Towing data from two summers on the road with R1T & Travel Trailer

[MarcyB]

Hello Rivian peeps!

My husband John and I live in a travel trailer, currently wintering in Tucson. We tend to go on the road in the summer, and we're so pleased to have an electric truck to tow our home.

It's not always easy to plan and travel with limited range between chargers, but for us it's worth it.

I compiled the data (and a few photos) I've been collecting when we're on the move:
https://allelectricproject.com/electric-truck-towing-2/

Looking forward to getting back on the road again in June!
-Marcy

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[Lil'O Annie]

Thanks for sharing your towing experiences!! Great info!! We'll be getting a popup Aliner Amp (18ft/2595lbs) in about a month, which will be fun to compare to your quite big brick.

 

[MarcyB]

Thanks for sharing your towing experiences!! Great info!! We'll be getting a popup Aliner Amp (18ft/2595lbs) in about a month, which will be fun to compare to your quite big brick.

It is indeed a big brick! We were delightfully surprised to find that this works at all.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

Nice! You have us beat mileage wise. We have about 3000 ish miles towing. Our experience is about the same towing our Apex 245 BHS Ultralite. Between 1 and 1.2 mi per kwh.

BTW... The battery pack in the R1 (Large pack) is 141 kwh gross and 131 kwh usable.

 

[Budman]

Nicely done!

 

[Mike@2]

Hello Rivian peeps!

My husband John and I live in a travel trailer, currently wintering in Tucson. We tend to go on the road in the summer, and we're so pleased to have an electric truck to tow our home.

It's not always easy to plan and travel with limited range between chargers, but for us it's worth it.

I compiled the data (and a few photos) I've been collecting when we're on the move:
https://allelectricproject.com/electric-truck-towing-2/

Looking forward to getting back on the road again in June!
-Marcy

Hello Rivian peeps!

My husband John and I live in a travel trailer, currently wintering in Tucson. We tend to go on the road in the summer, and we're so pleased to have an electric truck to tow our home.

It's not always easy to plan and travel with limited range between chargers, but for us it's worth it.

I compiled the data (and a few photos) I've been collecting when we're on the move:
https://allelectricproject.com/electric-truck-towing-2/

Looking forward to getting back on the road again in June!
-Marcy

Amazing story, Thanks for sharing. We will be embarking on a 4000 mile journey this summer towing our teardrop trailer around the Great Lakes.

 

[AllInev]

So interesting! Thanks for sharing your blog link with us.

 

[JamuJoe]

Impressive analysis! I have about 3800 miles towing our 28’ Airstream (8000 lbs) and haven’t captured data as thoroughly as you. We averaged 1.1 mpKwH through our winter trip, finding temperature less of a factor than wind (incl wind from passing semi’s) and speed as might be expected. Grades seem to average out.

 

[Riviot]

Good read, love the data breakdown! Aero is everything over 50mph.

 

[John S]

Good info. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Bob Steele]

Well done! Thank you for sharing!

We haul our 25' Airstream with our 2023 R1T and have found that the journey is now a part of the joy of the get away. Stopping every 100 - 125 miles has its benefits. Imagine?

 

[MarcyB]

Well done! Thank you for sharing!

We haul our 25' Airstream with our 2023 R1T and have found that the journey is now a part of the joy of the get away. Stopping every 100 - 125 miles has its benefits. Imagine?

We agree - especially having our house with us. We can eat lunch, get online and do some work, even shower if we wanted to. And watch people shop at Walmart out our window...

 

[simoncellis]

Nice write-up and analysis, thank-you. We regularly tow our teardrop and get about 1.5 m/kWh average. We just returned from 2 week adventure in southern Arizona and was able to use 8 different RAN chargers (and a few others in-between). I concur with your observations on factors effecting range and how you can manage en-route using the Rivian guess-o-meter. It does take into account altitude differences and seems to base prediction on posted speed limits. So far it has been on conservative side and never over-estimated. Good job Rivian engineers. I suppose some AI working the magic? However, we prefer the 1-2 hour drives with ~20 minute charging stops. For us that's driving within 20-70% of battery capacity. If you charge to 20% above the Rivian recommendation the journey is less stressful and you can burn-it and have some fun as you get closer to the next charger. Drive through charging spots are brilliant

 

[Singletracker]

BTW... The battery pack in the R1 (Large pack) is 141 kwh gross and 131 kwh usable.

Where did you get these battery pack figures? I have never been clear on the actual useable numbers - 128, 130, whatever. I always assumed it was about 135 gross with maybe 130 useable, but I really don’t know.

 

[KootenayEV]

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

RE: your point on speed vs efficiency; I do think the average speed displayed is affected by many items so I'm not too surprised the correlation is low, and I think you've hit the nail on the head that the steady-state speed does have an effect and if you could tease it out, would show a correlation.

I'm planning on some testing of my trailer this summer by towing at steady state on the same stretch of highway at multiple speeds, and I'll reset the trip meter once at the speed I want to reach and only track it for that segment, then repeat it a few times. I've done this a few times with my Model 3 and my R1T for checking the impact of adding stuff to the exterior that impacts aero, and the data has checked out pretty well in real-life planning using ABRP and the new values I've generated. See an example at my blog here and here and here.

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