EDITORIAL: Rivian out-innovates the Detroit 3

The plugged-in vehicle that graces this month's cover answers the ongoing question: Who will be first to produce a battery-electric fullsize pickup truck? Because unless one of the pickup incumbents springs their own BEV surprise before 2020, that answer is most likely Rivian.

Skeptics snort that Rivian is yet another upstart OEM with outsized ambition. Read my colleague Bill Visnic's insightful reporting on p. 18 and judge the truck and its technologies for yourself. Regardless of whether the naysayers are right or not, Rivian's R1T electric pickup is a milestone. I'm betting that five years from now, other OEMs will have followed suit.