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  • The Rivian R1T is the first electric pickup truck to reach the market. [credit:
    Jonathan Gitlin ]

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo.—Hats off to Rivian. Until 2018, almost no one had heard of the company. Now, it has brought the first battery electric pickup truck to market ahead of electric vehicle giant Tesla and just-plain-giant Ford, and this vehicle is aimed at a distinct buyer when compared to the everyman F-150 Lightning or the Mars colonist’s Cybertruck. The $67,500 R1T is for people who like exploring the outdoors—this is an adventure truck. And to put that claim to the test, last week we drove one up a mountain and back.

Rivian got started in 2009 and toyed with the idea of a number of different vehicles until it settled on a pair of battery electric vehicles—a truck and SUV—to begin with. Both were to be built in a former Mitsubishi factory in Normal, Illinois, that the company bought in 2017. The following year, the company emerged from “stealth mode,” and in 2019, I got to check out the concept R1T at that year’s New York auto show, where it pushed all the right buttons.

The company also started raising billions of dollars from investors like Ford and Amazon, the latter also placing an order for 100,000 electric delivery trucks. Production of the R1T was originally slated to begin in 2020, but as with so many plans, that went out the window in March of that year. But the trucks are beginning to roll out of Rivian’s Normal factory and into the hands of customers who ordered the (now sold-out) $73,000 Launch Edition.

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