American electric-vehicle startup, Rivian has revealed their first product, the R1T truck which will be showcased at the Los Angeles motor show later this week. To go into production in 2020, the twin-cab full-size truck should be able to sprint to 100kmph in just three seconds.
RJ Scaringe, founder and CEO of Rivian is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate with a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering and has been developing their first product for a few years now. It seems that all the efforts have paid off, especially with the appreciation the R1T truck has been showered even before its first public showcase.
The R1T has been termed as an electric adventure vehicle and comes with a quad-motor setup driving each of the wheels and all of them running in full sync to give the optimum output. The truck rides on a double-wishbone setup in the front and a multi-link setup in the back which provide an able platform for the electric trickery. Each of the four motors is rated at about 200bhp of power and a whopping 3500Nm of torque and then the sprint numbers of 3 seconds to 100kmph and 7 seconds to 160kmph suddenly look easy. Also, at full-spec, it will have a 400-mile (700km) range while the lower-spec variants will begin from 230 miles (380km).
Otherwise, it looks like a proper full-size truck with the large hood, the square twin cabs and the large loading bay in the back. While the loading bay does have a lot of cargo space, the designers have made sure that the interior is also multifunctional with different panels like the transmission tunnel or the under seat area doubling up as more stowage space. While the top-spec cars are expected to retail under $100,000 (Rs 70 lakhs) in the US after the tax rebates, the entry-level trims will set the buyers back by about $61,500 (Rs 43 lakhs).
