It’ll be the biggest automotive battery pack… in the world.
If you were playing a game of electric car Top Trumps and were desperate to find a way to wipe that smug look of your Tesla-happy friends’ face, upstart electric carmaker Rivian is now your new best friend. Where Tesla’s cars top out with 100kWh batteries in various configurations (Performance, Dual Motor, etc), Rivian’s come out to clarify that their biggest battery pack will measure in at no less than 180kWh in capacity, with smaller variations in 135kWh and 105kWh capacities. That still beats Tesla.
It was during a tour of their new facility in Normal, Illinois that it was confirmed to Auto News that Rivian packs 7776 individual battery cells into its 180kWh-capacity skateboard, providing exceptional range of as much as 660km on a single charge. This is an amazing figure to tout given that the R1S SUV and R1T pick-up aren’t exactly small, svelte machines, with plenty of heft to lug around.
The 105kWh and 135kWh battery packs aren’t to be scoffed at either, with the former able to manage a claimed 386km on a charge, while the mid-range option offers up just shy of 500km of range on a charge. It’s worth noting that several quarters hold reservations about the real-world performance of Rivian’s unproven EV innovations, and how rigorously they intend to test their setups in the next 17-months before their stated launch target.
We’ve little doubt that Rivian is in the process of producing the first handful of prototype testing vehicles now, but within the next year and a half, they have to prepare their Illinois facility for proper series production, they have to hire a (formidably-large) number of manufacturing staff and get them up to speed, and then submit a number of their cars for the usual regulatory nonsense and safety requirements. Quite a lot to do in a year and a half, eh?
But Rivian, as a company, has garnered alot of interest from consumers and industry players alike, who appreciate the firm’s solid engineering & technical capability, and their strategy of operating in ‘stealth mode’ until they were truly ready to show something. The results are clear: Two cars that couldn’t be more of-the-moment, with intelligent and innovative design, and truly groundbreaking engineering beneath. It’s hard to hide our soft-spot for Rivian, and we’re certainly looking forward to seeing these ‘adventure vehicles’ out on the open road.
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