You're buying a Cummins diesel wrapped in a truck that can't quite match the engine's legendary toughness. That powertrain, especially the older 5.9 12-valve or the new 2025+ ZF8 setup, will tow anything you hook to it and run past 300k miles without drama. Everything bolted around it tells a different story: ball joints that wear like brake pads, electrical gremlins that show up at 2,500 miles, brake calipers grenading before the first oil change. The 2025+ finally got the transmission right, but quality control is shockingly poor for a $70k truck. If you're towing heavy loads regularly, the Cummins is still the best tool available. If you're daily-driving it empty or expecting fit-and-finish that matches the price tag, prepare for disappointment. Buy it for the engine, budget for everything else breaking.
The R1T is the electric truck that drives like a sports car and rides like a luxury SUV, genuinely class-leading dynamics wrapped in a genuinely useful gear tunnel. The catch is you're buying into a startup still finding its footing: Gen 1 trucks suffer systematic 12V battery failures (some owners on their fifth replacement), service centers are scarce and slow, and Gen 2's rear door release is so poorly designed it requires panel removal in an emergency. If you love the truck enough to tolerate growing pains and can live near decent service, it's a thrilling machine; if you need Toyota-grade reliability or can't afford downtime, walk.