Rivian R1T Electrifying the Outdoors, Leg 1 of 5: Nags Head, NC to Dalton, GA

MotorTrend

Tackling the Trans-America Trail--a route of interconnected

Transcript

00:00 (soft music)

00:02 - Dan, we can put you right here.

00:04 - Ah, look at that.

00:06 - Wow.

00:07 I first pitched this story, I think, 2017.

00:11 It's 2021.

00:12 I am in my 30s now.

00:15 A lot of time has passed.

00:16 - Hello, we're invading your space already.

00:19 We have to come check out the trucks.

00:21 - RJ, the founder and CEO of Rivian,

00:23 he came to our offices to show us the R1T virtually.

00:28 Him and one of his guys gave me a VR headset.

00:32 I put it on and all of a sudden in front of me

00:34 was this really cool pickup truck

00:36 that I've never seen before.

00:38 - You look like a Rivian's giving birth to you.

00:40 - So many people at that time, a few years ago,

00:43 were just making electric vehicles

00:44 that were commuter cars like the Chevy Bolt,

00:46 which is a great car, but not particularly interesting.

00:48 And here was someone with a vision to make a car

00:51 that people actually wanna buy,

00:52 a pickup that people actually wanna buy.

00:53 Something that can go off road,

00:54 but it'll be as luxurious as a Range Rover

00:56 and as fun to drive as a sports car.

00:58 - 24 year career, I have never seen a press car

01:01 that had its own can opener or a knife.

01:03 - Most automakers know not to give journalists knives.

01:05 - Yeah.

01:06 - I immediately started thinking of story ideas for that

01:08 and I was really into overlanding, still am,

01:11 and I kinda just stumbled upon the Transamerica Trail

01:13 and was like, that, that's what we're gonna do.

01:15 We're gonna be the first to do this,

01:16 to cross the Transamerica Trail in an electric vehicle.

01:19 (dramatic music)

01:21 (bells jingling)

01:24 - It does start now.

01:28 - That's it, our electric adventure is starting now.

01:30 - Let's do it.

01:31 - This is your two year dream.

01:33 - Yeah, it's been a while.

01:34 - First country in electric car.

01:35 - Wow.

01:36 Off road.

01:37 - Starting backwards, off road.

01:39 - The Transamerica Trail is kind of like

01:41 the ultimate great American road trip.

01:43 You're starting in North Carolina on the Atlantic Ocean

01:46 and driving largely on unpaved roads

01:49 to the Pacific Ocean in Oregon.

01:51 You know, it's kind of an insane thing to do,

01:53 in all honesty.

01:55 - Holy crow, we as Motor Trend are gonna cross the country

02:00 using back roads and no roads in an electric car.

02:05 Like, people are not buying electric cars

02:07 because they're going, well, what if I,

02:09 out of my usual routine, instead of going from home

02:11 to work, I suddenly have to pick up the kids

02:13 because my husband got sick, or my wife got sick,

02:15 or what if I have to go to the grocery store

02:17 and I run out of power?

02:18 We're going to the middle of freaking nowhere.

02:21 - I've been thinking about this project,

02:36 staring at the maps for more than a year,

02:38 and so to be out here on trail with the Motor Trend team,

02:41 with our vehicle team, has been super fun.

02:45 The piece that took us the longest to solve for

02:48 was just the appropriate daily mileage to hit.

02:51 How do we do it in a way that's aggressive

02:53 and time efficient, but also manageable

02:56 for the people who are on trail driving,

02:58 not wearing them out, you know,

02:59 making sure they're getting enough sleep,

03:01 stuff like that.

03:02 - Cool, we got questions.

03:17 - Man, I don't even know where to start today.

03:19 Long, long story short, we did our drive,

03:23 we left at seven in the morning,

03:24 we arrived in Lovingston, Virginia,

03:26 from Nags Head, North Carolina,

03:28 at seven o'clock in the evening.

03:31 I'm really proud of our progress today.

03:35 12 hours of driving is a lot.

03:38 Some really, honestly, great driving roads.

03:40 Man, I lost my train of thought

03:45 'cause it's late and I'm tired.

03:47 And, yeah, peace.

03:50 Also, who says peace anymore?

03:53 What am I like, (beep) 13?

03:55 Anyway.

03:56 - Hey, one Indian, we have a flat rear tire.

04:02 - So the irony here is we were just in the car discussing,

04:07 'cause I'm trying to watch my speed

04:09 'cause it's really rocky and I'm worried about a tire,

04:11 and I'm just saying to Christian,

04:12 what do you think, you know?

04:13 Should I be worried about the tires?

04:14 He's like, no, I think you could put on

04:16 a little bit more speed and not worry about them so much.

04:18 And then we find out we didn't even realize

04:20 we had a flat tire.

04:21 So, yeah, guess slower would have been better.

04:24 I am thinking this is the first of many tires

04:27 we'll go through on this trip.

04:29 These guys put the spare on and repaired the tire

04:35 that I thought I destroyed but didn't

04:37 in about 60 seconds is what it felt like.

04:40 I've seriously never seen tires come off a car

04:42 and onto a car so quickly.

04:44 It's like being in NASCAR.

04:45 So, yeah, we'll continue on our way,

04:47 what, 10 minutes after we stopped, would you say?

04:50 Yeah, this is incredible.

04:52 It's been something on this trip

05:07 that like the pavement just, boom, it ends,

05:09 and all of a sudden you're on gravel,

05:10 and you have to adjust your driving style

05:12 because as we learned the hard way

05:15 to our detriment, you can really screw up a tire

05:17 on some of these really rough rock roads.

05:20 But the Rivian has a lot of drive modes,

05:23 and there's really a lot of differentiation between them

05:26 because they have an air suspension,

05:27 they have this fancy hydraulic damper

05:30 and roll control system where all four axles are intertwined.

05:33 They change their pedal travel,

05:34 they change the regenerative braking response.

05:37 So the road changes instantly,

05:39 and you change modes with the screen,

05:41 and the truck changes instantly.

05:43 Before Christian is my co-pilot, I'm like,

05:45 Christian, give me rally mode.

05:47 Christian, give me drift mode.

05:49 Christian, give me all-purpose mode.

05:51 But there really is a mode for every type of driving.

05:54 It's like two different vehicles, it's wild.

05:57 Ah, well this is different.

06:05 So look at this, I think it says on there 1928 Ford.

06:09 So it's kind of funny, so here's our tie-in, right?

06:11 You ready for this?

06:12 Like, this was the most modern thing you could buy,

06:16 at least from Ford, because you know,

06:17 Ford kept on with that Model T right into the 20s,

06:20 long after it was obsolete.

06:22 But then he came out with this, so just like our Rivians,

06:25 like this was super modern, it had traditional controls.

06:29 Before too long it would have a V8 engine.

06:31 This might have gotten, at least from Ford fanatics,

06:33 the same kind of stares we're getting in our Rivians.

06:35 - I can imagine.

06:41 - Well, hello, here I am.

06:44 You know, today it really, really occurred to me

06:47 kind of how monumental it is, what we're doing,

06:49 and what these trucks are doing.

06:52 I mean, we are crossing the country,

06:55 off-road, almost entirely off-road, in electric trucks.

06:57 We're the first ones to do this.

06:59 And I told Christian, like when we're old men

07:01 and we can see these vehicles in a museum somewhere

07:03 and say, "We drove that car part of the way

07:06 "across the country, we were the first ones,"

07:09 or something like that.

07:10 I do plan to talk in this voice when I'm old.

07:13 I'll fake it, but I'll talk like this.

07:16 So, thank you for watching.

07:18 Good night.

07:20 - Our support, we're gonna get as much charge as we did.

07:28 These chargers appear to be really slow.

07:30 - So yeah, we didn't get quite as much charge as we need,

07:34 so we're just plotting an extra stop.

07:35 We're gonna turn off the route for a few miles

07:38 to hit a fast charger, juice up, and then away we go.

07:41 The minor perils of electric car travel.

07:44 So our 12-hour day is now looking like 13 hours.

07:47 What's an hour when you're not getting any sleep?

07:50 - I've been doing this for about 10 years now.

07:54 I've driven lots of cars.

07:55 I've spent countless thousands of dollars on fuel.

07:59 There's probably a sense of guilt

08:00 as we watch the world change,

08:02 you get more extreme weather events.

08:04 I don't fault anyone for it.

08:06 These are all decisions made way before our lifetime.

08:08 We inherited this system,

08:10 but it doesn't mean we can't change it,

08:12 change it for the better,

08:12 and hopefully leave a better world

08:14 for the people that follow us.

08:15 And so it's really great to me that vehicles like the R1T

08:18 kind of allow you to continue to do the things

08:20 you already love, to be outdoors, to explore,

08:22 to go off-roading, to haul stuff,

08:24 to drive quick on a good road

08:26 without the environmental guilt, the damage,

08:28 the noise, the air pollution.

08:30 It's definitely a hard transition I think we're making,

08:33 but long-term it'll be worth it.

08:35 I'm positive of that.

08:36 (car engine rumbling)

08:40 - We're just parking between the Jeep and that other car.

08:42 - Today, despite being, you know, 14 hours on the road,

08:46 it's tough to complain.

08:50 That's weird as that is.

08:52 The roads were so, so (beep) epic.

08:56 You really have to see this to believe this.

08:59 And I really think the next waves

09:01 are gonna be in for a shock when they see

09:04 how grueling this is and how, you know,

09:08 it's rewarding, but grueling.

09:09 It's like a good workout.

09:11 This is 43 days.

09:15 It is a endurance race.

09:17 It's a marathon.

09:19 It's a relay race, actually, if you really think about it.

09:21 It just made sense to not be selfish

09:24 and not do the whole thing myself

09:25 as much as I might want to

09:27 and to hand it off to my fellow editors.

09:29 I'm actually really looking forward to seeing

09:31 what people in the next wave,

09:33 like, you know, Miguel Cortina.

09:34 I talked to him on the phone yesterday.

09:35 He's super excited to get behind the wheel,

09:37 and I can't wait to see his reaction

09:39 and how he enjoys the trip.

09:41 - We've been in Virginia for a very, very long time,

09:45 but the cool thing to me is, like,

09:47 I look at these beautiful mountains in the backdrop,

09:50 these tree-strewn mountains where it looks like,

09:53 you know, nothing that doesn't walk on all fours

09:56 would possibly go, but that's what we've driven through.

10:00 It's given me a new appreciation

10:01 for hitting the back roads.

10:03 I mean, I always put Google Maps when I have the time.

10:06 I always put avoid highways, you know,

10:08 and take the secondary roads,

10:10 and I thought I was seeing the landscape then,

10:13 but boy, this is terrific.

10:15 It's emotional.

10:16 It's spiritual.

10:17 I think if everybody, even with what little I've seen,

10:22 if everybody could get out

10:23 and just drive this little piece that we've seen,

10:25 I think it would just change you.

10:28 (gentle music)

10:30 - We're gonna sit battery.

10:34 - So we got 299 miles of range.

10:37 I think, yeah, 199, but we're very low on saltwater taffy.

10:43 - I should have bought more. - This could be a real problem.

10:45 Should have bought more. - If they had a five-pound box,

10:46 why didn't they buy that five-pound box?

10:47 - I know, we ate a whole pound of taffy.

10:50 What is wrong with us?

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