Rivian Adventure Network Update - Billing to begin Early November

[Glongo]

Exactly this! Many of us will feel zero impact from this move.

True, but hopefully it initiates a long term positive impact for you. Flipping the switch on the meter means this will be a real business unit for Rivian. Revenue, costs, growth rate metrics are motivators for a publicly traded company. The RAN unit could grow/sell/merge etc Berkshire are you listening? Pilot/Rivian partnership? I’m sure Warren is reading this forum for opinions from hacks like me!

I am lucky to have charged on RANs a few times. Freebies notwithstanding, they are fast, reliable, and so far uncongested.

I just drove from Mammoth Lakes to San Diego 100% RAN on the road. I am happy to pay my share of that convenience.

sidebar: has anyone else noticed EA improvements? Last two stops at EA last week -all “pumps” were working. That was a first for me.

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[brancky3]

So, the good news is there is no RAN within 4 hours of my location so I don’t expect to experience any impact on the wallet.

There's a RAN within 5 minutes of my office which I sometimes go to at lunch. I'm a reasonable person and never expected RAN to be free so I'm not outraged like many others. There was no offer of free charging when I bought the car.

 

[MountainBikeDude]

Slightly off topic, but interesting.

Ran into a guy at a DCFC the other day looking to charge his tesla, I went to help him, but quickly realized he only had a level 2 adapter, and not a DCFC to NACS. So I explain to him the difference, and that even though tesla chargers are super abundant, it's worth having the other adapter even if it costs $150.

As we're chatting he points out he's owned his tesla for just over 2 years, and up until that point had never had to use a public charger of any kind, because all his driving was local, and had never opted to take the tesla road tripping. Only hiccup was he just moved and his charger was a few weeks from install.

Long story short, I found it interesting that he had had the vehicle for 2 years and only charged at home since day 1. There's likely several Rivian owners where this is also the case, and RAN is meaningless, and are blissfully unaware of the reliability issues of the current DCFC infrastructure.

 

[BCondrey]

I don't have a problem with this. They never said it would be free forever. I hope they can continue to expand the network to places where there aren't any chargers currently.

 

[BCondrey]

Slightly off topic, but interesting.

Ran into a guy at a DCFC the other day looking to charge his tesla, I went to help him, but quickly realized he only had a level 2 adapter, and not a DCFC to NACS. So I explain to him the difference, and that even though tesla chargers are super abundant, it's worth having the other adapter even if it costs $150.

As we're chatting he points out he's owned his tesla for just over 2 years, and up until that point had never had to use a public charger of any kind, because all his driving was local, and had never opted to take the tesla road tripping. Only hiccup was he just moved and his charger was a few weeks from install.

Long story short, I found it interesting that he had had the vehicle for 2 years and only charged at home since day 1. There's likely several Rivian owners where this is also the case, and RAN is meaningless, and are blissfully unaware of the reliability issues of the current DCFC infrastructure.

I've had my R1T for almost a year, and I have used commercial DCFC sites maybe 6 times. The two times I used RAN chargers are the only times I've had no issues. Small sample I guess. I use destination charging when I am on the road and L1 charging where ever I can plug in. ABC = Always be charging.

 

[ElGuapo]

There are something like 2-3 in the Northeast depending your definition of NE - so doesn’t effect me.

They need the money, so it’s fine. I hope they use it to get more service centers and more staff at service centers. Their service right now is abysmal. Far worse than I’ve ever had with Tesla. Off topic…sorry.

Rivian doesn’t “need” to do anything for us with respect to charging. They do need to make money. All good.

 

[moosehead]

I'd be happy to pay for RAN, just wish they had not overpromised and under delivered so significantly on the build-out.

Sure, cash is thin and declining quickly, but this is a critical circular issue for Rivian and the industry in general.

 

[SDH]

There's a RAN within 5 minutes of my office which I sometimes go to at lunch. I'm a reasonable person and never expected RAN to be free so I'm not outraged like many others. There was no offer of free charging when I bought the car.

Exactly this^. For 90%+ of Rivian owners there's no RAN anywhere near you anyway.

So many people crying because they didn't get "their free turn". Get over it and move on you whiners in your $75k car.

 

[SDH]

Yes - but some us live in areas no where close to RAN. Would have preferred they give all owners certain amt of RAN.

"us" being about 90%+ of Rivian owners.

 

[iansriv]

Not sure what the cost/benefit would be for something like Tesla where the first few years were free. I don't drive out of town much mostly because it takes months (j/k) to drive from one end of Texas to another. Also, there are very few RANs in Texas so this doesn't impact me in that sense. I can see both "sides" of the issue.

 

[cjust2006]

From a business perspective, I’m cool with this. We’ve all had a good run of free charging from them but I’d rather they made some $ and rolled out more chargers (or working tonneau)!

Who's we all??? Seems too convenient that they installed a bunch of these in areas they don't even deliver to because of lack of service centers. I used a RAN once. In a year and a half.

 

[R1Tom]

True, but hopefully it initiates a long term positive impact for you. Flipping the switch on the meter means this will be a real business unit for Rivian. Revenue, costs, growth rate metrics are motivators for a publicly traded company. The RAN unit could grow/sell/merge etc Berkshire are you listening? Pilot/Rivian partnership? I’m sure Warren is reading this forum for opinions from hacks like me!

I am lucky to have charged on RANs a few times. Freebies notwithstanding, they are fast, reliable, and so far uncongested.

I just drove from Mammoth Lakes to San Diego 100% RAN on the road. I am happy to pay my share of that convenience.

sidebar: has anyone else noticed EA improvements? Last two stops at EA last week -all “pumps” were working. That was a first for me.

In my own personal opinion it should be its own business unit and if it cant show a return, figuring a slight value to brand as a whole, then it should be sold.

 

[NC-Rivian]

Just got this e-mail:

(Image from e-mail for you admins who need something for the post):

Totally expected and totally fine with this. The *ONLY* request I have is that I can count on the Rivian boxes to work every time like I can with my Model Y and the SC system. I rather be beat than have to count on EA chargers.

 

[Rivdog]

It seems like a bit of an overreaction for people to be so outraged about not getting free charging that we were never advertised to get…especially after being told it would end in April but still hasn’t even today. And we’re all getting free connected services which, again, were never advertised and were supposed to end in April. I don’t see how Rivian overpromised and underdelivered on any of this.

That being said, I don’t understand why Rivian still hasn’t learned how to communicate better. Why can’t they give us any details on pricing, membership, etc.? If this change is supposed to occur in the next several weeks then the details are finalized. I think some of the frustration amongst people is that we have no clue what pricing will be - and they’re frustrated with this kind of stuff being the norm with Rivian communications.

 

[mkg3]

Slightly off topic, but interesting.

Ran into a guy at a DCFC the other day looking to charge his tesla, I went to help him, but quickly realized he only had a level 2 adapter, and not a DCFC to NACS. So I explain to him the difference, and that even though tesla chargers are super abundant, it's worth having the other adapter even if it costs $150.

As we're chatting he points out he's owned his tesla for just over 2 years, and up until that point had never had to use a public charger of any kind, because all his driving was local, and had never opted to take the tesla road tripping. Only hiccup was he just moved and his charger was a few weeks from install.

Long story short, I found it interesting that he had had the vehicle for 2 years and only charged at home since day 1. There's likely several Rivian owners where this is also the case, and RAN is meaningless, and are blissfully unaware of the reliability issues of the current DCFC infrastructure.

This is the case for some of us.

We charge our Rivian and Tesla at home overnight. The only time we use DCFC or Supercharger is on the road trips.

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