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EVs have changed nearly everything about the car world. The term “range” is now a steady bit of vernacular that we now need to deal with to understand the current climate of the automotive industry. Range is funny becuase, like mpg, many people learn the number once and claim for the rest of time. The truth is MPG and range are both estimates for the best driving scenario. Now that electric power has entered the truck world, we have to figure out how off-roading affects range. With that in mind, how far can the 2022 Rivian R1T electric pickup truck go off-road? 

The Rivian R1T all-electric pickup truck model covered in dirt and grime while driving off-road in wet mud and earth
Rivian R1T electric pickup truck | Rivian

What’s the range for the 2022 Rivian R1T electric pickup truck? 

According to Rivian, the R1T has a 125-kilowatt-hour-net battery pack, meaning only 125-kilowatt-hour of its 135-kWh gross battery density is available. 

This battery capacity gives the Rivian R1T a range of 314 miles on a single charge. If you opt for the 20-inch wheels, that range drops 277 miles. Considering the Rivian’s 835 hp and the expectation that it’ll be doing some truck stuff from time to time, it is really pretty impressive. However, how much will that “truck stuff” cost in range? 

What’s the Rivian R1 T’s range off-road? 

According to The Drive, YouTuber Rex Briggs decided to try to find out how far the Rivian R1T could go when traversing steep, slippery terrain. He took his electric pickup truck on a 100-mile journey to see what was what. 

He started the experiment 93 percent charged by the time he got to the trail. The trail required climbing 6,500 feet of elevation, 10 creek crossings, and several tricky off-road sections. At the end of his trip, he found a charging station and began crunching numbers. 

Briggs drove a total of 93 miles, leaving his 93 percent charged battery with only 30 percent left. More importantly, it’s an efficiency of 1.13 miles per kilowatt-hour. That provides a total of 152 miles of total off-road range on a full battery charge. 

Can you go off-roading in an EV?

Orange 2022 Rivian R1T pickup truck, which has a 3-second 0-60 mph acceleration time, driving up a hill
2022 Rivian R1T | Rivian

The Rivian proved that the instant torque of EVs offers off-roaders a great deal of performance. We have seen the R1T do some incredible things off-road. But the R1T is just the first electric pickup truck. As more silent pickup trucks continue to hit the trails, there is a good chance that off-road range could be considered more by manufacturers. 

Although it’s a new space,d dealing with new problems, Rivian appears to have tried hard to think through these paradigm shift issues. For instance, Rivian announced nearly two years ago that they were working on a network of remote chargers at popular outdoor recreation areas. 

The idea is to give outdoor adventurers some peace of mind when taking their EVs out to the wilder places of the world. This plan feels like one of the more progressive actions taken to make EVs more popular and useable. 

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