[MUSIC PLAYING] JASON LEWIS: Hey there. I'm Jason Lewis for Edmunds. And today, we have a pretty unique video for you guys. This is our very first all-EV towing test. My pal Emme Hall and I-- EMME HALL: [LAUGHS] Oh, what a weirdo. JASON LEWIS: --are out here expanding on the very thorough towing test we did last summer, but we're changing up not just the powertrain, but the payloads as well. EMME HALL: Now, to refresh your memory, last summer we did this same towing route. It's a little bit over 200 miles through Southern California. And for that we had the V8 Chevy Silverado ZR2. We had the Ford F-150 hybrid, the RAM 1500 diesel, and a Ford F-150 Lightning. And for that we were towing a Tesla on the back of a flatbed trailer, this time not quite so much. Now, we've kept the Lightning, but this time we're adding our long-term Rivian R1T. JASON LEWIS: But we wanted to make this a little more challenging. So we decided to tow box trailers loaded up with Hyundai Ioniq 5 SUVs for a combined weight of about 7,500 pounds. And don't worry. We've balanced that weight so they are towing in perfect harmony. EMME HALL: But the biggest drawback that we had was that driving the Lightning, it took us four extra hours as it did with a gas-powered vehicle. And you know why. You guys, it's because of charging. But we really had no problems with the truck. It was all about the charging infrastructure. Now, the Lightning and the Rivian are both long-term vehicles. That's right. We bought these vehicles. And we have so much information. So go on over to edmunds.com. You can check out all of our long-term reviews, and you can find pretty much anything you want. Oh, and if you're looking to get a cash offer for your current car that's in your driveway and like-- I don't know-- maybe you want to get an EV truck or something-- I don't know. That's up to you-- go over to edmunds.com/sellmycar. All right. So you have to keep the truck at 55 miles an hour because that is the legal limit for towing in California, your climate control has to be set at 72, and no drafting off of any of these trucks. JASON LEWIS: I'm curious to see degradation on range. EMME HALL: Oh, yeah, yeah. With these box trailers, dude, we're going to lose a lot of range. Also, because we've got these trailers, we're probably going to have to unhook every time we want to charge. And that's just going to add more frustration and more time. JASON LEWIS: So what I'm noticing right now is that our average range was 2 miles per kilowatt, but the impact of towing so far has dropped us down to 0.9. So that's half. So we're seeing a substantial decrease in the range from towing up the hill there. The Rivian doesn't struggle at all. This truck in this entire segment is a standout with a ton of horsepower, a ton of torque. So I think the Lightning has five something. This has 800 horsepower. It doesn't really notice the trailer behind it. Now, once we finish climbing the grapevine, we have a lot of downhill. And we have the region set to high on this thing. So I'm curious to see how much we gain back by keeping all of this slow going down the other side. One of the other things that's unique about the Rivian is that there's no settings for the trailer. It's tow mode or not tow mode and all of the other modes. So there's no weight, length, anything to do with the trailer. Just trailer brake strength is it. And it seems to do just fine, honestly. EMME HALL: So in regular Edmunds testing with the Lightning without a box trailer, we were able to get 341 miles of range. But listen, once we put in all the weights and everything for this trailer, it dropped all the way down to like 150 miles of range. And now-- I mean, I'm 26 miles into this drive, and I'm at 116 miles of range. So going up the grade, this truck feels fine. This doesn't have the max tow package, but we're loaded to about 7,500. So I'm doing pretty good. I don't feel like it's struggling or anything. I can feel the weight back there, but I feel fine. And even on some of these downhill parts I'm still getting some regen. So like, yeah, the driving part's pretty easy. So I can charge at 150 kilowatts, but I think the Rivian is more. JASON LEWIS: Yeah, I'm good for 220. I haven't actually seen that. Even had a fast charger. EMME HALL: Yeah, so that's just your peak charge. So it won't necessarily maintain that charge throughout your whole charging session. So we'll have to keep an eye out and see how fast peak charge we get. OK, here's the thing. I put Tehachapi into the nav system just to see if I could make it, and I can make it. But Tehachapi is only a 50-kilowatt charger, and that's going to be so slow. So I think it's better use of our time, go to Bakersfield, and go to the high-speed chargers. Right now I have 88 miles of range, and I'm getting 0.9 miles per kilowatt hour. JASON LEWIS: All right, we are showing 0.95 miles per kilowatt hour, and we are showing 208 miles of range left. EMME HALL: What? JASON LEWIS: I know. It's bizarre. But it looks very confident. We're only at 62% of the battery. EMME HALL: So I think the Rivian is just like, oh, you're in tow mode, but it doesn't actually know how much you've got that you're pulling. So I think your range is going to dip really, really fast when it figures it out. JASON LEWIS: Can confirm still 200, 205. EMME HALL: OK, that is weird. Something is up. He's not in tow mode or something. There is no way he can have over 200 miles of range and this thing has only got 86. I do not believe it. JASON LEWIS: We're now in the downhill part of our first climb, and we're now gaining back some of the miles we lost. We were at 195 miles when we just spoke to Emme. We are now at 201 and rising as the truck is regenerating, keeping it at 55 going down this hill. So we're at the valley floor now. Our mileage has climbed back up to 211 miles of range left, which is amazing. We can't figure this out because the Lightning isn't seeing anything near that. Our average kilowatt per mile is 1.82 right now. That's about what they're seeing out there. We're going to land in Bakersfield and try to suss all this stuff out. EMME HALL: OK, here's the thing, you guys. Producer John just looked at the Electrify America app. And where we're going to charge, all of them are in use right now. JASON LEWIS: All right, we ran into that last night though, and they actually weren't when we got to a-- physically got to a location. So what do you guys want to do? EMME HALL: Well, the thing is they're 350s. So I think we should risk it and go there. And then if they are all in use, maybe they are going to be not in use for like five minutes. I don't know. I think we should risk it. JASON LEWIS: So over the course of 10 miles, our range went from 199 to 143. So we hit a serious reality check here in the review. We are sneaking up on our destination though. According to this, we're only about 4 and 1/2 miles out. EMME HALL: All right, we're getting off the freeway here in Bakersfield. I've got 71 miles of range. I'm averaging 1.3 miles per kilowatt hour. Let's see what happens at Electrify America. JASON LEWIS: So we've landed at the chargers. We've gone 85.8 miles. We have 136 left in the battery as we speak. We've settled into a 1.15 kilowatt per mile. Now we have to detach our trailers and figure out, and get in line to get a charge here. This is the challenge and the frustration already. EMME HALL: Here we go. Let's see if it works. 350-kilowatt charger. I can only accept 150, but all we have are 350, so that's fine. This is the moment when like, is it going to work? Is it really going to work? Ah, look at that-- charging. Now let's see how fast it will go. [GASPS] So we'll charge to 80%, 85% because we don't want to take up any extra space when we don't need to because that is rude. So we pulled up to the charger with 71 miles left on the clock. I charged it for 22 minutes at a total cost of about $20. And I got 135 miles of range. That's about 83% of my battery. And 83% is sufficient. I only have to go 62 miles to the next charger. I'm fine. JASON LEWIS: All right, we're back on the road after charging in Bakersfield. And here's the data according to the Rivian. We were able to charge for 57 minutes, and we added 157 miles to our range. So we're back up to, what it's looking like now, a generous 280. It's actually adjusting right now. It's coming down quickly to 274. So it settled into 274. And now we're going to try to haul over the hill past Tehachapi into Mojave for the next charging station there. While we were on the fast charger, we never saw anywhere near the 300 or even the 220 that this thing was able to take. The peak I saw was 120 kilowatt hour, so not very fast. EMME HALL: So here's the best thing about towing with an electric vehicle. It's that when you get stuck behind somebody slower and you need like some quick pickup to just get around them and get back in line, dude, the electric torque is right there, and it's great. I don't feel bad pulling in front of anybody because I have that torque to accelerate quickly. Perfect. JASON LEWIS: The driving impressions in the Rivian-- towing is really quite pleasant. It doesn't hardly feel the trailer back there. It's rated at 11,000 pounds towing. And we're talking-- that's 3/4-ton pickup truck territory. So it's really capable. The Rivian scored an amazing 321 miles in the Edmunds real-world EV range loop. Two things I noticed though, while we're driving the Rivian with the trailer behind, is that you can't use the highway assist on the Rivian, just regular cruise control. I'm actually OK with that. You should be in control of your trailer. And the regenerative braking is actually really nice. Even with the trailer on there, you can pretty much do one-foot driving in town. It will come to a stop at a light. It's good. EMME HALL: So I've been in cruise control pretty much this whole time. I've set it at 55. And what's great about that is that it still allows for regen. Because not only do I have the weight of the vehicle, I have the weight of the trailer. And once I start going downhill to maintain that 55, it's going to regen all day long. And you guys, it's free. It's free power. So do it. Set your regen to high. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of one-pedal driving, man. It's the best thing. All right, here is your progress report. We have just pulled into beautiful downtown Mojave. It's a wonderful desert town. I've got 57 miles on the clock. I'm about 2 miles to my charging location. No, I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I'd like you to notice this vehicle parked here, not plugged in, which means that this fine gentleman had to move his vehicle over so that I could fit the Lightning in here because god only knows where this guy is-- not that I'm angry about it. Dude, I cannot believe our Electrify America luck on this trip. JASON LEWIS: I'm getting spoiled. I was ready, watching Alistair's events in the last one and how hard he battled to get home. First try. EMME HALL: I know. Me too. Both of them. The only problem that we've had is that this numbnuts is parked here, and he doesn't need to be parked here. But other than that-- JASON LEWIS: Bad etiquette. EMME HALL: --everything has been going great in terms of the charging infrastructure. So I'm stoked about that. JASON LEWIS: Yeah, I agree. And I still see the challenge to this for sure. EMME HALL: Yeah. JASON LEWIS: But having these vehicles, the torque being trapped on that road-- we were just talking about getting boxed in by semis, but having the ability to get up and around that stuff-- EMME HALL: And just pull around, yeah, yeah, yeah. JASON LEWIS: --is amazing. So I get the upsides. And so far, this has been-- actually, today been very easy. EMME HALL: Yeah. So what I like to do too when I'm planning my trips is go to either PlugShare or A Better Route Planner and then look at other people's reviews of those charging stations because that's-- you don't really get that in the native nav systems in either one of these. JASON LEWIS: Eyes on the ground. EMME HALL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then you can know like, OK, someone charged here yesterday, and they said that all of them were broken. Do I want to take that risk? Maybe, maybe not. For example, that's why I wanted to make sure that I charged here because the one down the road is like in this really crappy, tight, little parking lot. And I didn't want to have to deal with that with our trailers. Well, I think we've been here for like 10 or 15 minutes. You're almost at 80%. I'm getting close to 80%. Yeah. And we just have one more leg to go. JASON LEWIS: Yeah. I think we're going to be able to knock it out. EMME HALL: Yeah, buddy! JASON LEWIS: Hey, Emme. Have you noticed that this pretty severe wind is impacting the range and definitely the feel of the trailers right now? EMME HALL: Yeah. I mean, I definitely noticed the feel. But yeah, you're right. I'm down to 0.7 miles per kilowatt hour. JASON LEWIS: Yeah, we show 0.9 there, but this is the first time that the Rivian has gone holy crap and adjusted our range so quickly. Within 10 miles, it dropped from the 240 we left the charging station to 177. So that's the most severe and quickest drop we've seen. EMME HALL: Yeah. I mean, mine's definitely been more consistent throughout. But yeah, 0.7 is the lowest that I've seen. And I can feel the wind pushing up against this trailer. So I'm glad we're only 55 miles away from home base. JASON LEWIS: A few things keep circling around in my head. The good things-- the power, the handling, the way this thing tows is actually quite remarkably good, and easy, and effortless. As for things that I'm not really thrilled about that I haven't liked on this-- these mirrors, now, they're not designed for towing, but they are awful for towing, I mean, flat dangerous. The other thing that was a little awkward or a little frustrating to deal with was the center screen and the air conditioning. Now, we committed to the 72. And 72 in auto just isn't quite as comfortable as we would have liked. It was pretty warm in here. And adjusting the vents on a screen is super touchy and jumpy. And when you're going down the road getting passed by junk like that, that's just not fun at all. EMME HALL: So one thing I really love is the navigation system. There's a little icon here. And when I press it, I get all these different tools. So for example, it'll let me know what are the services at the next exit. Because when you can't see anything from the freeway and you're like, oh, I hope there's a gas station here. And when you're towing, that's really, really imperative. You have to know what services are there because you could get in trouble. JASON LEWIS: We are literally two exits from our destination here. And we just thought we should share this because this was the most dramatic leg of the journey for us for sure. Now, we had a headwind this whole way. We left the charger with 242 miles of estimated range. We are now in 60 miles. We've only covered 62 miles exactly. We are showing 62 miles left of range. See the math there? That does not add up. That is a substantial decrease in range. We were thinking at that charger, oh, we have 168 miles left. We could have made it the rest of the way. We would have been absolutely screwed. EMME HALL: OK, so I hit 50 miles. And the truck gave me a little-- [VOCALIZES] You have low fuel. And it did say low fuel. It didn't say low battery, which is very interesting. Although listen, I'm still going to have 20 miles when we get back to home base, so I'm not too worried about it. JASON LEWIS: We are rolling into our parking lot slightly wounded right now. Well, we made it. It wasn't as long a day as some of us thought it was going to be, but it was still kind of a long day. I wouldn't mind just having a beer for a second to just chill out from having trucks just absolutely rail us on both sides all day. So that got a little weird, especially with the limited visibility on the sides of this thing. Otherwise, strong like bull. Did good. EMME HALL: I mean, look, did you guys think that we weren't going to make it? Come on. But we have so many numbers to go through. And frankly, I'm just way too tired to do that right now. You guys, check it out. I'm in the office, and I have the data. There are a lot of numbers here. If you really want to get into the weeds, don't worry. I wrote a whole article about it. There is a link below. So just click on that if you really want to get into it. But here's the key takeaway. The F-150 Lightning, it averaged 1 mile per kilowatt hour on our towing test. The Rivian averaged 0.9 miles per kilowatt hour. Now, that is pretty darn close. Now, in our previous test when we had the flatbed trailer, the F-150 averaged 1.5 miles per kilowatt hour. That might not seem like a big difference, 1.5 versus 1. But listen, if you've got 100 miles, that's an extra 50 miles of range that you're going to get when you have a flatbed trailer as compared to having a taller trailer. That's a lot of miles. And here's also something that was really interesting. The Ford was much better at estimating the range that we were going to get. And that's because we could put in all of our specs of our trailer, including the length and the width, but more importantly the weight. So we got a pretty good estimate of how far we were going to be able to go. In the Rivian, however, it's just tow or no tow. It didn't know how much weight it was trailering. So Jason had a range of like 240 miles, but then it would drop precipitously. And you knew that you weren't going to get 240 miles because you knew over the average you were getting 0.9 miles per kilowatt hour. And you know you only have 130-odd kilowatt hour battery. The math tells you you're not going to get 240 miles. So like if we can do that math in our head-- and I'm not that great at math-- the truck should be able to do it too. OK, let's talk about money. So cost per mile for the Lightning was $0.48. And it cost us $0.52 per mile for the Rivian. I mean, that's pretty comparable. All right, I am calling this one for the F-150. Now, yes, the range and the price per mile, those are all pretty close. But where the Ford shines is in its just towing capabilities. The mirrors are better. It has more towing features. And in this world of, is this charging station going to work? Is it not? I don't know. You want that predictability of a range estimate. And the Ford just did that better than the Rivian. [MUSIC PLAYING]
