If anyone was doubting the towing capabilities of the Rivian R1T, those doubts have officially been put to rest. The electrified pickup was spotted in Normal, Illinois pulling a semi truck off the side of the road yesterday, after the truck seemingly got stuck in a ditch.
The footage was posted to a Rivian subreddit by a user under the name NotNearlyNormal, who claimed that his friend witnessed the situation unfolding while driving down the road in Normal. The semi truck appears to be a class 8 tractor which, if you’re not familiar, is a ~17,000-lb. vehicle. In other words, towing this truck out of a bad situation was, quite literally, no small feat.
Some commentors in the thread questioned whether or not the situation was planned by marketing (it did unfold down the road from the Rivian factory, after all) but so far there seems to be no proof that it was staged.
Rivian R1T
Presumably, the R1T was able to pull this off with the help of its four electric motors and two Dual-Motor drive units — one for the front axle, another for the rear. This drivetrain produces 415 hp and 413 lb.-ft. of torque at the front axle, and the rear-axle has even higher torque with a capacity of 420 hp and 495 lb.-ft. of torque. Together, this make for a total of 835 hp and 908 lb.-ft. of torque which, in a situation like this one, came in very handy.
