Four Electric Pickup Trucks Were Driven Until They Died. One Over-Performed (Updated)

The Tesla Cybertruck, Rivian R1T, Ford F-150 Lightning, and Chevrolet Silverado EV were driven at 70 MPH until they ran out of juice.

Tesla Cybertruck, Rivian R1T, Chevrolet Silverado EV, Ford F-150 Lightning range test (Source: Out of Spec Reviews / YouTube)

Photo by: YouTube

Iulian Dnistran

By: Iulian Dnistran

Mar 21, 2024 at 9:30am ET

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We love a good range test here at InsideEVs, and this one, courtesy of our friends at Out of Spec Reviews, is a pretty important one. It gathers almost all the American-made electric pickups that are on sale today to see how far they can go on the highway. There’s also a mobile DC fast charger hooked up to a diesel generator, which you don’t see every day.

In the video embedded at the top of this page, you’ll see the Tesla Cybertruck, Rivian R1T, Ford F-150 Lightning, and Chevrolet Silverado EV put through their paces at a constant 70 miles per hour on the same loop to see how far they can go on a full charge.

[Correction 4/2/24 at 5:47 p.m ET: This story originally stated that the Silverado 3WT, Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T did not meet their advertised range figures. However, EPA range is not calculated with an all-highway driving cycle. It is calculated based on a 55% city/45% highway driving split. Because EVs use more power on the highway, you would expect most to underperform in a pure highway test. We have updated the story to reflect this. We regret the editing error.]

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There can only be one winner

The GMC Hummer EV is the only series-made American electric pickup that's missing from this test, but its cousin, the Chevrolet Silverado EV, charges ahead with the biggest battery pack of the group. However, another pickup managed to meet and exceed the advertised range.

Out of Spec Reviews’ testing procedure, which is explained on its website, consists of charging an EV from a DC fast charger to 100% state of charge, setting the tire pressure to the manufacturer-specified value, selecting the most energy-efficient drive setting, and setting the climate control system between 68 and 72 degrees on the most eco-friendly mode that still kicks in the A/C, but on the lowest fan setting.

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The test loop starts from Wellington, Colorado, and follows the I-25 to Cheyenne, Wyoming, then turns wast on the I-80 into Nebraska. The EVs are driven at a constant, GPS-verified speed of 70 MPH, and the drivers turn around when the battery is around 55% SoC.

Kyle Conner, who runs Out of Spec Reviews, says that typically they use frontage roads when the battery is almost out, but this time around they stayed on the highway until the cars completely stopped moving. That’s because they had a mobile charger on a trailer ready to come to the rescue.

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Now for the trucks. The Tesla Cybertruck is a tri-motor Cyberbeast model with 35-inch all-terrain tires and has an advertised driving range of 301 miles on a full charge. The Rivian R1T is a dual-motor non-performance unit with the larger battery pack that enables a claimed range of 352 miles with all-season tires on the EPA combined cycle.

The Ford F-150 Lightning tested here has the extended-range battery that comes with an advertised range of 320 miles combined. The Chevrolet Silverado EV in this test is the 4WT trim which has a claimed range of 450 miles in mixed driving thanks to its huge, 215-kilowatt-hour battery pack.

The outside temperature during this range test was between 48 and 68 degrees.

The video is over two hours long, but the results are explained right at the beginning. The worst performer was, unfortunately, the Lightning, which got 282 miles of range despite that 320 rating; pretty far off the mark, though remember that the EPA cycle is a mix of 55% city driving and 45% highway driving. Its efficiency was also unimpressive at 2.1 miles per kWh. The winner was the long-awaited Silverado EV at 434 miles, which they call "crazy impressive," but only pulled 2.0 miles per kWh, even less than the Ford.

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