The all-electric Rivian R1T pickup, designed for adventures, never ceases to amaze us, and here is another example of the outstanding capabilities of this vehicle.
Mylo Fowler, a Rivian R1T owner, while returning home from a humanitarian trip, spotted a sedan and a semi-truck that both slid off the highway on an ice-covered section south of Moab, Utah. Both vehicles were stuck.
As we can see, the car was unstuck by a friendly pickup truck (conventional one), but what about the semi and its trailer (together they weighed 38,000 lbs or 17,247 kg)? Well, here is where the Rivian R1T comes into action to help the stranded driver.
It was not an easy task, and the initial try to pull out the truck at an angle failed. The Rivian R1T had to be set in line with the trailer and start from some speed, which is always a risky tactic (something might break).
Fortunately, everything went ok and we can watch a quite unreal video of how the truck is backing from the field. The 5.5-month-old Rivian R1T, with 30,000 miles on the odometer, can add one more adventure to its list.
Mylo Fowler is pretty proud of the Rivian R1T’s capabilities. Let’s recall that the electric pickup is equipped with four electric motors (one per wheel), which provides a tremendous amount of power and torque, as well as the very important torque vectoring.
The stranded semi-truck driver was even happier as he was unstuck (the vehicle most likely has some minor damage in the front).
We can’t say whether a conventional pickup truck would be able to pull out such a semi (probably yes), but seeing that series-produced electric vehicles can do it, is simply amazing. 10-15 years ago we heard that EVs were only glorified golf carts and that never they will be as good as internal combustion engine vehicles. Today, EVs prove skeptics wrong and each year the capabilities are expected to further improve.