Charging Speed is a MAJOR disappointment (ChargePoint

[Joel]

I keep thinking about driving over there but I never go that way anymore. I’ll have to pair it with a trip to microcenter.

But I do know that DCFC is very expensive to install as opposed to L2. There was a guy on Reddit a while back posting the estimates he was getting for single 50kw installs and it was between 150-250k.

Or maybe they plan to when they finally have RAN chargers available to install? RAN seems so nebulous at this point I do wonder how much of the original plan of that will come to fruition.

I think they were hoping to get a piece of the federal money that was supposed to come in the build back better.

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[MNLightning]

Are you planning on installing a level 2 charger at home and/or a 14-50 plug with some decent amperage? In general you likely won't need to be charging on the road at all unless you road trip, right? At which point, as others have noted, the DCFC chargers that the upper midwest has generally adopted suck at ~50kw.

I'm expecting my ZEF Energy 11.5kw charger soon.

I don't understand the thought process behind the installation of 6.6-7.4kw chargers that seem to be the most common around here. I took just under a half hour to recover my to-from mileage at "ChargePoint" Hy-Vee Location in Maple Grove MN.

 

[SeaGeo]

I'm expecting my ZEF Energy 11.5kw charger soon.

I don't understand the thought process behind the installation of 6.6-7.4kw chargers that seem to be the most common around here. I took just under a half hour to recover my to-from mileage at "ChargePoint" Hy-Vee Location in Maple Grove MN.

They're cheap to install and useful for PHEV and just topping up when you have a fairly long stay somewhere.

A L2 charger like that should be less than $5k to install for a business. A level 3 charger cab easily exceed 100k, and is *really* hard to make money on.

 

[sub]

Towing a boat or snowmobile up to the north shore is not going to be fun with mostly just 50KW chargers along the route.

 

[SASSquatch]

For me personally, I'm someone who doesn't like to drive for longer than 2 hours without stopping for a break. I'm a squatch so my legs need to get circulation after being shoved into a space designed by humans in the 50th percentile.

That said, I like to keep my breaks brisk and efficient. I'm not going to want to hang around at a rest stop for more than 20 or 25 minutes so for me the calculation becomes can I consistently charge enough in those 20-25 minutes to put back into the vehicle what I will use in the next two hours?

As long as the answer to that is yes, I'm really not concerned about theoretical or actual charge limits/curves if I am going to be charging more than I need to get me through my next 2 hours, especially since you are likely going to be paying a much higher rate on the road than you would at home on your Level 2 charger.

My R1T isn't slated until the first half of 2023 (currently) so I will be watching eagerly everyone else who is enjoying their R1Ts and hoping RIVIAN continues to improve the thermal management (including adding preconditioning) so that I can meet my needs.

Props to the OP and everyone else who is posting about their experience and keeping the rest of us in the know!

 

[lefkonj]

Charging infrastructure is a definite chicken and egg issue. The move EVs the more chargers, but we need chargers to sell more EVs.

You have to use various apps to find the best situation near you. I can locate loads of chargers near me but 150KW or higher is tougher. I have seen several new installs taking place though so fingers crossed.

 

[No.92]

First Thanks I signed up and will be on my way to a 50kw charger. I had hoped the Rivian app would have served the same purpose but it doesn’t show the 50kw options (of which there aren’t enough) yet, on the app or in vehicle map.

The navigation in the R1T will show you all the charging stations around and you can filter by charging speed.

 

[Dark-Fx]

I fully admit my EV ignorance. I assumed that the various EV charging points I had seen would actually change the vehicle lol. Well they don’t charge at a level I think any reasonable user needs. I’ve tried a grand total of 3 chargers in my area and the best rate so far has been 14mph. With a low of 2.6 at the Maple Grove GRE campus. For me this could make the truck a toy vs a tool as I await my 60 amp chargers for work and home.

My experience so far has been with ChargePoint chargers and my Rivian 120v plug in at 2mph.

Where are the DC fast chargers around here ? 20 minutes into charging and I have recovered the distance from my place to the charger. What a frikin joke

Forgive any typos as I’m stuck at a charging station without my glasses and my IPhones doesn’t offer Braille

It's not all bad, is it? (For reference I took this photo Thursday afternoon)

 

[Lil'Dave]

The public L2's (6.6 kWh and up) have worked fine for EV's up to this point. Lots of shopping centers around us have them and there are always vehicles plugged in.

With the introduction of trucks and SUV's with huge batteries and lower efficiency, the need for more L3's has increased but unfortunately aren't widely available.

 

[MNLightning]

For me personally, I'm someone who doesn't like to drive for longer than 2 hours without stopping for a break. I'm a squatch so my legs need to get circulation after being shoved into a space designed by humans in the 50th percentile.

That said, I like to keep my breaks brisk and efficient. I'm not going to want to hang around at a rest stop for more than 20 or 25 minutes so for me the calculation becomes can I consistently charge enough in those 20-25 minutes to put back into the vehicle what I will use in the next two hours?

As long as the answer to that is yes, I'm really not concerned about theoretical or actual charge limits/curves if I am going to be charging more than I need to get me through my next 2 hours, especially since you are likely going to be paying a much higher rate on the road than you would at home on your Level 2 charger.

My R1T isn't slated until the first half of 2023 (currently) so I will be watching eagerly everyone else who is enjoying their R1Ts and hoping RIVIAN continues to improve the thermal management (including adding preconditioning) so that I can meet my needs.

Props to the OP and everyone else who is posting about their experience and keeping the rest of us in the know!

At a 50kw charger I was seeing 130mph charging rate which could get you through a few 2 hour driving sessions on the hwy depending on the charge station distancing.

 

[MNLightning]

It's not all bad, is it? (For reference I took this photo Thursday afternoon)

The truck is awesome, charging simply sucks without having a charger at home to recover fully overnight.

In my case it’s self inflicted as I could have ordered my chargers sooner.

 

[Mysta]

Use plugshare and filter to 100kw+

 

[MNLightning]

The public L2's (6.6 kWh and up) have worked fine for EV's up to this point. Lots of shopping centers around us have them and there are always vehicles plugged in.

With the introduction of trucks and SUV's with huge batteries and lower efficiency, the need for more L3's has increased but unfortunately aren't widely available.

I personally don’t see charging rates of 6.6kw or thereabouts as useful. At 6.6kw it worked out about 10 miles added range for what I consider a normal shopping stop at the grocery. Basically enough to arrive home with the same charge level I left with.

 

[MNLightning]

Use plugshare and filter to 100kw+

The filter is 50/70/120/200 and only 1-70kw about 30+ miles away and the next closest is 100+ away

 

[Lil'Dave]

Rivian uses twice as much energy per mile as a Leaf, MY, etc. A R1T in this example would get an estimated 10 miles of range where the MY has an estimated 20 added.

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