Absolutely Bizarre Charging Experience in Norfolk

[Glembi2]

After this experience it seems a family meeting is in order so that everyone knows their role if Dad is ever extorted and/ or assaulted at another charger. Make them a decision tree.

1. Only allow Dad to keep $20 in his wallet so he isn't mugged while standing there negotiating with Lola.
2. Someone record the entire interaction.
3. Someone else have 911 ready to call on their phone.
4. Someone else cause a distraction by getting out of the Rivian and screaming while blowing an airhorn.
5. Grab Dad and escape before the entire neighborhood descends on the scene.

My family’s version would be something like:

1. Run to convince store
2. Buy popcorn
3. Watch fireworks while eating popcorn

Sponsored

 

[COdogman]

My family’s version would be something like:

1. Run to convince store
2. Buy popcorn
3. Watch fireworks while eating popcorn

My family would have just driven away

 

[Hayseed_MS]

My family would have just driven away

Most wives would have been mad watching their husband negotiating services with a known transvestite prostitute - especially in front of the kids. The OP has a keeper.

 

[Glembi2]

There is something to be said about playing the two off each other.

Something like the bar scene from Desperado:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/s/GRveVTh4ir

Oh the things you think of afterward.

Edit: and oh god my wife would be pissed!

Edit Edit: I’m going straight to hell for that one.

 

[planetcase]

My family’s version would be something like:

1. Run to convince store
2. Buy popcorn
3. Watch fireworks while eating popcorn

Soooo funny. I think I like your family

 

[planetcase]

Most wives would have been mad watching their husband negotiating services with a known transvestite prostitute - especially in front of the kids. The OP has a keeper.

My wife watched in silent amusement. She likes the Rivian but does not like having to rely on charging stations. I told her how "easy" it was going to be. And how it wouldn't be stressful. I confidently pulled into the empty Tesla area, and boasted about how I would ready to roll in 20 minutes.

An hour later I was negotiating with a trans hooker and being assaulted.

I do have a keeper. She is awesome. But she put this whole scenario in her pocket, to be relived over and over again at our next dinner party!

 

[planetcase]

Yep, I've been to those 2 evGo's at Military Highway WAWA 5 times. Never got a charger to work, even after their resetting the unit multiple times. I finally installed T universal charger at my favorite hotel that I visit quite often. Now I enjoy no on the road charging for those business trips.

I will never go back! Unless to get therapy.

 

[planetcase]

From all the reading with folks had issues with A2Z are user errors of unable to slide the "lock" all the way. My first few times, I looked like a foo trying to do that. I found the best way is to put the adapter into the tesla charger handle then press it against the ground with some force. The "lock" would slide in a lot easier.

thx!

 

[planetcase]

Step 1 - Get the NACS adapter working and practice with it.
Step 2 - Go to www.tesla.com/nacs and find the chargers it works at.
Step 3 - Get plugshare, and ABRP to help plan.

I make that trip kind of regularly. The Tesla SC in Chesapeake off 168, south of where you were, is usually sorta busy but I've never had an issue.

I usually have more problems charging once I get to Corolla. There is on SC in Nags Head (the one at the mall, not the one at the Harris Teeter!) that supports NACS.

That's the plan moving forward. Thank you for your reply!

 

[planetcase]

There is something to be said about playing the two off each other.

Something like the bar scene from Desperado:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/s/GRveVTh4ir

Oh the things you think of afterward.

Edit: and oh god my wife would be pissed!

Edit Edit: I’m going straight to hell for that one.

!!!!

 

[planetcase]

Thank you so much for this post. We are picking our R1S on Saturday, and while I have been driving EVs for years, I've never taken a road trip in one. My son and I are going to visit family on the Olympic Peninsula north of Seattle in August (from south Orange County, CA), and he really wants to take the R1S. My husband thinks I'm crazy and says I should take the Lexus PHEV. We charge at home, and I have always been apprehensive about driving anywhere I would have to depend on public charging. Plugshare and ABRP look to be extremely useful, so thanks for sharing!

Also to OP: Sorry to hear what you had to go through to charge. I'm a big chicken and don't like confrontation, so I probably would have been terrified in that situation.

Thank you of your kind post. I hope you have great adventures this summer

 

[Dave Cundiff]

Thank you so much for this post. We are picking our R1S on Saturday, and while I have been driving EVs for years, I've never taken a road trip in one. My son and I are going to visit family on the Olympic Peninsula north of Seattle in August (from south Orange County, CA), and he really wants to take the R1S. My husband thinks I'm crazy and says I should take the Lexus PHEV. We charge at home, and I have always been apprehensive about driving anywhere I would have to depend on public charging. Plugshare and ABRP look to be extremely useful, so thanks for sharing!

Also to OP: Sorry to hear what you had to go through to charge. I'm a big chicken and don't like confrontation, so I probably would have been terrified in that situation.

Everyone's experience will be different, @Song Sparrow, but we drove from Gaithersburg (MD) Service Center to our home on the Washington Coast with my wife's new R1T.

***

Our most dramatic charging experience of that whole 3045-mile trip was.... wait for it....

... when the $0.64/kWh Electrify America charger in Billings MT slowed down from 200 kW to 41 kW, with no reason given.

It was such a horrible experience that we felt compelled to....

... drive another eight miles (!) down I-90 (in the direction we were going anyway) to a free 50-kW charger at a very nice auto dealer near the Billings Costco.

***

While nobody can predict your results, there is a lot more density of chargers up the West Coast than across the Dakotas and Montana.

Take your sense of humor on any road trip, especially in an EV, but for us it was well within the range of pleasant adventure -- and a lot less concern for the environmental harm from our trip.

Very best wishes!

 

[planetcase]

Everything else aside, what adapter did you have that “didn’t work”. Was this a “defective adapter” situation, or did you not do your research and you showed up armed with the incorrect adapter?

Curious what adapter you had that didn’t work at the Tesla SC? Was it a defective adapter? Not the right one (there are only like two or three NACs to CCS out there)? Did you check in advance that the TESLA station was one that allows other EV’s with an (appropriate) adapter?

Great question. I take 100% credit for not being prepared. I tried though. Prior to my trip, I put out another post stating I was taking the L2 Tesla adapter and a list of all my apps (that post is pasted below). I never knew (shame on me) that this adapter was for house slow charging and for hotel Tesla charging. I never thought to ask. This was recommended by another user as a must have. Now I am waiting for my A2Z. Well, now I know!!

Enjoy!
c
=======
Hello all. I love my R1S. I have done a couple of trips to North Carolina from MD. EZ PZ. I will be taking a trip to the Adirondacks in a few weeks, pulling a jets. My question is around planning the charging in detail. Is there 1 App that aggregates the data from all the others? I have the following apps all connected with credit cards connected on most:

• Rivian display Navigation planner
• ChargePoint
• Electrify America
• PlugShare
• EVConnect
• EVgo
• Chargeway
• ABRP
• Tesla

I also have an L2 tesla adapter and a mobile charging toolkit recommended on This thread from another Rivian owners.
=======

Sponsored