into the hitch - that's a recipe for instability. That said, I regularly tow up into the Sierras and the entire way down my trailer brake doesn't engage unless I am hard braking. Regen slows me enough to where I really don't have to press my brakes, even on a 9% grade. Now, my travel trailer is usually in the 4100-4300 lb range, loaded, and a trailer with a lot more weight is going to push the limits of regenerative braking.

I have pulled up many passes, and watching the vehicle chew up 1200+Wh/mi on the way up is terrifying but then watching it recover 900+Wh/mi on the way down is pretty redeeming. We were able to make it from a campground north of Truckee all the way down to Sonoma without a stop to charge this past summer.That's 185 miles with a trailer! Thank you, elevation loss.
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