Overlanding an EV to the Most Remote Point in the USA
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- čas přidán 10. 07. 2023
- Range anxiety is a thing, and backcountry travelers are often concerned about overlanding an EV to remote locations. At Overland Journal, we love a good challenge, so we borrowed a Rivian R1S and headed out to the most remote point you can access on a road in the 48 US States. This is calculated by being the furthest point on a dirt road from an incorporated city (using triangulation), and required us to travel nearly 140 miles of dirt roads, tracks and technical trails to get there. We were not compensated by Rivian to complete this trip in any way, including paying all of our own expenses and charging costs.
Our No Compromise Clause: We carefully screen all contributors to make sure they are independent and impartial. We never have and never will accept advertorial, and we do not allow advertising to influence our product or destination reviews. - Auta a dopravní prostředky
I'm glad to see you guys doing trips like this to get real world info on how the rivian does in the backcountry. Cruising along in silence is the best!
It is so good!
This is some high quality stuff
This is awesome. Thanks!
I am planning a trip for my family to southern UT zone for spring 2025 with our R1T and really enjoyed watching this!
I am in Australia, I wish I had a Rivian. Well done, Guys, amazing view.
Did you went all the way to the end of the road on fifty mile bench then to page via the left hand collet rd/smoky mountain road without recharging the Rivian?
If so, that's pretty impressive! I don't even think I could do this trip with my (stock) Tacoma without extra gas.
In any case, thank you for respecting the land.
Side note, I did see a Tesla model 3 near the end of the hole in the rock road a couple weeks ago. I would have definitively driven a Rivian down there but not sure about the Tesla. 😅
Did it make it there and back without recharging ?
It did
That is pretty good. By my calculations the R1S should have 197 miles of total range on the terrain he was driving.
I would say your calculation seems pretty close. How did you determine that? (genuinely curious)
Can you help us understand how you define remoteness?
The furthest point from an incorporated city on a dirt road. This requires triangulating from multiple incorporated cities. Incidentally, this area also gets to the furthest from a paved road too, also via triangulation.
No wifi
was there a support vehicle with a generator just in case? i love the idea, but having the worry in the back of your head that a couple wrong turns or extracurricular driving could leave you stranded. With a gas burner, a kid on a dual sport bike could give you enough gas to get out. But an electric vehicle will need a huge generator brought to it...
It was only with the Rivian. No support vehicle of any kind, and we did not bring a generator
It's definitely interesting and encouraging to see you guys prove that it CAN be done. But you also mentioned, yourself, several limiting factors and compromises you have to make - higher than ideal tire pressures, road/trail surface conditions, having to use traction-limiting drive modes, etc. Then it's got 20" wheels, obviously limited ground clearance vs other options, temperature can significantly affect range, and Rivian doesn't even provision space for a full-sized spare tire!!!!
It might be a fun experiment for someone who gets paid to go out and do so, but for someone that actually has to spend their hard-earned money on an off-road/overland platform, it's just a TERRIBLE choice when there are so many SIGNIFICANTLY better (and cheaper) options! Steering people towards a vehicle like this just serves to accelerate the endangerment and/or severe neutering of off-road vehicles that's already underway...
Thank you for the comments. And consider that this is just generation one- it will keep getting better, and more interesting.
Curiously, I am in South Africa, preparing my Grenadier to drive to London via the long-axis of Africa. I am not using an EV… every adventure has the right tool for the job.
-Scott 🙏🏻
The R1S does not have a full size spare, the R1T however, does have one. Both have more ground clearance at 15" than most stock vehicles. I have the R1T and plan on doing a very similar 4-day trip in a couple of months. I don't think most people would take an R1S and do much more than mild offroading with it.
Couldn’t disagree with you more. The R1S is the perfect overlander. It has over 15” of ground clearance. It has an amazing flat space for sleeping in, that doesn’t require a diesel heater. It has a 1,500W AC plug in the back tailgate, perfect for induction cooking. It’s incredibly comfortable road tripper in order to get to the trails. You’re not burning through fuel at 8-15MPG to get there either. It doesn’t have full spare tire, but you can add one with a hitch mount. Don’t need that though, because a tire repair kit with the built in air compressor would be how I handle most pictures (even if I had a spare). Sure a side wall repair would work, but those are super rare.
He forgot to mention temperature. Massive impact on battery life.
The trail was covered in snow and ice in places. It did not have a material effect on our range. Certainly, extreme cold can be a factor.
That seems to be more the case with Tesla than Rivian
Meh, if a day trip out and back is your idea of "overlanding" then that rig might fit the bill. I'm not hating on ev's but load that thing down with what you would actually need to stay out for a week and take it down roads that aren't effectively paved and you guys would be sitting out there waiting for somebody to bring a generator before noon on the second day. I think it is a little bit dangerous promoting these things as applicable, because somebody is going to test that out in real life and end up in a bind, or worse.
We are just presenting the outcomes of the test, and the trail was certainly not maintained for more than half the distance. It was a proper 4wd track through left hand collet canyon back to Page.
How do you see this as being more dangerous than doing the same trip with a stock 4Runner for example? The Rivian actually has a better offroad range than a stock 4Runner, and people use 4Runners without gas cans for overlanding all the time.
You might also find our test of crossing El Camino del Diablo interesting, which was a multi-day EV overland trip across the longest trail in the country. The Hummer is loaded with gear, water, extra provisions, etc for multiple days. (We also had full provisions and camping gear for this trip too).
Just comments to consider. Sure, an EV isnt for everyone. I am crossing Africa right now in an ICE, but EVs just are not the boogeyman for overlanding that they have made out to be. Thanks for the comments and for watching
@@ExpeditionPortal ok I watched the Hummer video, I'm not going to pick it apart because the point here is not to be argumentative.
People DO travel to remote areas in ICE vehicles without extra fuel(or water, or food, or a spare tire or in some cases the basic skills needed to survive). People go hiking in Death Valley with a 500ml bottle of water all the time. Some of them die. I'm saying it is dangerous to promote sending a vehicle into an area with no support and no reasonable way to self recover. Not carrying what is necessary to self recover is not the same thing as self recovery is not possible.
I have a pretty hard rule of no more than 350 miles a day, I could easily shorten that to accommodate EV range, but what then? I'm sorry man but driving from one KOA to the next so I can refuel isn't interesting to me,
EV's in their current state up technology are imo urban/suburban use vehicles with (very) limited application with regards to back country travel. I'll give credit to the manufacturers for trying, but absent some unknown quantum leap in battery technology and charging technology I cannot foresee me going EV for back country travel, the effort is too high for the benefits gained.
Have a safe trip, I'll look forward to your upcoming content, thanks
@ExpeditionPortal A couple with the channel youtube.com/@4x4electric just drove an electric car down the west side of Africa north to south, using a portable solar array to charge along the way!
Rivian lent their beta test vehicles for the show Long Way Up to start testing these things and troubleshoot use of their car in rough conditions and long distances with no chance of easy recharge. The vehicles DEFINITELY had some major issues but considering they were doing that before the vehicles were even fully developed, I’m hopeful they’ll keep improving them for situations like this. Their primary initial market aim was outdoors influencers type folks so I imagine they’ve gotten some feedback there, too.
This is NOT REAL WORLD. "Overlanders" don't have the luxury to have a camera crew to "pre-drive" the route to make sure the road is doable for the EV, so it would not get stuck wasting precious battery power winching out of, or over, "obstacles". No mud on this guys pant or hands, no sweat in his shirt. He made it back to Starbucks for his mid afternoon latte and biscotti.
I've gone overlanding many times in my R1S and never had a problem. If the rout is planned out on a map with charging stations included then no need to "pre-drive".