Yahoo Autos A New All-Electric Pickup Truck Is Coming from a Startup Called Rivian
Rivian, a new American electric-car company, has been around since 2009, but it's not until later this month that the company will reveal its first two production vehicles, a pickup and an SUV, at the Los Angeles auto show. The R1T is coming first, and the company has released this teaser video of the full-size pickup truck.
The company calls its products "electric adventure vehicles," so it makes sense that the first car to be revealed is a pickup. Rivian claims the R1T will have more than 400 miles of range, a zero-to-60-mph time of 3.0 seconds, semi-autonomous technology, and "class leading" capabilities both on- and off-road. In the video, we can see glimpses of the R1T as it silently blasts down a dirt road, and the truck's unique lighting signature is visible at the end. Rivian also released a photo of the side of a clay model of the truck in their design studio.
Also to be revealed at the L.A. show is the R1S, a three-row, seven-passenger SUV. Both the R1T and R1S are built on the same "skateboard" style platform. The startup intends to begin deliveries to customers in 2020 out of a 2.6-million-square-foot factory in Normal, Illinois. (The plant used to belong to Mitsubishi; Rivian acquired it in January 2017.) Rivian's not a small operation, despite its startup status. Its design and engineering headquarters are in Plymouth, Michigan; a facility in Irvine, California, focuses on battery technology; another facility, in San Jose, California, is for self-driving tech; and advanced engineering is done in the United Kingdom. In total, Rivian already employs over 500 people, and says it expects to double that number as production ramps up.
We spent a morning at Rivian's Michigan headquarters getting a sneak peek at the R1T, and we came away impressed by both the truck and the company as a whole. Rivian seems like it could be the real deal, something that cannot be said about a number of other EV startup brands, and if they can deliver on their 2020 promise, they could beat Tesla's pickup to market. Stay tuned for more info about the two vehicles in the coming weeks.
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