RivianTrackr: "Stop Buying EVs for the Trip You Take Twice a Year"

[madhat]

https://www.enterprise.com/en/home.html
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[Platinumstorm]

Depends on your use case. When I go skiing it's about 180 miles - this is between 6-50 times a season. If the R2 is going to get 200 miles, and there road closures due to accidents, avalanches, or road conditions - that's not a lot of wiggle room.

 

[Dennisis]

Depends on your use case. When I go skiing it's about 180 miles - this is between 6-50 times a season. If the R2 is going to get 200 miles, and there road closures due to accidents, avalanches, or road conditions - that's not a lot of wiggle room.

Are there currently no chargers on the way? Or if not, planned?

 

[Platinumstorm]

There are two locations spread out by I would guess 45 miles. An interstate closure would typically give you access to one of them. The longest I've been stuck in one spot on the interstate was 4 hours, and that would have been before the charger.

 

[Dennisis]

There are a lot of aspects to this range issue going on.

First, range is an important part of marketing for EV’s. Perhaps it is just the natural evolution of the industry but that’s a fact. So when a highly marketed and discussed EV comes out with a 330 mile range that the company touted, it’s an issue when it doesn’t meet the expectation set by the manufacturer. ICE vehicles rarely market their cars by stating the miles per tank.

Range is important because the charging infrastructure is young. When you start to see a charger at every corner in urban areas or every 5 miles on every stretch of highway, the range focus will diminish.

While I agree that for most use cases, the range won’t be an issue 95% of the time for most people, when it is an issue you can’t assume that you’ll have access to fast charging anywhere you go. If that were true we wouldn’t have so many apps dedicated to charger location and availability and route planning.

Additionally, you can’t remove the connection between range and efficiency. Yes, the Rivian form factor is going to be less efficient than competitors. But buyers were being told that the R2 was as efficient as MY by the company CEO. That’s a problem when real world tests show that isn’t even close to being true.

More importantly, some of us decided to order based on the data we had at the time. I for one even discounted the numbers in my decision. This was based on efficiency as well as range claims. I regularly make a 130 mile drive into the mountains that includes 4,000 feet of elevation gain on the drive to the location. The real world numbers are starting to have me concerned about what that will look like in the dead of winter. Will it get there on a single charge? Definitely, but not as comfortably if we start at 80% SoC at departure when it’s 30 degrees.

I’m more disappointed in Rivian and RJ for allowing the consumer to be mislead by the EPA numbers that they knew weren’t real world reality. I have my pick-up scheduled for today. I’ll be making said 130 mile drive tomorrow and I’ll be paying close attention to my efficiency and arrival SoC.

Until the charging infrastructure is built up more, range anxiety will exist. It’s understandable for someone to think twice about owning a vehicle that they can’t wake up and decide, let’s do a road trip tomorrow, unless they plan out every stop to “refill” along the way. Cars are a symbol of freedom and when your car limits where and how you drive because of charging infrastructure, that’s a problem. It’s impossible to overcome the inherent mindset of what cars represent to so many in this country. Even when it is only 4 trips a year that it impacts.

Do you have an EV now so you have some real world experience?

 

[MaskedRacerX]

It's what I've been saying since owning and driving EV's for the last several years is that they are very use case dependent.

But that being said, a lot of the general public concerns are outliers or just "in head" cases and some anti-EV people go to extreme "what ifs", like, "I live in FL, what if my Grandma died in CA, I need to get there in 40 hours non-stop ?!?!"

Umm, you fly

EVs aren't magic, but they're also not as problematic as a lot of people suggest.

I agree about the 1, 2 or even 3 or so trips a year where might spend an hour longer charging, in the grand scheme of your life cycles, it's pretty trivial. And if you mix that with an actual planned long stop, it really does make a one-stopper about the same as a CE vehicle. Our trips to the Keys are a good example, ~420 miles (one way), we stop once, eat, relax, that's it. If that trip was 500-600 miles, it would still be a long one stop, and maybe one or two extra "quick stops".

(FWIW we're not driving anywhere longer than 6 hours anyway )

 

[jtm1631]

Do you have an EV now so you have some real world experience?

Drove an id.4 for about 6 months. Dumped out of that for numerous reasons, none of which had to do with range anxiety.

There will be a learning curve with the R2 for sure, but I’m assuming after a couple of months, things should be smooth.

 

[Dennisis]

There are two locations spread out by I would guess 45 miles. An interstate closure would typically give you access to one of them. The longest I've been stuck in one spot on the interstate was 4 hours, and that would have been before the charger.

And have you owned an EV yet? Because thinking worst case scenarios and actually dealing with them are different. If stuck on the highway you’ll use little charge so that’s not an issue, and aside from worst case you have easy access to chargers - don’t overthink it.

Drove an id.4 for about 6 months. Dumped out of that for numerous reasons, none of which had to do with range anxiety.

There will be a learning curve with the R2 for sure, but I’m assuming after a couple of months, things should be smooth.

i doubt it will take that long, I’ve been doing this for 8 years. And will be through Durango from Tucson to Denver again the end of Sep, have been all over the state many times. And check out Slow Grooving BBQ in Marble before they close for the season, they are the absolute best and a beautiful trip .

 

[krb1183]

My main issue with this is that EVs are still competing primarily against ICE cars. And many ICE vehicles have 400, 500, even 700mi range. Why should we not buy EVs for those infrequent trips that require more range, whereas people are regularly doing exactly that for any other car they would buy?

Honestly i've never looked at range when buying an ICE car, i figure you can spit to a gas station just about anywhere so it doesn't matter. When looking at the Riv over 6 years ago, charging stations were obviously fewer between, so i felt i wanted the max range possible to give me the most options. I still kinda feel that way though even when we take our ICE on road trips, i do notice more and more charging options along the way, sometimes i even see them next to the gas station i'm at. Still my hesitation on taking an EV on a road trip is the added time and planning. I'm sure i'll turn the corner eventually.

 

[Dennisis]

Honestly i've never looked at range when buying an ICE car, i figure you can spit to a gas station just about anywhere so it doesn't matter. When looking at the Riv over 6 years ago, charging stations were obviously fewer between, so i felt i wanted the max range possible to give me the most options. I still kinda feel that way though even when we take our ICE on road trips, i do notice more and more charging options along the way, sometimes i even see them next to the gas station i'm at. Still my hesitation on taking an EV on a road trip is the added time and planning. I'm sure i'll turn the corner eventually.

All it takes is one road trip and you’ll realize you were worried about nothing, have done it frequently for many years before there were so many charging options.
And just to add, the pleasure of fueling up in your own garage and never stopping at gas stations again is priceless!

 

[ElGuano]

Honestly i've never looked at range when buying an ICE car, i figure you can spit to a gas station just about anywhere so it doesn't matter. When looking at the Riv over 6 years ago, charging stations were obviously fewer between, so i felt i wanted the max range possible to give me the most options. I still kinda feel that way though even when we take our ICE on road trips, i do notice more and more charging options along the way, sometimes i even see them next to the gas station i'm at. Still my hesitation on taking an EV on a road trip is the added time and planning. I'm sure i'll turn the corner eventually.

EV charging stations have EXPLODED all around my area in the 12+ years I've had electric. There literally used to be 1-2 stops on long stretches, sometimes requiring a 15-20 minute detour, and you could not take a trip without pre-planning. Nowadays, we can just hop in the car and check for charging options along the way, even pick and choose which we want based on amenity, etc. It's gotten better so much faster than I would have expected.

That said, I don't even care about long trips when I want a real-world 300+ mile EV. I'm actually happy to take a 15-30minute stop every couple of hours, it's no big deal. But I still want a car with more range than I know what to do with. I might take a day trip and not want to charge, or want to stop and eat somewhere there isn't a charger. Or just spend an overnight without dealing with charging at all. Or not have to pause before getting to mountain pass. Or tow a small trailer, or have a rooftop cargo rack. A gas car with a 400+ mileage range lets me do that easily, without thinking. And instead of anchoring on "almost 300 miles is surely good enough." what if we had 5-600mi EVs and could truly just have it all, for whatever situation. I think that's a 100% reasonable desire.

If I wanted a low-range city-bound people-mover, honestly I wouldn't be looking at any Rivian.

 

[SwampNut]

I tell people to stop buying ICE for the trip they take once a year. Rent for that if you feel the need. I use my EV range at least six times a year.

 

[narmstrong79]

This has been my stance for the last 6 years of driving an EV.

The Issue shouldn't be range, it should be efficiency, If MPG was off by as much as Mile/Kw people would also be in an uproar. The end user pays more money per mile in that case.

 

[rvnxyz001]

You’ve probably noticed who Rivian’s main target audience is: families with young kids. Their ads are full of children, and they even organize kid-focused events. Are those buyers really going to drive five hours nonstop at 80 mph? Of course not. They’ll be stopping constantly, and most of their trips will probably be to the nearest playground anyway.

 

[macb00kemdanno]

This has been my stance for the last 6 years of driving an EV.

The Issue shouldn't be range, it should be efficiency, If MPG was off by as much as Mile/Kw people would also be in an uproar. The end user pays more money per mile in that case.

Compared to a Model Y... yes. But if they're coming from an ICE, the efficiency/fuel cost benefit is still going to swing heavily towards the R2.

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