DavidP-R1TAdventures
Active Member
- First Name
- David
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2022
- Threads
- 6
- Messages
- 30
- Reaction score
- 33
- Location
- Corvallis,OR.
- Vehicles
- 2022 Rivian R1T, 1989 Alfa Romeo Spider
- Occupation
- Software Engineer
- Thread starter
- #1
After 10 months of trouble free ownership, on day 1 of the trip the tonneau cover started misbehaving, only opening a third of the way. I reported it and was told it is a known issue and they are working on a software fix. No ETA. I wasn’t expecting that response… Subsequently, that idea was dismissed by another Rivian Service Agent, who said it is not a new software issue, but the well known tonneau cover issue.
I lost the Rivian keyfob. Fortunately, I can use the PAAK and the card. I was able to get a replacement but had to go into service center.
With the rooftop tent on the roof and two cargo boxes over the bed, efficiency is about 1.8 miles/kW versus 2.3 previously. So range went from 310 to 243 miles.
Charging in Moab is very limited. The only public charger is very slow. I had to make a 100 mile round trip to fast charge.
Extra trips into town from my campsite use power, take time and require packing and setting up camp.
It seems like the battery drains about 10% per day camping. Using camping mode. 12 V cooler and 110V for cooking on an induction hot plate.
The random locking and unlocking of the Rivian as you move around it is very annoying. Partly leading to me misplacing the key as I am afraid it will lock with the key inside. I think I left it on the side of the truck bed and drove off. I started disabling proximity locking when camping. Maybe this can be in the camp mode? Though really, they just need to add some hysteresis into this algorithm. Lock and unlock should not occur at the same place.
I splattered cooking oil on truck when cooking on gear tunnel door. I switched to cooking off vehicle.
Alexa testing - I had avoided Alexa like Covid infected friends up until now. But I enabled it this trip and am warming to it. Initially it seemed slightly weird music software strategy between Amazon Music and Spotify. I have since gone back to my Alexa iPhone app and set Spotify as the default audio app. But haven’t used it much since.
I also started using Alexa for entertainment and note taking. Actually started to like having it.
I still think the main issue is how it is the lack of integration with the Rivian software.
Software
Rivian has a ton of work to improve the UX. It is fine for a version 1. But if they really want to have a platform better than CarPlay or Android Auto they have so much to do. I am not saying it is a bad strategy, but they need to execute it. I don’t see very promising signs based on what we have. It is too disjointed. It is a confusing mix of first and third party apps. Alexa, Spotify and other music apps seem like they just were thrown together. They don’t have comparable features to the main apps… neither are they Rivian controlled and tightly integrated. I do wonder if Amazon is planning a car software suite and Rivian is planning on that?
Spotify has a lot of cropped text and it is really annoying. Can’t see the title of podcast episodes. (Cropped text is a general issue).
Other
You can put 3 (maybe 4) bike wheels in spare space. ??.
Rails/running boards might be nice to stop all the standing on door sills to reach the roof. I ended up buying a small folding step and it works well. It gets higher than sill rails would.
Hotspot has been useful. I hadn’t used it until now. It give a second chance for data service from my phone. I connected my iPad and Hammerhead bike computer to it and it’s easier than activating the hotspot on my phone since it is on just by unlocking the vehicle (unlike the iOS Personal Hotspot which you have keep re-enabling).
Battery preconditioning is really noisy. I initially thought something was seriously breaking.
Route planning made a route that would have left me stranded instead of going backwards to get charged before heading to destination. It also over estimates my range constantly, I almost ran out before getting to my last charger despite it thinking I would have 50 miles left at arrival.
I have Roam Adventure boxes on rack over the bed. These obscure rear view mirror. Using the rear camera to get that view, it always switches back to the front camera if I leave the screen then come back. Seems like a bug. Would be nice to have a picture-in-picture feature for the cameras.
On one leg, navigation routed me off the Interstate for 11 miles then back on for no apparent reason.
Navigation needs to tell you what state of charge to charge to when it includes a charge stop in the route. Saying charge for 21 minutes is not helpful as who knows what speed you will get.
Chargers
Shell Recharge Altoona Casey’s. My first Shell Recharge experience. It refused to take my credit card. I tried both stations and multiple cards. Once I installed the app and made an account I was able to get going ten minutes later… then it was free. Can’t complain about that, this was a painful process. I almost left. However, this was the only station I stopped at with actual windshield cleaning equipment so I could clean my seriously bug splattered windshield. It also had trash cans next to the chargers. ?
Davenport Shell Recharge - Rivian navigation app took me nowhere near the charger. I used Plugshare app to actually find it.
Made it to Chicago
I can see the benefits of the max pack configuration if you do a lot of road trips. I hadn’t really seen much benefit of it in my normal living.
Random
There are a surprising amount of wind turbines in Iowa! More in general than I expected.
A rooftop tent with built in storage underneath would be killer.
Charger Design Thoughts
EV stations generally sucked along the way. You can argue over the issues and merits but America is car centric and gas vehicle road trips are very well catered for. Not in an EV. The Rivian adventure network is an good example of focusing on a specific automotive use case, that of visiting remote locations for adventure. But we also need a road trip network to address that use case. On a road trip I don’t want to go to a mall that sells mattresses to recharge. I want to get coffee, some relaxation, tidy up my vehicle, clean the windshield etc without major deviations from my route. In 2700 miles and maybe 15 charge stops, only one place had trash cans and windshield cleaning stuff. Pretty basic needs not met. Regular gas stations serve the gas powered traveler needs well. Current EV stations do not serve their user needs in a comprehensive way. Conversely, the station at the mall probably doesn’t need to be a very high speed charger. I imagine most of those trips are under 50 miles from home. My point is, today all charging stations seem to be of the mall variety, yet the design of a charger at mall is not appropriate for a road tripper or hiker at a National Park, or that of someone driving 500 miles a day for 5 days. We need designs that match the use.
Also, I hate the massive posts they install. Generally, the site designs with the charger at the front are better than the awkward side positioned ones.
It would be helpful if chargers were categorization system. E.g. shopping, road tripping, overnighting etc
Photos and more story on my Instagram @r1tadventuring.
ext and it is really annoying. Can’t see the title of podcast episodes.
You can put 3 (maybe 4) bike wheels in spare space. ??.
Rails/running boards might be nice to stop all the standing on door sills to reach the roof. I ended up buying a small folding step and it works well. It gets higher than sill rails would.
Hotspot has been useful. I hadn’t used it until now. It give a second chance for data service from my phone. I connected my iPad and Hammerhead bike computer to it and it’s easier than activating the hotspot on my phone since it is on just by unlocking the vehicle (unlike the iOS Personal Hotspot which you have keep re-enabling).
Battery preconditioning is really noisy. I initially thought something was seriously breaking.
Route planning made a route that would have left me stranded instead of going backwards to get charged before heading to destination. It also over estimates my range constantly, I almost ran out before getting to my last charger despite it thinking I would have 50 miles left at arrival.
I have Roam Adventure boxes on rack over the bed. These obscure rear view mirror. Using the rear camera to get that view, it always switches back to the front camera if I leave the screen then come back. Seems like a bug. Would be nice to have a picture-in-picture feature for the cameras.
On one leg, navigation routed me off the Interstate for 11 miles then back on for no apparent reason.
Navigation needs to tell you what state of charge to charge to when it includes a charge stop in the route. Saying charge for 21 minutes is not helpful as who knows what speed you will get.
Chargers
Shell Recharge Altoona Casey’s. My first Shell Recharge experience. It refused to take my credit card. I tried both stations and multiple cards. Once I installed the app and made an account I was able to get going ten minutes later… then it was free. Can’t complain about that, this was a painful process. I almost left. However, this was the only station I stopped at with actual windshield cleaning equipment so I could clean my seriously bug splattered windshield. It also had trash cans next to the chargers. ?
Davenport Shell Recharge - Rivian navigation app took me nowhere near the charger. I used Plugshare app to actually find it.
Made it to Chicago
I can see the benefits of the max pack configuration if you do a lot of road trips. I hadn’t really seen much benefit of it in my normal living.
Random
There are a surprising amount of wind turbines in Iowa! More in general than I expected.
A rooftop tent with built in storage underneath would be killer.
Charger Design Thoughts
EV stations generally sucked along the way. You can argue over the issues and merits but America is car centric and gas vehicle road trips are very well catered for. Not in an EV. The Rivian adventure network is an good example of focusing on a specific automotive use case, that of visiting remote locations for adventure. But we also need a road trip network to address that use case. On a road trip I don’t want to go to a mall that sells mattresses to recharge. I want to get coffee, some relaxation, tidy up my vehicle, clean the windshield etc without major deviations from my route. In 2700 miles and maybe 15 charge stops, only one place had trash cans and windshield cleaning stuff. Pretty basic needs not met. Regular gas stations serve the gas powered traveler needs well. Current EV stations do not serve their user needs in a comprehensive way. Conversely, the station at the mall probably doesn’t need to be a very high speed charger. I imagine most of those trips are under 50 miles from home. My point is, today all charging stations seem to be of the mall variety, yet the design of a charger at mall is not appropriate for a road tripper or hiker at a National Park, or that of someone driving 500 miles a day for 5 days. We need designs that match the use.
Also, I hate the massive posts they install. Generally, the site designs with the charger at the front are better than the awkward side positioned ones.
It would be helpful if chargers were categorization system. E.g. shopping, road tripping, overnighting etc
Photos and more story on my Instagram user “r1tadventuring”.
I will start my return adventure tomorrow, wish me luck…
I lost the Rivian keyfob. Fortunately, I can use the PAAK and the card. I was able to get a replacement but had to go into service center.
With the rooftop tent on the roof and two cargo boxes over the bed, efficiency is about 1.8 miles/kW versus 2.3 previously. So range went from 310 to 243 miles.
Charging in Moab is very limited. The only public charger is very slow. I had to make a 100 mile round trip to fast charge.
Extra trips into town from my campsite use power, take time and require packing and setting up camp.
It seems like the battery drains about 10% per day camping. Using camping mode. 12 V cooler and 110V for cooking on an induction hot plate.
The random locking and unlocking of the Rivian as you move around it is very annoying. Partly leading to me misplacing the key as I am afraid it will lock with the key inside. I think I left it on the side of the truck bed and drove off. I started disabling proximity locking when camping. Maybe this can be in the camp mode? Though really, they just need to add some hysteresis into this algorithm. Lock and unlock should not occur at the same place.
I splattered cooking oil on truck when cooking on gear tunnel door. I switched to cooking off vehicle.
Alexa testing - I had avoided Alexa like Covid infected friends up until now. But I enabled it this trip and am warming to it. Initially it seemed slightly weird music software strategy between Amazon Music and Spotify. I have since gone back to my Alexa iPhone app and set Spotify as the default audio app. But haven’t used it much since.
I also started using Alexa for entertainment and note taking. Actually started to like having it.
I still think the main issue is how it is the lack of integration with the Rivian software.
Software
Rivian has a ton of work to improve the UX. It is fine for a version 1. But if they really want to have a platform better than CarPlay or Android Auto they have so much to do. I am not saying it is a bad strategy, but they need to execute it. I don’t see very promising signs based on what we have. It is too disjointed. It is a confusing mix of first and third party apps. Alexa, Spotify and other music apps seem like they just were thrown together. They don’t have comparable features to the main apps… neither are they Rivian controlled and tightly integrated. I do wonder if Amazon is planning a car software suite and Rivian is planning on that?
Spotify has a lot of cropped text and it is really annoying. Can’t see the title of podcast episodes. (Cropped text is a general issue).
Other
You can put 3 (maybe 4) bike wheels in spare space. ??.
Rails/running boards might be nice to stop all the standing on door sills to reach the roof. I ended up buying a small folding step and it works well. It gets higher than sill rails would.
Hotspot has been useful. I hadn’t used it until now. It give a second chance for data service from my phone. I connected my iPad and Hammerhead bike computer to it and it’s easier than activating the hotspot on my phone since it is on just by unlocking the vehicle (unlike the iOS Personal Hotspot which you have keep re-enabling).
Battery preconditioning is really noisy. I initially thought something was seriously breaking.
Route planning made a route that would have left me stranded instead of going backwards to get charged before heading to destination. It also over estimates my range constantly, I almost ran out before getting to my last charger despite it thinking I would have 50 miles left at arrival.
I have Roam Adventure boxes on rack over the bed. These obscure rear view mirror. Using the rear camera to get that view, it always switches back to the front camera if I leave the screen then come back. Seems like a bug. Would be nice to have a picture-in-picture feature for the cameras.
On one leg, navigation routed me off the Interstate for 11 miles then back on for no apparent reason.
Navigation needs to tell you what state of charge to charge to when it includes a charge stop in the route. Saying charge for 21 minutes is not helpful as who knows what speed you will get.
Chargers
Shell Recharge Altoona Casey’s. My first Shell Recharge experience. It refused to take my credit card. I tried both stations and multiple cards. Once I installed the app and made an account I was able to get going ten minutes later… then it was free. Can’t complain about that, this was a painful process. I almost left. However, this was the only station I stopped at with actual windshield cleaning equipment so I could clean my seriously bug splattered windshield. It also had trash cans next to the chargers. ?
Davenport Shell Recharge - Rivian navigation app took me nowhere near the charger. I used Plugshare app to actually find it.
Made it to Chicago
I can see the benefits of the max pack configuration if you do a lot of road trips. I hadn’t really seen much benefit of it in my normal living.
Random
There are a surprising amount of wind turbines in Iowa! More in general than I expected.
A rooftop tent with built in storage underneath would be killer.
Charger Design Thoughts
EV stations generally sucked along the way. You can argue over the issues and merits but America is car centric and gas vehicle road trips are very well catered for. Not in an EV. The Rivian adventure network is an good example of focusing on a specific automotive use case, that of visiting remote locations for adventure. But we also need a road trip network to address that use case. On a road trip I don’t want to go to a mall that sells mattresses to recharge. I want to get coffee, some relaxation, tidy up my vehicle, clean the windshield etc without major deviations from my route. In 2700 miles and maybe 15 charge stops, only one place had trash cans and windshield cleaning stuff. Pretty basic needs not met. Regular gas stations serve the gas powered traveler needs well. Current EV stations do not serve their user needs in a comprehensive way. Conversely, the station at the mall probably doesn’t need to be a very high speed charger. I imagine most of those trips are under 50 miles from home. My point is, today all charging stations seem to be of the mall variety, yet the design of a charger at mall is not appropriate for a road tripper or hiker at a National Park, or that of someone driving 500 miles a day for 5 days. We need designs that match the use.
Also, I hate the massive posts they install. Generally, the site designs with the charger at the front are better than the awkward side positioned ones.
It would be helpful if chargers were categorization system. E.g. shopping, road tripping, overnighting etc
Photos and more story on my Instagram @r1tadventuring.
ext and it is really annoying. Can’t see the title of podcast episodes.
You can put 3 (maybe 4) bike wheels in spare space. ??.
Rails/running boards might be nice to stop all the standing on door sills to reach the roof. I ended up buying a small folding step and it works well. It gets higher than sill rails would.
Hotspot has been useful. I hadn’t used it until now. It give a second chance for data service from my phone. I connected my iPad and Hammerhead bike computer to it and it’s easier than activating the hotspot on my phone since it is on just by unlocking the vehicle (unlike the iOS Personal Hotspot which you have keep re-enabling).
Battery preconditioning is really noisy. I initially thought something was seriously breaking.
Route planning made a route that would have left me stranded instead of going backwards to get charged before heading to destination. It also over estimates my range constantly, I almost ran out before getting to my last charger despite it thinking I would have 50 miles left at arrival.
I have Roam Adventure boxes on rack over the bed. These obscure rear view mirror. Using the rear camera to get that view, it always switches back to the front camera if I leave the screen then come back. Seems like a bug. Would be nice to have a picture-in-picture feature for the cameras.
On one leg, navigation routed me off the Interstate for 11 miles then back on for no apparent reason.
Navigation needs to tell you what state of charge to charge to when it includes a charge stop in the route. Saying charge for 21 minutes is not helpful as who knows what speed you will get.
Chargers
Shell Recharge Altoona Casey’s. My first Shell Recharge experience. It refused to take my credit card. I tried both stations and multiple cards. Once I installed the app and made an account I was able to get going ten minutes later… then it was free. Can’t complain about that, this was a painful process. I almost left. However, this was the only station I stopped at with actual windshield cleaning equipment so I could clean my seriously bug splattered windshield. It also had trash cans next to the chargers. ?
Davenport Shell Recharge - Rivian navigation app took me nowhere near the charger. I used Plugshare app to actually find it.
Made it to Chicago
I can see the benefits of the max pack configuration if you do a lot of road trips. I hadn’t really seen much benefit of it in my normal living.
Random
There are a surprising amount of wind turbines in Iowa! More in general than I expected.
A rooftop tent with built in storage underneath would be killer.
Charger Design Thoughts
EV stations generally sucked along the way. You can argue over the issues and merits but America is car centric and gas vehicle road trips are very well catered for. Not in an EV. The Rivian adventure network is an good example of focusing on a specific automotive use case, that of visiting remote locations for adventure. But we also need a road trip network to address that use case. On a road trip I don’t want to go to a mall that sells mattresses to recharge. I want to get coffee, some relaxation, tidy up my vehicle, clean the windshield etc without major deviations from my route. In 2700 miles and maybe 15 charge stops, only one place had trash cans and windshield cleaning stuff. Pretty basic needs not met. Regular gas stations serve the gas powered traveler needs well. Current EV stations do not serve their user needs in a comprehensive way. Conversely, the station at the mall probably doesn’t need to be a very high speed charger. I imagine most of those trips are under 50 miles from home. My point is, today all charging stations seem to be of the mall variety, yet the design of a charger at mall is not appropriate for a road tripper or hiker at a National Park, or that of someone driving 500 miles a day for 5 days. We need designs that match the use.
Also, I hate the massive posts they install. Generally, the site designs with the charger at the front are better than the awkward side positioned ones.
It would be helpful if chargers were categorization system. E.g. shopping, road tripping, overnighting etc
Photos and more story on my Instagram user “r1tadventuring”.
I will start my return adventure tomorrow, wish me luck…
Sponsored
