Two $100K electric trucks face-off to find out who builds the most luxurious pickup. To pick our winner
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00:00It's so easy to spend $100,000 on an electric pickup truck.
00:17All you have to do is pick from Ford, GMC, Chevy, Rivian, or Tesla.
00:22You have a lot of options, but if you want that $100,000 to buy a luxury truck, you really
00:28have two choices.
00:29The GMC Sierra EV or the Rivian R1T, which we have here in tri-motor version.
00:35That's 750 horsepower versus 850 horsepower.
00:40We have driven these trucks on road, in the cities, on highways.
00:44We've towed with them.
00:45We've put payload in the beds.
00:47We've also gone off road.
00:50Let's find out who builds the better luxury pickup truck.
00:54For a luxury electric pickup truck.
01:11What really matters is how they drive.
01:13Let's go out on the road.
01:17We're driving a Rivian R1T tri-motor, and so the R1T has been around for a few years,
01:24but for 2025, we get a handful of updates, including all new models like this tri-motor
01:31and a revised quad motor that makes huge amounts of horsepower.
01:34The tri-motor that we're in makes 850 horsepower and more than 1,100 pound feet of torque.
01:41That's crazy.
01:42And so this is not the quickest R1T, and yet it does zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds.
01:50You drove this thing all week, and drove it with payload in the bed, 1,000 pounds of payload,
01:55and you drove it unloaded.
01:57Did you ever find yourself saying, damn, I really wish I had more than 1,000 horsepower
02:01in the quad motor?
02:02No.
02:03This is a rocket ship in just about every scenario, and I'd venture to say it's too
02:08powerful.
02:09Really?
02:10Why do you say that?
02:12I just know that it is.
02:14It's interesting because you know the horsepower, you know the torque, you know what that pedal
02:18can do.
02:19That's the too powerful part.
02:21The fun part is when you actually put your foot down.
02:24It doesn't act like it's too powerful.
02:26It knows what to do with the horses and the torque.
02:29This is the second most powerful option if you want to get into a Rivian R1T.
02:34So above this quad motor.
02:37We've never driven the base dual motor, but we've driven the dual motor performance, the
02:41tri, the quad now, none of them are slow.
02:45The dual motor performance has 600 horsepower, something like that.
02:49And it's zero to 60 in like three and a half seconds.
02:53We're not hurting for horsepower.
02:55And let's just say those numbers slowly again, 600 horsepower in a pickup truck and someone's
03:00going to say, well, I want more than, but yes, do you really need it?
03:06Rivian's whole pitch is the adventure lifestyle.
03:09It says right here on the dash, adventurous forever.
03:13I find this slightly annoying because I hate repeating the marketing, but the marketing
03:20in this case, it's not just people sitting at their desks, coming up with creative taglines
03:26and that kind of stuff.
03:27It's an ethos that feels like it carries through to the engineering, to the design, every,
03:34the product planning, really every aspect of this truck fits into that.
03:38So it's not just marketing BS.
03:40It's actually what the product's all about.
03:42So these cars have pretty amazing software, tons of different drive modes, whether it's
03:49sport mode to get the most out of that 850 horsepower, off-road modes.
03:54And then when you're parked even, camp mode, right?
03:56And camp mode allows you to run the power when you're parked kind of indefinitely, but
04:02it also uses the air springs in this car to level the vehicle.
04:07So that if you have a rooftop tent, or if you were sleeping in the bed of the truck,
04:11your head's not facing downhill, you're getting a great night's sleep, right?
04:16Cool things like the gear tunnel between the bed and the cab for stashing wet, stinky,
04:23dirty gear, a great frunk for secure storage, a pretty cool rigid folding tonneau cover.
04:31They really kind of thought about this brand, what it could be and what it should be, and
04:37then gave that to the engineers and said, make this happen.
04:40And the engineers totally lived up to the breeze.
04:44So it's safe to say the adventure lifestyle, it's not just a sticker package for Rivian.
04:49That's how this vehicle was built from the ground up.
04:52Yeah.
04:53And you're kind of a, you're a hardcore off-roader.
04:55I'd say you very much lived that lifestyle.
04:59You worked for four-wheeler for a long time before you worked for Motor Trend.
05:03You own a Jeep, you own a crusty old military truck.
05:07You weren't necessarily an EV enthusiast when you came over to the Motor Trend side,
05:12but now you've driven tons of EVs.
05:15I'm curious how you feel about Rivian and this truck in particular.
05:20Could you ever imagine yourself driving this, owning it?
05:25Great to talk about this just as we pull onto a rougher dirt road.
05:30This is the, in the last few years, I have driven tons of EVs.
05:37This is one of the few EVs that is tailored toward enthusiasts.
05:43A lot of the vehicles out there, yes, they can go through the snow or through the dirt,
05:48and they have a couple of tools here and there that make off-road travel tolerable.
05:55This is an enthusiast vehicle.
05:56This is an enthusiast EV.
05:59And there are like, this has rock crawl mode that they took time to calibrate that pedal.
06:05So if you're doing some technical off-roading, your foot can bounce on the accelerator.
06:10The vehicle continues to move forward at a slow and smooth pace.
06:13It's a huge thing for people driving off-road.
06:17You mentioned all of the camping modes that Rivian built into the R1T.
06:21From someone that's slept in the bed of a truck with their head all kinds of places
06:25it shouldn't be, being able to level out that truck after a day on the trails, it's huge.
06:30It's the little things that this electric truck has that cater directly toward enthusiasts.
06:36And you're not working within the confines of the truck.
06:38The truck is built for you, as someone that wants to go out there and have fun.
06:49Does it have a name?
06:51Because the Silverado has wide open watts mode.
06:56And I haven't heard GMC refer to this as a name, named feature, but I like just dropping
07:02the hammer.
07:04Whoa!
07:06It's significant, the difference, right?
07:08Yes, yes.
07:09And so the Sierra EV makes 754 horsepower when you're dropping the hammer.
07:16And that's all for a button that isn't, aside from the blue illumination, some, you might
07:22not even know it's there.
07:23Yeah.
07:24I would say in contrast to the Rivian, where the drive modes are very prominent and they're
07:31kind of core to the identity of that vehicle, this has normal, off-road, tow-haul, my mode.
07:38And then it's got this kind of, you know, full power hammer acceleration mode, which
07:44you can have on when you're in tow-haul mode or off-road mode.
07:48So it's like a layer on top of the actual drive modes.
07:53But there's nothing on this screen.
07:54If I was a first time EV owner telling me that this button here means super duper power.
08:02And other than that kind of initiation sound effect, there's no real theatrics to it.
08:10Yeah.
08:11We went straight from a simulated moon launch, that moon shot to here's your little hammer
08:16in the corner.
08:17Have fun.
08:18Hit it.
08:19It does give you the boost.
08:20But maybe that's, maybe that's the smart move, right?
08:22Because the Hummer is for somebody who is, who's kind of an intention-seeking customer.
08:29And I think this is very much for someone who is looking for as much attention as any
08:34other Sierra driver, right?
08:36Which you know, like a Sierra and a Silverado and an F-150 are just the cars Americans drive.
08:43They blend into everyday life.
08:44Nobody gives them a second glance.
08:47Ooh, so now you can see me steering here, wandering.
08:53This vehicle torque steers, right?
08:54And the Silverado EV torque steers.
08:56And it's not like front wheel drive gas cars where they would like really yank at your
09:01wheels.
09:02It's, it's a much slower torque steer.
09:05And it's not like, it's not jerking at the wheel, but it's really hard to kind of correct
09:10or mitigate or just stop it, right?
09:12Like the truck wants to wander back and forth.
09:15And I've, every time I've launched these trucks, I've had that.
09:18Oh, it's, it's every single time.
09:20You could kind of say that's the philosophical difference between these two trucks.
09:25This is the truck that's meant to blend in with the crowd.
09:30And the Rivian is the truck that's meant to be something different where people in the
09:34know look at you and know who you are based on the truck you drive.
09:39This truck has 24 inch wheels.
09:43I would say in the small stuff, it rides surprisingly well.
09:48A lot of that, like secondary vibration that you get in gas trucks, which have the, you
09:53know, a very light bed that has stiff springs on it to accommodate when you're dropping
09:59a thousand pounds in the bed, EVs are almost, you know, 50, 50 weight distribution.
10:07And so it seems like you can get a lot better ride quality in the natural unloaded state.
10:15You don't get a lot of that jittery ride.
10:18We did hit a few big holes back there though, where a lot of the big hits, a lot of disturbance
10:24makes its way up into the cabin.
10:27This truck has air springs, and yet I feel like they're a little underutilized.
10:32The truck lowers at highway speeds to improve aerodynamics.
10:36There's a switch on the side here that you can manually raise or lower it.
10:41In off-road mode, you could raise it for improved ground clearance.
10:45When you had the Sierra on the, at the test track and you were driving around the motor
10:50trend oval, how did you feel the suspension was working, really getting into the corners?
10:55I would say there's a pretty big difference in how this handles versus the Rivians.
11:00The eagerness to kind of corner and turn in, it feels like much more like a traditional
11:07gas pickup, which is to say, you know that cornering is not one of its strengths, right?
11:13There's a good bit of roll, you know, for as much power as they have, they're not really
11:18overtly sporty in any way, other than acceleration, straight line acceleration.
11:25There is no sport mode, aside from hitting the hammer during normal off-road or tow haul,
11:30you don't have a designated track or sport mode in Sierra EV.
11:36So the Rivian and the Sierra EV both have their own cargo tricks, right?
11:41The Rivian's trick is that gear tunnel, which is a pretty clever idea that we've never seen
11:47before.
11:48The Sierra's trick is the mid-gate, which also can be found on the Silverado EV, and
11:53of course was found many years ago on the Chevy Avalanche.
11:57They've refined the idea a bit.
12:00There's now a function where you can do a split-fold function, so you can leave two
12:05seats up and fold one seat in the rear and open a little pass-through.
12:10Perfect for skis, fishing rods, couple pieces of lumber, something like that.
12:16You can leave the glass in place and fold the bulkhead, and if you really wanted to,
12:22you could pop an air mattress in the bed and you could probably sleep with the climate
12:27control running.
12:28There's no camp mode like there is in Rivian, but you could probably create a weather-enclosed
12:34space, climate control, sleep in it.
12:37So from your perspective, you were saying the Rivian doesn't really work for these one
12:42or two cases where I go skiing every year.
12:46Would you rather have a truck, let's not think about any other part of the package, only
12:50the cargo solutions.
12:51Would you rather have gear tunnel or mid-gate?
12:54I really have to think about the things that I do frequently enough and those things that
13:00become pain points.
13:01The first time I have that Rivian and there's nowhere to put the skis, it's upsetting to me.
13:08Would that be enough to put me toward the Sierra where there's the mid-gate?
13:13It might be.
13:14It might be.
13:15Both these trucks ride really good on the road.
13:18The differences between them come down to packaging.
13:21The Sierra is all about size.
13:23It's got that massive battery and great long range.
13:26It's got a huge cabin and the full-size pickup bed is just as useful as in a gas Sierra.
13:32The R1T is not quite as big, slightly smaller battery, smaller packaging, but it's a really
13:38great blend of daily driver and weekend adventure mobile.
13:42And as good as it is on the road, the off-road part is where it really should shine.
13:52At Motor Trend, we're always looking for new ways to push vehicles to their limits.
13:58Not just on the road, but on all kinds of incredible off-road trails.
14:02From rock crawling to multi-day overland adventures, we use OnX Off-Road from start to finish and
14:09even when stuff goes sideways.
14:11No cell reception?
14:12No problem.
14:14Just download a detailed base map before you set off and OnX Off-Road's GPS will keep track
14:20of where you've been and where you're going.
14:22For land use boundaries, places of interest, thousands of trails graded by difficulty,
14:27and more, we use OnX Off-Road every time we get out in the dirt.
14:32If you want to discover places like the ones we explored today, scan the QR code or click
14:38the link in the bio to learn more about OnX Off-Road.
14:42So we should be as high as we can possibly go and traction control is off.
14:47Anything else still showing the ride height's raising?
14:52Maybe this is a nitpick, but the Rivian's totally unlike this.
14:55You can select a mode like rock crawl and the Rivian will automatically go to high.
15:02In the GMC you choose off-road, but it's still on you to now manually elevate the ride height.
15:08So we're just crawling up as slow as the truck will let us go and right now my foot is on
15:16the floor and the truck is not letting us go.
15:19Yeah, so there's a power readout on the screen and I can read it here and it's peaking at
15:24like 20 kilowatts and not giving you any more than 25 kilowatts.
15:32Right now we don't have tires in the air.
15:35Every tire is touching the ground right now.
15:36We're at a...
15:37Oh, we should have the readout tell us what angle we're at, but we're not at 45 degrees.
15:44No, I don't even know if we're at 30 degrees, high 20s maybe.
15:48Let's try that again.
15:49This is not incredibly steep.
15:54Back in drive we have all the right settings and the stability control light's flashing
15:59a little bit and there's no stability control off setting.
16:03You can turn traction control off, but there's still something lurking.
16:11If I go a little faster, I thought we had it.
16:21I thought we had it.
16:23And now this is where this truck struggles.
16:25If you lose your momentum and you come to a stop, it's over.
16:31Now I have to back down again because it's not letting me go forward.
16:37It's really bizarre.
16:39We did this earlier and we were watching from outside the car.
16:43The front axle weights start slipping and the rear never turns.
16:50That's exactly the scenario where you think a two motor powertrain is supposed to excel.
16:56If the front axle is slipping, give us more torque at the rear.
16:59It's not evident that that's what's actually happening.
17:05It seems like it wants me to maintain momentum going up this hill, but that's not the best
17:10way to get through a hill.
17:14My foot flips on the floor on the accelerator and try weaving that wheel.
17:20I'm hoping it doesn't give me all of the horses all at once.
17:25Seems like there's no threat of that happening.
17:26They're very much watching over you.
17:29Okay, we made it, but not easy.
17:33I can't imagine if that was my driveway and the family was in the truck.
17:37Let's try that same thing in the Rivian R1T tri.
17:41Just driving around the roads between the obstacles at Hollyoaks, it feels like this
17:44truck is made to do this.
17:47Before we got started in the dirt, instead of just hitting off-road mode and having only
17:52a couple choices, we hit go off-road and we have all-terrain, rock crawl, soft sand, rally,
17:58or even drift mode that we can choose from to fine-tune our off-road experience.
18:04Then within that, we have the adjustable height if we want to customize it beyond the preset.
18:10We can change our regen very easily, stability control.
18:14We're pulling up on Mount Magna.
18:15I'm going to switch into rock crawl mode from all-terrain.
18:20It also turns off brake hold, which is great for that two-pedal driving you want to do
18:24here.
18:25I'm going to go ahead and pick a harder line than we did in the Sierra EV because I think
18:29this is going to have a much easier time.
18:32Rock crawl, I will turn stability to its reduced setting.
18:35The air springs are automatically going up to their highest setting.
18:41Let's just roll on up this hill.
18:43You can officially see nothing but blue sky in front of us.
18:46We are on a steep hill.
18:48As the truck slows down, I just feed in more accelerator.
18:52They tuned this pedal really great.
18:55You use a decent bit of the travel, but it gives you so much control over how much torque
19:00you're delivering to the wheels.
19:04We just went through some 12-inch deep craters.
19:09If we even floated a tire, the truck didn't tell us that we did.
19:13That hill was 20.
19:14We're looking at the screen.
19:15That was a 20-degree slope that we went up.
19:18You have all the tools here to have fun on so many different surfaces.
19:23You can hill climb.
19:24This has all the tools you need to rock crawl, the cameras, the throttle tuning.
19:29This simulates the four low that you'd find in a Jeep or other trucks.
19:35This also lets you let the horsepower and torque loose and go drifting and play in the
19:40loose sand and the dirt.
19:43This truck can do a lot of really fun things.
19:46Then lower itself right back down and drive home at the end of the day.
19:50I'm willing to drive this truck quite a bit quicker on these transit roads because it
19:56feels so solid and so supple simultaneously.
20:03You know, we'll kind of have some fun cornering here with some speed.
20:08What a fun truck.
20:10The key to the Sierra is its size.
20:13It has a really big battery, incredible range, and super fast charge.
20:18I'm always trying to educate people that range and charging aren't as important as you think
20:23because most people only use them a couple times a year for those long, long road trips.
20:28The key to the Rivian is versatility.
20:30It has plenty of range and battery for daily driving, but it has all the tools and tricks
20:36you need to take the family camping on the weekend, go play at the off-road park, and
20:41everything else in between.
20:43So our pick for the most well-rounded, the best electric luxury pickup truck is the Rivian R1T.
20:56To read the full comparison of the R1T versus the Sierra EV, and for more comparisons of
21:01new cars, trucks, and SUVs, visit MotorTrend.com.