ELECTRIC TRUCK 30,000 POUND TOW-OFF | Rivian R1T vs. Ford F-150 Lightning | Who Can Go the Distance?

Where's the last place you would expect to see two brand new, zero emissions, fully electric pickup trucks? Right here! This is Truckmania, the biggest celebration of all things trucks on the west coast, and it is madness. There's dirt bikes running around, there's burnouts, there's an off-road course, and there's every diesel truck imaginable in various states of disrepair. And we brought a Ford F-150 Lightning and a Rivian R1T. Frankly, they stick out like a sore thumb. We want to see if they can fit in too. We're going to hook them up to a monster tractor sled and see how far they can pull it down a dirt track. Are they going to fail? Are they going to triumph? Am I going to look like an idiot? I don't know, but I can't wait to find out. I'm pumped, baby. Let's go! Woo! Since you're already here, go ahead and click like and subscribe so we can keep making more crazy videos like this. Also, if you want to sell your car, go to edmunds.com slash sellmycar right now and you'll get a cash offer on that, baby. Both of these are part of the Edmunds long-term test program. So yes, we actually bought and paid for both of these, and yes, we're actually going to put them on the line and risk them right here, right now. Believe it or not, when you look at the numbers, these two really belong at a place like this. Both of these trucks have tons of horsepower, but the R1T has a lot more. The bigger deal, though, is torque, and the Rivian's four motors best the Ford's two, pumping out 908 pound-feet. Plus, the Rivian has off-road tires, which should be better for churning up dirt than the Ford's street shoes. So these trucks definitely have the right specs on paper, but can they really handle this type of abuse? We're in completely uncharted territory here. The sled's weight is over these trucks' max tow rating by over 300%. Will we pretzel their frames? Will we burn out their motors? Nobody knows. We called Ford, and understandably, all they'd say is that they haven't tried this before, and they couldn't give us pointers, let alone their blessing. In fact, the stakes here are so high, we had to go get special permission to risk the nearly $165,000 in company assets. That's right, my butt is on the line here. What up? We're gonna do the tractor pull with it. No way. Yeah, for real. Hell yeah. Like 45 minutes? Come watch it. All right. We made some fans already. This is wild, dude. Look at this truck. He's not moving an inch for me. He didn't move an inch. No, he actually was coming over your way. He was getting closer. No, he intentionally was coming over your way. It's a good-looking truck. Yeah? I like them. It's real striking when you see them coming down the road with those lights. They don't look like anything else. Nope. For sure. We're gonna put it in the tractor pull. We're gonna pull this thing. No kidding? Yeah. Awesome. We're in there, too. Hey, so you know what you're talking about. How's this gonna do? Well, you guys, you have an advantage of torque right off zero RPM, so that's gonna be like having a low gear ratio, I would think. Yep. So it's gonna come down to traction, and you got pretty decent tires on it, so yeah, maybe. Yeah, the Lightning's got just street tires, just all seasons, so we'll see. These things have, like, what, 500 foot-pounds or something? No, like 800. You're gonna do good. All right, good enough for me. Good enough. Appreciate it, bud. I'm here now with Brian Massetti from MLM Motorsports, the owner and operator of the Terminator 2.0, this absolutely enormous sled that we're going to be pulling with both trucks. Brian, tell me a little bit about how the Terminator works. So the way it works is it's a weight transfer machine. As the front tires turn, they drive through a gearbox, move that box forward, transferring all the weight from the back up to the skid pan, which gets harder and harder to drag, and then we eventually will stop. Okay, so that giant box gets pushed forward the faster I go, and that's going to push it deep into the ground. Exactly what's going to happen. All right, fascinating. How much does this whole thing weigh? Right about 34,000 pounds today. So 17 tons. Yeah, if you do the math right, that's 17 tons. My god, all right. All right, I guess we're doing this. Any predictions on how the Rivian and the Lightning are going to do? I don't know. I've never had an electric vehicle pull the sled. I know the Rivian has a weight advantage. I'm excited to see what happens. I think they'll both do well. So a heavier truck is an advantage? Yes, because you have more leverage against the sled. All right, we'll see. You think I'm going to look like an idiot out there? No, not at all, because no one's done this before. So the first time someone does it, it's always great, right? I'll take it. Let's do it. So as Brian just mentioned, weight is super important in this competition. One thing to know about the Lightning and the Rivian is they're way heavier than most trucks this size. In fact, there's currently not a class for this kind of weight. So if more electric trucks are going to enter this type of stuff, they're going to have to create a brand new class with new rules and regulations. And I'm a guinea pig in the driver's seat. Brian, the organizer, said he didn't think I was going to look like an idiot, but everyone still thought it'd be good to get a couple of dry runs in before the big throwdown. That way we could see if these trucks would even play ball. Okay, we're in tow haul mode. All right, here we go. First run, four Lightning waiting for the green flag. Okay, here we go. Lightning. Lightning on the way. A lot of wheel spin. All right, foot's on the floor. We're pulling, we're pulling, we're pulling. Drifting a little bit. Still going. Foot on the floor. Going pretty good. It feels nice. Slowing down a little. Bouncing around. Coming to a crawl. Stop. So I felt a lot of spin. Curious if that's going to happen in the Rivian too. Because we got two motors here, one on the front, one in the back. And that was a lot of spin. Could be the tires, could be the fact that we got two motors instead of four. Could be the truck's just not designed to do this. All right, we're at 237 miles of range right now. 88% battery. We're going to see if any of that changes this time. Okay, last time I rolled on it. Let's floor it this time. Here we go. Flooring it. A lot of wheel spin, but we're getting going. Here we go. That was smoother actually. Okay, it feels good. Pretty bumpy, but feels good. Here we go. I'm going past 200 now. Way better this time. Way better this time. And we're slowing and done. First run was really good, but I was babying the throttle way too much, so the second one I just floored it and we did way, way better. We got almost 50 feet improvement, I'm guessing. But definitely flooring it is the move. That's what I learned. 235 miles of range, so we lost a little range. But we're still at 87% charge, so it's not killing the battery as much as I thought it might. That was a way better run, so flooring it is definitely the move. Now we'll see how the Rivian does. Okay, we are in towing mode right now. We have 121 miles of range, 88%. Let's see what we got. Good? All right. Three, two, one, go. Oh, front lifted up way hard. Good start though. Good start. Oh, we're moving. We are moving. Oh my god. We're going to blow past this. We are blowing past it. Way past 250. And done. That's nuts, man. So we're at 87%, 121 miles of range. I think that's about what we started with. Pretty sure that's what we started with. Wild, man. All right, one more. Once I could feel the tractor push a little bit, it felt like it wasn't going to stop. The front wheels almost lifted off the ground. So I don't know what the, maybe that's why the traction control is really working hard up front and not spinning the tires. But the back ones were spinning and they were really digging in. So it was putting the power to the ground, but it was definitely opposite of the lightning because the lightning in the front spun. So it was really weird. That's funny. Funny how the computer deals with stuff. Well, I'm glad it's giving you something to watch. Let's see if we can beat the first run. Here we go. Power on, front wheels up. We're pulling, we're pulling, we're pulling. Now it's starting to push me from the back. Oh, we're moving. Can we beat the first run? Just got to keep it straight. Let's see. It feels better. I think it's better than the first one. We're done. 120 miles, 87% battery. So it's really not doing too much to the battery. So definitely beat the first run. I don't know what was different that time. I mashed it both times. I mean, I'm impressed. The people who do this regularly seem pretty impressed. So I guess we got a pretty good showing from our two EVs today. Bright lights time. There's a big crowd in the stands. Getting a little nervous. Here we go, baby. Green, let's go. All that electric torque, 231 and 42. 231 and 42. So 231 change. Our battery power really didn't change very much. We still got a lot of life left. We still got a lot of range left. Pretty wild, man. 230 something feet in front of a full crowd. Actually seemed to be rooting for us a little bit. That's cool. Rivian time. Rivian time. Looking for the green. All right, we're green. Let's go. Let's go. Come on, buddy. Feeling good. Rivian, folks, this is the future. Feeling good. I've got some booze. What do we do? 246. All right, so the Rivian won out. Four electric motors versus two electric motors. I think we've got a clear verdict here. If you're planning on getting one of these trucks for a tractor pull. Nice. If you're thinking about getting one of these two trucks for a tractor pull, now you know which one to get. How did these two do overall? Pretty damn well. Like we said, EVs are so new, they don't fit into any weight class. So comparing them is an apples to oranges deal. The sled's weight box transfer speed varies by class to make comparisons even harder. Plus, so-called stock class rigs tend to have mods, whether it's tires or engine tweaks or extra ballast. Our trucks are right off the showroom floor. Starting with the big boy work stock diesel class, these rigs pulled the sled the furthest by far, but they can weigh 8,000 pounds and have engine tweaks, exhaust, tires, all of that. Closer to our trucks are the 6,500 and 5,500 stock classes, which respectively can weigh up to 6,500 or 5,500 pounds. These trucks pulled between 220 and 261 feet. Yes, they're lighter than ours, but that still suggests our EVs could be right in the thick of things without mods. The future of electric trucks is bright, even for sled pulling. We had a blast at Truck Mania today with the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T. We got to learn about a brand new motorsport. We got to meet a ton of passionate people, and we got to see that the Rivian is probably a little bit better suited for this particular competition than the Lightning. But I have a feeling most EV owners aren't going to be doing anything like this. Still, I think we learned quite a bit about the capability of electric trucks. Now, this is far from the last comparison that we'll do between the Lightning and the Rivian. So make sure you check back to the Edmunds long-term test page to see our thoughts as we put 20,000 miles on these bad boys. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to leave a comment below about which truck impressed you the most. And who knows, maybe we sparked a new trend today. Special thanks go out to Michael Lewis from L&L Productions. Thank you for having us here today. And if you'll have us, we'll be back. All right, America.