What Is It Like to Tow With a Rivian R1T?

For Us, This is the $64,000 Question!

When we sold our place in Utah and moved across the country to Florida, we planned to buy a Rivian R1T electric pickup truck to tow a travel trailer.

As you know, when we learned our Rivian order wouldn’t be filled until sometime mid-to-late 2023, we decided to get a trailer we could tow with our Chevy Bolt EV. We’ve had a ball with it.

With our Aliner Scout sidelined, waiting for repairs of severe damage resulting from a tire blowout, we’re more excited than ever to get our new truck and trailer.

When we first ordered the Rivian, no one in the entire world outside of the company had towed a trailer with an R1T. No one. We took on faith the company’s word that the truck could pull.

Since then, we’ve spent lots of time reading articles and watching YouTube videos about towing with the R1T.

Much of the coverage is negative.

Still, we’re excited. Let us explain what we’ve learned and why we’re still enthused.

First, allow us to define some terms. To date, every single R1T sold to a customer has what Rivian calls the “large pack” battery. Not one with any other battery configuration has been sold. The company has not announced plans to sell any trucks with a smaller battery, but from the get-go has offered a truck with a “max pack” that provides about 25 percent more range. Because “large pack” and “max pack” are confusing terms, we’ll refer to the “large pack” as the standard pack.

The First Data Point

In the earliest days of Rivian, fall of 2021, an anonymous couple on Instagram logged their journey from Detroit to Los Angeles towing a trailer with a car on it. The trip got a lot of attention, mostly negative. It was the world’s first glimpse into the realities of towing a big load with a consumer’s EV.

Since the trip, the folks who posted the journey have deleted all the posts related to the trip, apparently frustrated by the negative attention. Like us, perhaps, they’d hoped their trip would prove the vehicle's capabilities and not highlight the deficiencies.

Towing about 8,000 pounds with their standard pack equipped R1T, they averaged less than 50 percent of the advertised 315-mile range, meaning they were charging up about every 120 miles. They also acknowledged that they had to disconnect the trailer about half the time they stopped to charge.

What they proved, however, is that it was no big deal to find charging stations at short intervals across most of the country. Note, too, that in cool fall weather, they’d have experienced for much of the drive, the range would have been hampered by the temperatures, not just towing. They also reported that they averaged about 73 miles per hour—speed also kills range.

The Second Data Point

In February 2022, Car and Driver reported on their test towing with the R1T.

The report attempted a positive tone, noting how well-designed the towing features of the truck are. When you connect the trailer, new menu options appear on the screen in the cab, allowing you to control the trailer breaks and make other setting adjustments.

Still, they concluded that towing their car-on-a-trailer set up similar to the 8,000 pound one above, the range was cut in half—after noting that just driving the truck at 75 miles per hour cuts the range by about 30 percent. The effective range C&D reported was again only a few miles better than 100.

C&D also noted the trouble with charging. They dourly predict that you’ll have to “disconnect at every stop.” The article concludes with this warning: “If all you ever do is run your boat to the local launch, you will love the R1T as a tow rig. Just don’t go retiring your favorite tow rig quite yet if your destination requires a DC charge or two.”

Still, if only in an attempt at balance, the author includes this praise:

Fortunately, describing how the Rivian pulls a trailer can be summed up with one word: fabulous. It never feels sluggish off the line or when passing thanks to the four motors and their prodigious torque. When slowing down, the regenerative braking feels natural. Plus, we didn't detect a hint of trailer sway, which is greatly a function of how the trailer is loaded, but we didn't even feel so much as a tug from crosswind.

The Third Data Point

Last week, Utah YouTuber Zach Nelson at Jerry Rig Everything, who owns a Rivian, did a dead-of-winter test towing over 10,000 pounds! Zach ran the experiment in Utah on a day when the temperature was near freezing.

Zach is a pro. His trailer weighs much more than the truck, making it a bit scary—even for him. He took a variety of precautions to be careful.

Just for fun, early in the trip, he floored the truck—with the trailer in tow—when getting on the freeway from a complete stop and timed the zero to 60 time at 12 seconds.

One surprising challenge was that the trip computer frequently misestimated the range, sometimes suggesting the rig could go up to 600 miles! The video, highlighting all the challenges, has been viewed over 1 million times! (I have no doubt that this is a topic of discussion in Normal, Illinois—where Rivian is based.)

When he quickly needed a charge, he had trouble finding an open charger, ultimately settling for a level 2 charger for an hour or two just to get enough juice to get to the nearest 50 kW DC fast charger.

In the end, he says the truck went about 100 miles on a full charge in the dead of winter, towing over 10,000 pounds! Critics quickly jump on this as evidence of the truck’s weakness.

In the end, Zach, an EV enthusiast like us, remains a fan of the truck—even towing with it.

Why We Remain Excited!

Context is everything!

We love our Chevy Bolt. It can go up to 300 miles on a full charge—around town or on back roads with moderate speed limits. And it can tow our Aliner Scout up to 120 miles on one charge.

Part of the reason we love the Bolt is that we previously owned a 2012 Nissan Leaf with an old battery that yielded a range of just 50 miles! We loved the Nissan because, for three years before buying it, we didn’t own a car at all! We lived downtown and operated Manhattan style, using public transit, Uber, walking and occasionally renting a car for road trips.

We’ve ordered the Rivian with the max pack battery that has a longer range than any of the trucks described above, which all have the standard pack.

We have already learned (Devin a bit more than Gail) to be patient on road trips in an EV, driving a bit below the speed limit on the freeway to maximize range. Slowing a tad more when towing is also now a habit.

In fairness, when we ordered a truck with 11,000 pounds of towing capacity, we dreamed of towing a BIG trailer with all the comforts of home. Our naive dreams of pulling 44 feet of living luxury have been swapped out for finding the right 22 feet of carefully crafted quarters.

Here again, context is essential. The idea of towing a 22-foot trailer (give or take) that doesn’t fold up—and includes a shower and a toilet—now sounds truly luxurious to us!

So, we think that with our patient driving style and lightweight trailer, we can preserve half the 400-mile range of the max pack when towing in warm weather. That would allow us to travel close to 400 miles per day on a single charge—about twice what we can do with the Bolt when towing.

This is going to be great!