Three Rivians. One survivor.
Every photograph on this site has been hauled into frame by some version of a Rivian. The current truck sits at the top. The named truck that came before sits in the middle. The first Rivian, the one that started it all, sits at the bottom.
The current truck. The workhorse.
The buyback put us into a Gen-2 R1T Tri-Motor Max-Pack, named, of course, Pablo's Revenge. Revenge for the fallen soldier in Eskobear.
18,000+ towing miles and counting. Virtually no issues. The SD → Chicago run will add another ~4,400 miles to the total.
Why we love towing with Rivian: real power, honest range, reasonable fast-charging speed, and a cabin that's comfortable enough to live in. New tech keeps rolling in via OTA, the brand-new Rivian Assistant landed just before this trip.
- Motors · three (front + dual rear)
- Power · ~850 hp
- Range (unloaded) · ~420 mi
- Range (towing 23FBT) · ~180 mi
- Charging · Tesla SC via NACS · Electrify America · Rivian Adventure Network
- Towing miles to date · 18,000+
Pablo's Revenge, hauling the 23FBT.
The named truck. Also the cursed one.
The replacement for the R1S was meant to be the tow rig: a Gen-1 R1T Dual-Motor Max-Pack. Sitting in the driver's seat trying to settle on a name, my son pointed out that the Rivian community affectionately calls the white paint "cocaine white."
So we should name it after the Cocaine Bear, he said. Looking up the bear's nicknames, one of them, honestly the best one, was Pablo Eskobear. It stuck.
Pablo Eskobear had a hard run. The first rear motor failed and the truck went into limp mode, then stopped driving at all. Rivian loaned us another R1 while it was in service, that's why a few other Rivians (including the R1S you'll spot in some Caravel-era photos) show up in the gallery.
When Pablo came home, paint damage from the service incident sent it to a body shop. The shop tried the paint match a couple of times; each attempt either landed wrong or made things worse. Then the second rear motor failed.
Rivian agreed to buy the truck back.
Pablo Eskobear, on the trail.
The one that started it all
The first Rivian was an early R1S. It was a great truck, until a driver turned left on a red light and hit the front driver's-side wheel head-on. The whole thing happened at under 10 miles per hour. No body damage to speak of, just a scuffed piece of trim, but the wheel and the suspension below it absorbed the entire impact: $17,000 in damage. Nobody expects a low-speed bump to do that.
Rivian agreed to repair it in-house instead of sending it to a body shop. The repair took a while, and through it Rivian had us in a loaner R1T. By the time the R1S came back we had fallen for the truck. We sold the R1S and moved to an R1T of our own.
The one that started it all.
The bear sits on the dash now. He survived all three trucks.
The rest of the electric fleet
Every EV that has spent time in the driveway. Not all at once, and not all still here, but every one of them ran on electrons.
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01
Tesla Model S Plaid
Tri-motor sedan.
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02
Tesla Model X
Falcon-door SUV.
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03
Ford F-150 Lightning
The other electric pickup.
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04
Volkswagen e-Golf
Small-battery commuter.
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05
Fiat 500e
Tiny urban EV.
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06
Tesla Model 3 (multiple)
Several over the years.
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07
Tesla Model Y (multiple)
Several over the years.
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08
Ford Focus Electric
Early-EV experiment from the pre-fast-charging era.