Rivian Adventure Network Update - Billing to begin Early November

[Zorg]

I got plenty quite a v free RAN charging

Guess I will not get to reap this benefit. I paid just as much as the next guy, who lives near a RAN charger. They should give some free to all owners. Most car companies give something. The lucid I had on order came with 3 years free on EA.

So, is this an issue of jealousy/envy?

As for free charging bundled with car purchases, that's why the EA chargers are always full with bozos full charging their EV because it's free.

This attitude is amazing. Grown adults who spent $80k+ on a luxury vehicle complaining about missing out on a few $100 of free charging...

Now, I will admit that I probably got $500 worth of free charging over the last year. A nice perk, but the end of the freebie isn't going to change how much I use the truck. It's still an awesome vehicle.

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[JimR1998]

Wondering if the e-mail was regionally sent or nationwide? I'm located in PA and didn't get an email. Hope early November is Thanksgiving.

I get that nothing is free forever but I wish they'd hold off until Tesla's network is open. I was thinking that would come sooner than planned but they need to get the NACS adapters out first. Cost-wise the RANs are so deep in red-ink that charging revenue from Rivian owners is almost a rounding error on the balance sheet.

 

[Redline]

HOW DARE THEY TAKE AWAY MY FREE CHARGING ON MY NEAR 6 FIGURE CAR!




























p.s., since I'm a lonely Upper Midwesterner...I've never even seen a damn RAN lol. Rivian needs more revenue so this is a thumbs up from me! Keep building them out!

 

[HaveBlue]

At least Rivian wants to build out a reliable network. Except for Tesla, everyone else couldn't care less if you can charge or get stranded. I'll bet it costs $1m to put in a ran location. Certainly $100k per stall. That would take a while at 50 cents per kw if electricity was free and they are using "green" power. They'll probably open it up to other cars at some point. People will flock to reliable stations like they will to Tesla. They'll avoid 50kw evgo and flakey ea stations. The preorder people already saved more on the purchase price in fuel costs than the rest of us will be able to save over the life of the vehicle.

 

[zefram47]

Good. I'm in camp free charging shouldn't exist. Sure, it was convenient the handful of times I've been near a RAN when I needed to top up, but free just leads to folks charging when they don't need to and clogging up stations by doing unnecessary deep charges. I do hope that Rivian owners get a discount of some sort vs non-Rivians when they finally open the network. For all those wanting RAN rollout to speed up, I have to imagine that opening the network and recouping some of their costs by finally charging for electrons ought to help. In many cases the local power companies are the holdup though.

 

[dixosw]

The problem with free DC fast charging (not just RAN) is that it encourages people who live near them to charge there often instead of at home because it's cheaper. This means less stations for people who really need them (road trippers and people in apartments or condos with no at-home option). It makes the whole EV experience worse for the majority of people, not better.
You see people clogging up the EA stations all the time topping off to 100% because Hyundai gave them free charging.
I'm glad Rivian are starting to charge. I don't care if it means they make money on RAN (or lose less), it's about making the EV experience better for everyone.

 

[Autolycus]

At least Rivian wants to build out a reliable network. Except for Tesla, everyone else couldn't care less if you can charge or get stranded. I'll bet it costs $1m to put in a ran location. Certainly $100k per stall. That would take a while at 50 cents per kw if electricity was free and they are using "green" power. They'll probably open it up to other cars at some point. People will flock to reliable stations like they will to Tesla. They'll avoid 50kw evgo and flakey ea stations. The preorder people already saved more on the purchase price in fuel costs than the rest of us will be able to save over the life of the vehicle.

Based on the estimated construction costs that have been listed on permits, Rivian could be well under $100k/stall, but that's probably not a terrible guess for a network-wide average right now. They'll have some higher costs with the earliest of stations and the costs should start to drop from there. Since they're designing and building everything in house, their cost per charger is certainly going to be lower than most networks that are buying boxes from others.

RJ said in a recent interview, "with about 4 charging events per location, a location becomes profitable." Obviously it's not 4 total events. Is that 4/week? 4/day? 4/hour? Not really clear, but he clearly believes the RAN will be profitable once they get other brands' cars using it.

 

[E-lectric]

Thanks Rivian, the free charges were nice. Just went over 1000 miles doing the length of the Blue Ridge Parkway in our R1T. I used all the RAN network from Blowing Rock, NC to Front Royal, VA. Beautiful country, especially the views in VA on both sides of the Rivian, not a bad seat in the truck! Free was appreciated, but understandably can not continue. East Coast has them in NC, VA, and even in Upstate SC, and one in Augusta, GA. Thanks again for a great truck to travel in.

 

[Q-ship]

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)!

Not all, unfortunately if you live in Utah.

 

[ORFynder]

1st world problems

 

[SANZC02]

Based on the estimated construction costs that have been listed on permits, Rivian could be well under $100k/stall, but that's probably not a terrible guess for a network-wide average right now. They'll have some higher costs with the earliest of stations and the costs should start to drop from there. Since they're designing and building everything in house, their cost per charger is certainly going to be lower than most networks that are buying boxes from others.

RJ said in a recent interview, "with about 4 charging events per location, a location becomes profitable." Obviously it's not 4 total events. Is that 4/week? 4/day? 4/hour? Not really clear, but he clearly believes the RAN will be profitable once they get other brands' cars using it.

Usually when they make that statement it is number of charges per day per stall so a 6 stall station would be 24 charges a day.

 

[HaveBlue]

I ran some rough numbers and if they sell 150kwh per day on a station at a $.20 margin over cost of electricity, they could service their debt at a 5 cap, pay $1 per sq ft rent on the parking space, put 5% aside for maint and have some money left over. I don't know the industry as I'm in real estate development but there are likely not all that many line items.

 

[Supratachophobia]

So what you’re saying is the issue is coal

The issue is informing the grid that you need a lot of power and to be ready to give it.

 

[Supratachophobia]

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The only thing I miss about my Tesla was that I had free supercharging for life.

With the RAN growing, was missing it less and less. Now, having to pay for it, I guess it was inevitable, but still sucks.

I guess my ICE cars will get some more use now on my long distance trips.

I've never loved the extra hour or two each way that having to stop to charge adds to each of my trips, but with free charging, that loss of time was the price paid. Now that I have to pay for it again, sacrificing that hour or two EACH WAY becomes a lot less attractive.

Yes, I know it's still cheaper to charge an EV than pay for gas, but EV charging prices keep going up that the difference is narrowing quite a bit. Add that to the fact that I can now make it to Tucson, AZ in 7 1/2 hours instead of 9 hrs 45 minutes round trip, that's nearly 5 hours of my life I just got back.

With a car that gets 40 MPG. I can travel 400 miles on 10 gallons of gas. Roughly $70.00.

In the Rivian, driving normal, flow of traffic speeds, that's basically two $30.00 EV America stops at $60.00. For $10 more, I save 4 1/2 hours travel time. That's 4 1/2 hours I can put toward my business, which I make significantly more than $2.00 per hour!! LOL.

I LOVE my EV 355 days of the year where I just plug in at home and wake up to a full charge each day. 10 years in a Tesla and now a year+ in the Rivian, still not a fan of long distance travel in an EV. Until cars regularly can go 500+ (REAL WORLD) miles on a charge, it's a significant time sacrifice when road tripping an EV.

Noting beats an EV for every day use, but when it comes to towing and long distance travel, we still have a ways to go to make it equally time efficient to a gas car.

For us, having to use a DCFC ten times a year regardless of cost is irrelevant. So what if I'm paying $50 to charge on the road? I'm paying zero at home. Let's suck it up and move on. My DC/AC lifetime split on our Tesla is 10%/90%. If I have to pay 30-50 cents a kilowatt for that 10%, I'm still coming out way ahead.

 

[Supratachophobia]

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.

Typical Tony my man.

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