Road Trip Planning

[BG_ATX]

Doing my first short road trip tomorrow and leveraging a lot of these planning tips. We are departing in the morning (7am), is it okay to fully charge overnight knowing it will be sitting at 100% charge for a few hours? Or maybe I set a limit of 98% overnight, then try to get the final 2% right before we leave in the morning. Or am I overthinking this ?

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[emoore]

Doing my first short road trip tomorrow and leveraging a lot of these planning tips. We are departing in the morning (7am), is it okay to fully charge overnight knowing it will be sitting at 100% charge for a few hours? Or maybe I set a limit of 98% overnight, then try to get the final 2% right before we leave in the morning. Or am I overthinking this ?

I usually charge to 95% or so overnight and top off in the morning before I leave.

 

[BG_ATX]

I usually charge to 95% or so overnight and top off in the morning before I leave.

Are the final few percentage points noticeably slower?

 

[emoore]

Are the final few percentage points noticeably slower?

Not that I’ve noticed. Assuming you are charging at home the ,as you can charge is already slow at 11.5 kw. Seems about the same around 95% full.

 

[Riviaenz]

I'm not aware of a way to manually precondition. It does this automatically based on routing. I'm not sure about different routing based on towing. I'm not sure if Waze or Google Maps or others do this either. I agree would be helpful though.

The way I manage preconditioning is I’ll put in a nearby DCFC in Rivian Nav that might be near or along the route I’m taking to one that may not be in their map. With the new feature of being able to add stops it‘s far easier to manage route mapping and adjust it accordingly based on needs.

As for towing, I understand why they don’t offer in app planning for towing, but at the same time it seems like it’d be something they could overcome. Mainly they’d need to read what trailers you have set in your Rivian and let you select from one of them in the app. Still the Rivian app is great for planning even with a trailer, but again requires a little extra leg work. Knowing my safe/available range with each of our trailers, I will have the app plan a route. Then I scan the route and check the distances between each charge stop. If there’s one that might be a stretch, I use Apple Maps and/or PlugShare (Apple Maps has a more comprehensive database of chargers) to find the comparable route and then have it show me Fast Chargers along the route or in the area between the two points that might be a stretch. Once I found a good option I throw that address or charger (if it shows up in the Rivian App) as an extra stop. Then I save the route in the app and also send it to our Rivian. Once we plug our trailer into the Rivian it also recomputes, often times matching what I’d pre-planned.

 

[jeeden]

Your fine charging to 100% and letting it sit a couple of hours. If it wasn't ok to have it sit at 100% for a few hours, they wouldn't let you charge it that high. They just don't recommend you do it day in and out for years and years.

 

[Riviaenz]

The way I manage preconditioning is I’ll put in a nearby DCFC in Rivian Nav that might be near or along the route I’m taking to one that may not be in their map. With the new feature of being able to add stops it‘s far easier to manage route mapping and adjust it accordingly based on needs.

As for towing, I understand why they don’t offer in app planning for towing, but at the same time it seems like it’d be something they could overcome. Mainly they’d need to read what trailers you have set in your Rivian and let you select from one of them in the app. Still the Rivian app is great for planning even with a trailer, but again requires a little extra leg work. Knowing my safe/available range with each of our trailers, I will have the app plan a route. Then I scan the route and check the distances between each charge stop. If there’s one that might be a stretch, I use Apple Maps and/or PlugShare (Apple Maps has a more comprehensive database of chargers) to find the comparable route and then have it show me Fast Chargers along the route or in the area between the two points that might be a stretch. Once I found a good option I throw that address or charger (if it shows up in the Rivian App) as an extra stop. Then I save the route in the app and also send it to our Rivian. Once we plug our trailer into the Rivian it also recomputes, often times matching what I’d pre-planned.

So cool, just noticed that with update 2024.07 they actually implemented the ability to select a trailer from your Drive Mode app trailer profile and use it for route planning from the Mobile app v2.7.0 (from 2024.07 release notes):

• With the Rivian mobile app version 2.7.0 or later, the trip planner now accounts for towing, allowing you to select one of the Trailer Profiles defined in-vehicle.

Will be so much fun dreaming up and planning new trips! We’ve got at least 5 just for MTB season this spring we need and at least 3 of them are heading into a charging desert.

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