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It's a luxury vehicle, what did you expect? And I don't understand what you mean by most people already have that stuff. Like they have a hot plate and sink at home? Sure, but there's obviously a bit of a different use case here and it's an OPTION. Even if you don't get it, there's at least a nice standard outlet on either side of the gear tunnel to plug a hot plate into while it rests on that little pad. Are these sort of odd or maybe excessive features and options? Yea, sure. I mean it has ridiculous 0-60 mph times, a built-in air compressor, wades through 3ft of water and an air suspension that can adjust to over 14" ground clearance, so yea, it is excessive which is what the premium segment is, right?
There's also an under the bed covered storage where you can put a spare tire and/or more, though that's not going to be as convenient as either the tunnel or the frunk.
Most people who will have any use of a camping kitchen already have a big plastic box where they keep their kitchen camping utensils making a $5,000 designer camp cooking set redundant. I've got the old butane two burner Coleman (or other brand), an assortment of pots and pans, and various utensils for car camping. The one thing I do have that most people don't already have is a $75 induction hotplate. Unless you have a 110v system, which a lot of people don't have in a car, an induction hotplate is pretty useless. Camper van? Good chance you've got some solar panels and batteries to store electricity in. Regular person going camping with the kids on a weekend in whatever random car they drive? Probably don't. Hybrids make it easy since you've already got the battery. Just install an inexpensive inverter. The F-150 Lightning already comes with them standard or a more oversized one if you want to run a bunch of power tools. The standard one is something like 2,300 watts or whatever, plenty for a couple induction hotplates. Ioniq 5/EV6 has a less convenient one where you have to plug in an adapter to the vehicle charger rather than just plug stuff into an electrical outlet but same idea. Highly recommend an induction hotplate and an electric kettle for car camping. They're awesome. Worth $100 if you do a fair amount of car camping. But since they're available for $100 it's really hard to recommend spending $5,000 for the same thing.
Rivian has standard air suspension so of course it has an air compressor. The only thing different is they routed an air hose up to the truck bed and put a connector on there. As far as how useful that air compressor, that is an entirely different matter. Airbags aren't large. Tires are. Air bags you want high pressure, low volume. Tires you want high volume, really really high volume. Totally different kind of compressor. There's a reason there's a market for $800 ARB compressors. Sitting around for 30 minutes per tire sucks. C02 tanks are fast but refilling them sucks. Pick your poison. In other words, it's a cool for blowing up pool floaties and whatnot but I'd be surprised if the compressor is anymore useful than a $50 cigarette lighter compressor. Which those are fine for putting some air in a low passenger car tire. Might take 5-10 minutes though if it's completely flat and that's on a car tire. Off-road truck tire, much, much, bigger tire.
Today's "Jalopnik", Oct. 21, 2021 has a very long article with photos on the Rivian. It is highly technical and I won't comment on it except that the author loved every minute of it. My impression was, and I could be wrong, that a Rivian is the result, if that is possible in our sickest fantasies, of a Ford Raptor humping a Porsche 911.
There is no paywall on Jalopnik, anyone can read it free. Here is a quote:
"The Rivian R1T is imperfect. Its software has bugs, there are some mild build quality issues on the preproduction trucks that I drove, the front-facing camera is grainy, the four-wheel drive system kicks up rocks when you don’t want it to, pedal modulation can be tough to get used to off-road, articulation isn’t amazing, and the truck costs a lot (the ones I drove were over $70 grand). It also weighs a lot (roughly 6,000 pounds).
Plus, as a utility vehicle, it’s not great. The bed is tiny, and though the tow rating is 11,000 pounds, hauling that heavy of a load — especially in a box trailer uphill — will likely lead to double-digit range figures; the same applies to hauling lots of weight in the bed. Though Rivian says its fast chargers can bring the truck’s battery from zero to 140 miles of range in just 20 minutes, such a short range would be annoying given the U.S.’s poor-but-growing charging infrastructure.
Despite all of this, the Rivian R1T is a masterpiece, and a true enthusiast’s machine for people who like to daily-drive their trucks and who aren’t in it for long-range heavy towing/ hauling. It’s exceptional off-road and great on road, it looks awesome, its interior is stunning, its useful and sometimes superfluous gadgets are incredibly charming, and acceleration is absurd."
Interesting, but there are a number of concerns. First off you cannot put decent tires on it. Same with he F150 lightening. Second it looks like a kids Toy. This is going to be the hairdressers pick up or the WRX of pickup trucks. Third. Rivian is an unknown company with no history or reputation. Can they actually produce vehicles or are they another Tesla? Coming up with a neat car and putting one into production and distribution are completely different things that require different skills and experience. Will they be around long enough to honor the warranty? Fourth are they repairable? Or will they have to go into the shop every time something goes wrong with them? Fifth what is the actual towing capacity and range with hills, and wind and heat or AC on? Theory is nice in a classroom or a boardroom but useless on the road.
Still it is interesting. I do nto see it as a competitor for the F150 lightening, but it will be popular with kids and some yuppies (and probably male hairdressers hoping to seem a little more manly without compromising their image.
You'd be surprised what you can pick up a used transmission for, or even a used engine with regards to older (10+ years) vehicles that are depreciated out and readily available.
$500 and a weekend in the garage for the average blue-collar shade-tree and they can have that junker running again. Even a head gasket job isn't exactly the hardest thing to do with some mechanical skills, which most people who drive end-of-life vehicles tend to possess out of necessity. When you are driving a $5K car, you don't exactly have the money to go spend $2K at the dealer, so you make due with what you can do. I spent a lot of weekends with buddies swapping $300 engines into their 10-15 year old Camry's and Taurus to keep them going.
I give it another 10 years or so to see if this sort of back-yard shadetree mechanical work can be done by your average wrench. We wont be able to see if this is the case until there is a $5K used EV market that is widespread. Obviously this doesn't exist now, so the brunt of EV's are owned by folks who contract out their repairs. I don't see the cost of new batteries coming down anytime soon though.
EV's are still a vehicle for the well-to-do right now.
I do not know of an pickup that you will be replacing the engine or transmission at 100K miles unless the owner did soemthign really stupid. Maybe at 30K miles. More often what takes them out is the failure of electronics. Either something major like a BCM or more often a series of smaller items that build up until the truck is either non-functional or just not worth repairing them all. So you sell it for scrap and let someone take the engine and transmission out and put it in something else.
"Its electric powertrain notwithstanding, the R1T is unlike any pickup we've ever driven—part truck, part sport sedan, and 100 percent amazing. It's been speculated that pickup buyers are too conservative to embrace electrification, but after our first drive in a pre-production Rivian R1T, both on-road and off-, we think this is the electric truck that will turn them into believers." https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2...-drive-review/
I suspect most truck buyers won’t even give it a chance, so they’ll never know one way or the other.
Motor Trend has been out of touch with reality for a few years now, which is why I cancelled my subscription.
I think the cyber truck drew a lot of excitement because it was so different looking. However he might have done the same thing Preston Tucker did.
I bet there will be a few people that go for this maybe folks that always wanted a truck but whined about fuel consumption. And as they are seen more and more and if they hold up and do the job they might win some converts.
If I were to buy an electric truck I'd go with a Ford.
Thing seems to be getting universally good reviews from youtubers and car mags all around. Anyone actually take this for a test drive or even get delivery on this? It's sort of absurd how glowing some of these reviews are. I've read several engineering deep dives on this, and it does look really well thought out on that end somehow geared particularly well for both off-roading and city driving.
Thing seems to be getting universally good reviews from youtubers and car mags all around. Anyone actually take this for a test drive or even get delivery on this? It's sort of absurd how glowing some of these reviews are. I've read several engineering deep dives on this, and it does look really well thought out on that end somehow geared particularly well for both off-roading and city driving.
Want to attend the fancy events? Stick to the script. There's a few who can stick enough to the script where you can something sort of if unbiased from the press release advertising mill. Not many though, mostly they're not invited.
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