Towing has proven to be one of the toughest tests for electric pickups, since dragging a heavy trailer can cut an EV truck’s usable range far more severely than it affects a comparable gasoline truck. The eight electric pickups below are ranked from strongest to weakest based on how well their battery size, drivetrain efficiency, and towing-specific engineering hold up once a real trailer is hooked to the hitch and the truck is loaded down for a highway trip.
1. Ford F-150 Lightning
The Ford F-150 Lightning pairs a large battery pack with a chassis built specifically around America’s best-selling truck, giving it a strong baseline of usable range even before a trailer is ever attached to the hitch.
Ford engineered the Lightning’s towing modes to manage power delivery and battery temperature under sustained heavy loads, adjusting regenerative braking and drive unit behavior to protect range, which has helped it post some of the more competitive real-world towing range figures among electric trucks tested by owners and independent reviewers alike. Its wide dealer network also makes charging-stop planning during a long tow easier to manage than with newer, smaller brands.
2. Rivian R1T
The Rivian R1T was designed from the ground up as an electric vehicle rather than converted from an existing gasoline truck platform, and that clean-sheet efficiency carries over directly into its towing performance.
Rivian’s quad-motor and dual-motor drivetrain options give the R1T strong low-speed torque for pulling trailers away from a stop, and its relatively efficient battery use under sustained load has kept it near the top of independent towing-range comparisons conducted by owners and outlets that specifically test loaded electric trucks over hundreds of miles rather than short demonstration loops.
3. Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck carries one of the largest battery packs in the electric truck segment, giving it a high unloaded range figure on paper before any trailer enters the picture.
Once towing begins, however, the Cybertruck’s range drops sharply due to the added aerodynamic drag of a trailer combined with the vehicle’s own blunt, angular shape, a pattern that has shown up consistently in independent towing tests and has become one of the more discussed weaknesses of its unconventional design, even as its raw battery capacity remains among the largest in the segment.
4. Chevrolet Silverado EV
The Chevrolet Silverado EV was built with a massive battery pack specifically to support work-truck duty cycles, including sustained towing over long highway distances.
General Motors positioned the Silverado EV’s large capacity as a direct answer to towing range anxiety among fleet and work-truck buyers, and its sheer size gives it a meaningful buffer even after towing-related losses are factored into a real-world trip between charging stops.
5. GMC Sierra EV
Sharing its underlying platform and battery architecture with the Silverado EV, the GMC Sierra EV benefits from the same large-capacity approach to offsetting towing losses on long trips.
GMC has marketed the Sierra EV’s range and towing figures toward buyers who want a premium-trimmed electric truck without sacrificing the underlying towing engineering shared with its more work-focused Chevrolet sibling, giving it comparable real-world towing performance despite its more upscale positioning and trim level.
6. GMC Hummer EV
The GMC Hummer EV carries an unusually large and heavy battery pack, which helps offset the substantial range loss that comes with towing a heavy trailer behind such a large, boxy vehicle.
Despite that buffer, the Hummer EV’s own considerable weight and blunt aerodynamics mean its towing range still falls short of more efficiency-focused rivals on a percentage basis, even with a much bigger battery to draw from during a loaded trip, since raw capacity only partly offsets the drag of towing a trailer behind such a wide, heavy vehicle.
7. Ram 1500 REV
Ram designed the Ram 1500 REV with range as a central selling point, aiming to address the towing-range concerns that have dogged earlier electric trucks entering the market.
The truck’s large battery and towing-focused engineering are intended to keep it competitive for buyers who need to pull trailers regularly without the usable range dropping to impractical levels for everyday work or recreational towing, a concern Ram has addressed directly in how the truck is marketed.
8. Rivian R1T Max
The extended-range Max battery option for the Rivian R1T pushes total capacity higher than the standard pack, giving buyers who tow regularly a larger buffer to work with on longer hauls.
Because the Max pack is built on the same efficient platform as the standard R1T, its towing range benefits from both the larger battery and Rivian’s already competitive efficiency under load, keeping it among the stronger towing options in this group even when compared against trucks with bigger, heavier packs that do not convert their extra capacity into range as efficiently.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors.
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