Today I F***ed Up - Range Cockiness

[Z-RO]

That is what we have at work and they have been flawless. We also have CLIPPER CREEKS and those are always going down.

It could have been user error but both on wifi and on 5G the app trying to get it to take my money and charge just didnt work. Generated a "blinkcode" instead... Nope not recognized. I had literally stood there having to tap screen on my phone 3 times to hit any button in the app to make it work... And I just got to my wits end.

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[Z-RO]

I'm from Peoria area too and the lack of Central Illinois charging is frustrating (Peoria metropolitan area is 400,000 population and no dcfc charging). I've been caught on that same trip before. I ended up driving to Normal instead of Peoria at 62 mph, suspension dropped, conserve and rolled in at 2 percent. Both the Normal Walmart (often busy) and the Circle K right up the road have chargers. Circle K is 180kw. Love or hate Biden he is correct that charging needs to be every 50 miles on interstates.

So I think this is what i should have done and was one of my mistakes. Part of my thinking had been, get closer to home (heading in right direction) and a worst case is abandon the car and have a friend pick us up and deal with the afternath later. I think it would have been razor thin margin to Bloomington but I could see in app people were charging there so if I made it, I would have been ok.

 

[Z-RO]

Sounds like your wife loves the EV adventures. EA strikes again

My wife held us together for sure, hopefully Im right in reading this as sarcasm... Her end quote pulling into our driveway was " guess I will be buying a 3 row ICE suv". Gotta love her.

 

[Golfer04]

So I think this is what i should have done and was one of my mistakes. Part of my thinking had been, get closer to home (heading in right direction) and a worst case is abandon the car and have a friend pick us up and deal with the afternath later. I think it would have been razor thin margin to Bloomington but I could see in app people were charging there so if I made it, I would have been ok.

My thought process was get closer to Normal and call Rivian roadside service if I didn't make it. Closer for them?.

 

[R1Tims]

I've done the Springfield EA before. (pre-adapter) It is typical EA. Only half work and those that do are throttled down. We purchased an adapter when the announcement went out on the ford/rivian access to Tesla. Used it on a few trips. The adapter is a game changer on trips. Then received our Rivian adapter on the first shipment but still waiting on the Ford adapter.

We use both ABRP and Plug share to plan our trips. ABRP works ok to plan the route but I find it cumbersome when you want to take a different route than it plans. So we use combination of goggle maps and Plug share to map out our route and decide on which chargers to stop at. Then load the charger address into Rivan Nav and drive charger to charger, which is what you do with an EV anyways. Most times the Rivan Nav works great for the trip. However, I found the Rivan Nav does not always have the updated open SC for adapters. So we use the Tesla app to check if a site is open to non Tesla. Also the app helps if the SC does not start or you want to get the discounted pricing. We used both the magic dock and reg SC chargers. Never had any issue connecting and charging.

The R1T is our first EV. Never really had any range frustration. Drove from Normal to Michigan, Ohio, and WNY often. It was always more EA frustration. Had to factor in the "extra" needed to get to another charger when they did not work. Many times standing out in the cold below 0 windchill talking to EA to get a charger to work. I avoid EA like the black plague. If I pull into a site with both SC and EA I go to SC. Even if EA is cheaper.

We also purchased early on a Level 2 NACS > CCS adapt to use at hotels. Used it a few times and always worked. Recently added a couple of dryer 220 volt to nema-14-50 adapter in our go bag. Used them recently at an ABnB stay.

 

[lslick23]

Since ABRP came up, does anyone use an adapter like OBDLink CX Bimmercode Bluetooth 5.1 OBD2 for live data? Is it helpful?

Rivian owns ABRP and a few months back they integrated live data by you logging into your Rivian account through ABRP and it receives the live data with no OBD needed.

 

[BCondrey]

What kind of brother doesn't have a 120V outlet in his garage?

My advice is ABC - always be charging. You never know when that extra 20 miles or so of L1 overnight charging will save the day. And, get a NACS/CCS DCFC adapter so you can use the Tesla SC network. Don't wait on Rivian for that.

Another tip is to carry a set of adapters so you can make use of the dryer port...

 

[KBabione]

Don't blame the brother...I mentioned in another post about my VRBO Charging Failure where I showed up with my 14-50 adapters only to find that the dryer used gas! I plugged into 120V all weekend and had enough juice to get home without a problem, but it was adding 1-1.5 miles per hour.

 

[mudito]

While my wife has been a happy Tesla Model 3 owner for more than 2 years now, my R1T will be the "family road trip vehicle". Our first trip will be for Christmas this year (~1300mi one way), so in order to start "training" for it, the first thing I did was buy the NACS adapter. I have the Rivian one "on its way" allegedly but better safe than sorry

Also, 2nd thing I'm doing for my "EV Range training" is several minor trips nearby the Dallas/Ft.Worth area to get averages on efficiency and range, and also already tested several Tesla SC around to get used to them

I'm glad you finally made it safely and thanks for sharing as I'm learning from y'all 's experiences (good and bad) to make the best out of my R1T!

 

[R1Sky Business]

My wife held us together for sure, hopefully Im right in reading this as sarcasm... Her end quote pulling into our driveway was " guess I will be buying a 3 row ICE suv". Gotta love her.

Perfect

 

[BradSholl]

I feel your pain. I have another thread going so I won’t elaborate, but I failed to charge much via 110v at the beach because I was “stopping at Rivian chargers” on the way home. Turns out I have a faulty CGM and was unable to fast charge, despite trying 2 different bank of chargers. Crawled into my garage with ~5 miles of range remaining. ABC…

 

[DB-EV]

Feel like I need to just admit this here, but yesterday was a not great day for me. I have had my R1S Dual Motor, Large Pack for just shy of a year now and have had no problems. I will admit there are some things I think could be a little better, but still great car, definitely best car I have ever owned. Also to preface, I am looking for no pity, if you call me an idiot, I agree with you. But yesterday I made literally the wrong choice every chance I got. So please I hope someone can at least laugh at me, and learn my lesson without having to live it. Also realize that this problem has probably happened before but I digress too much.

First, I live in Peoria, IL (essentially for the purposes of this story, you can use Normal, IL home of Rivian factory and it wouldnt change a thing). I left Saturday from my home with about 95% charge to drive to St, Louis, MO to see family for a birthday party. I charged to 76% from 54% (at an EVGo) when I got to STL just so I had enough to get around and not have a longer charge coming home. (This could technically be considered mistake number 1, but lets just call it mistake 0)

Next from there I got to my brothers house with about 62% charge, and we were at his house from 830 PM Saturday, til Sunday 2 PM. I had originally thought he had a 120V outlet outside his garage I could plug into, but was wrong. So no big deal just charge on the road going home (mistake 1.0). Then Sunday morning my brother tells me he actually has a random dryer outlet in his garage and I could use it to charge then, or any time in the future. It was like 12:30 pm at this point and I was like nah, we can charge on the road. (Maybe not important, brother hasnt had house long, about as long as Ive had the Rivian and this was only my second time driving it to St. Louis and his house). Mistake lets call it 1.5. Not charging at all, at my brothers house.

Next we leave, with 62% still, from my brothers house to head from St Louis to home. Rivian App says to drive from brothers house for 2 hrs and 30 mins or so to Springfield, IL where there is an Electrify America with 4 chargers. Used this location before, newer EA and pull through spots, not been busy in my experience. Mistake # 2, not checking EA app for condition of chargers, I dont know what it would have shown, at arrival 2 chargers were down and 2 were "available".

So we drive (me, my wife, my 3 yr old, my 4 month old) to Springfield, smooth trip no issues, arrived with like I think 25% . We pass multiple chargers in STL that we could have stopped at, would have been annoying because hopefully its obvious, we were trying to minimize stops for the 4 month old. Its a charging desert between St. Louis and Normal/Peoria with the only 150kW charger or faster being the EA in Springfield that Rivian App directed me to. Now the crux of my sad tale, probably not surprising,. The EA charger in Springfield would not initiate charge. A Honda Prelude was charging at one of the 2 "working" chargers, rated for 150 kw but was only getting like maybe 30-50kW of charging. Calling EA revealed that whole station was low on recieving power, and so could not initiate a second car to charge. Literally on the phone with EA Support and the guy said verbatim... youre not going to make it. He was right, my range was just barely below what I would need to make it to next closest EA fast charger or to my house. My wife located a supposed 50 kW charger about 25 minutes away at a Chevy Dealer, I wasnt sure if EA charger would work, or how much longer the Honda Prelude would be, because of how inconsistent and slow it was charging. Mistake #3 was leaving Springfield and going to this next location (Lincoln, IL) as there might have been more options to peruse in Springfield, IL being bigger city.

Arriving in Lincoln to the supposed 50 kW charger at the local dealer, it wont let me initiate anything. Going onto the dealer website vs this "charging station" google maps listing, the 50 kW charger is not yet available to public, but next to it is a 19.6 kW Eaton Charger. I go ahead and plug into it, set up pretty easily. Charges at only 9.1-9.3 kW though, so 22 miles/hr. For reference, at this point Im at like 11% or 30ish miles of range. Exact mileage home at this point is 54 miles. Doing the math, to be safe I need 70-75 miles of charge or 22-23% to get home. There is one other 19.6 kW charger in this town at a Quality Inn and Suites, a "Blink" Charger near more food options for my family to not be sitting outside in a closed Chevy dealer parking lot. its only 4 miles away, so I pack up the family after a quick 40 minute charge that added 12 miles to go here... this while a mistake was necessary as it was 4 pm when I left the dealership, getting dark and approaching dinner time for kiddos. Call this mistake #4.

Major Advise.... never use a blink charger. I havent really experienced recently the internal rage of a clunky app/set up just failing repeatedly to accept my money and use their service. I wasted 30-45 minutes of trying to charge at this hotel only to give up, drop off my family at Culvers and return to the known working charger at the Chevy dealer. I then sat stewing in my car for an hour and 40 minutes getting just enough charge to get home. and I did it, with 76 miles of range, I made it home with 22 miles of range at I think like 7 or 8%.

In total what is normally a 3.5-4ish hour trip with the R1S turned into a 8 hr almost nightmare. Again, like I said at the outset my luck was really bad and I think I had some as I coined it in the title "Range Cockiness" because of the success Ive had doing similar trips. I do much more regular trips to Chicago, and have had very few issues, nothing like this trying to get back and forth from there.

Again sorry for the long, long post. Mostly this is for me to just let go and move on, share my experience, and pray, pray, pray that the NACS adapter shows up soon because there were Tesla Chargers in multiple spots that could have saved me but were unavailable to me for now. Again... on me, I know.

Thanks Rivian Community, Keep On Adventuring!

I am sorry. If i am going on a bit of a trip on a route i have not done, I plugshare the chargers that the Rivian app suggests.

You won't make this mistake again. And it was not positive but you can learn from this.

 

[ja_kub_sz]

@Z-RO

The struggle is real, sorry to hear about it but happy you and your family made it home safe. I have now since run my Rivian R1T out of electrons twice, both times my own doing (series of mistakes). One time with my newborn in the car, and the other time with my 8.95 months pregnant wife in the car. Needless to say those two events could not have been worse timed and to this day I don't think my wife has forgiven me or my R1T.

Prior to that I had a Model S back in 2014 and it took me 13 hours while traveling through four states to make it from West Union Iowa to Geneva Illinois (4.5hrs state to state) all because of one down level II charger while I was working at a hospital.

Since then I have now ordered a G² tri motor, and got the 21-in Aero wheels so hopefully I can hit near 400 miles and stories like these will never be an issue again... so I hope.

I drive roughly 30,000 miles a year for work and having the NACS adapter is so vital that I bought it as soon as one was available even before Tesla opened their chargers. Now I make it a habit to charge at Tesla chargers since they are just incredible (UI and reliability) compared to all the competition.

I personally told RJ on one occasion that sometimes the adventure is just making it to work, or getting back home from your normal daily activities. You don't always need a grand or prolific story of what the day entailed, but rather your normal daily travels covering long distances through the elements rain or shine, and that's the reason why Rivian is incredible.

I wouldn't dare travel in a Tesla Model S or X given the rural locations I service with unpredictable weather conditions.

But I absolutely will use their chargers

 

[allthingsrivian]

Thanks for sharing this story. I’ll take all the advice I can get, as I’ll soon be making the switch from ICE to BEV for the first time.

Glad you and your fam made it home safely as well.

 

[DB-EV]

Thanks for sharing this story. I’ll take all the advice I can get, as I’ll soon be making the switch from ICE to BEV for the first time.

Glad you and your fam made it home safely as well.

On the flip, I have had Launchy for 18 months and 23,000 miles. I plan unfamiliar routes with a combo of the Rivian app, chargeway, and plugshare and have not had unsurmountable issues including an 1800 mile roundtrip to Huntsville from Long Island.

Research/knowledge is power. And yes, if I have any planned stops at an EA, I open the EA app and check the status. They frequently take things out of service and the app will usually reflect that.

Safe and smooth travels.

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