Backwoods Driving - Maps outside cell coverage

[AdamEk]

Any way to store maps ahead of time for map regions outside cell coverage?

I keep topo and satellite maps for the regions I plan to drive stored in GaiaGPS on my phone. When my son was younger he did not like backroading, he would say "Oh, no!" whenever I switched to GaiaGPS on CarPlay. No CarPlay in Rivan.

Gaia Classic Topo Maps for northern NH and northwestern Maine take up less than 50MB on my phone.

I've had a reservation for R2 since March 7 2024. Order invite expected this month or next. Hoping for CarPlay, but realistically researching dashboard mounts for my iPhone.

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[VandalSibs]

Any way to store maps ahead of time for map regions outside cell coverage?

I keep topo and satellite maps for the regions I plan to drive stored in GaiaGPS on my phone. When my son was younger he did not like backroading, he would say "Oh, no!" whenever I switched to GaiaGPS on CarPlay. No CarPlay in Rivan.

Gaia Classic Topo Maps for northern NH and northwestern Maine take up less than 50MB on my phone.

I've had a reservation for R2 since March 7 2024. Order invite expected this month or next. Hoping for CarPlay, but realistically researching dashboard mounts for my iPhone.

The vehicle downloads map data, but I'm not sure if it's map images or just road data. I remember in a Tesla years ago that when I went out of an area with cell coverage, the map stayed up for a little bit (the parts that had be cached or streamed already), but then disappeared until I had a signal again.

I've not gone backwoods enough in my Rivian to test things, but cell coverage has also improved a lot since.

 

[LevelHeaded]

No but this feature has been around for years and years on AA/CP

Oh wait, that's not helpful here...

 

[mikehmb]

Any way to store maps ahead of time for map regions outside cell coverage?

I keep topo and satellite maps for the regions I plan to drive stored in GaiaGPS on my phone. When my son was younger he did not like backroading, he would say "Oh, no!" whenever I switched to GaiaGPS on CarPlay. No CarPlay in Rivan.

Gaia Classic Topo Maps for northern NH and northwestern Maine take up less than 50MB on my phone.

I've had a reservation for R2 since March 7 2024. Order invite expected this month or next. Hoping for CarPlay, but realistically researching dashboard mounts for my iPhone.

^^^^ 100% this ^^^^

I'm going to go on a rant ...

@Rivian - we need this. Now.

Let's say, not at all hypothetically, that you're heading somewhere that is decidedly off-grid and 40% SOC away from a charger (in this direction). Boondocks camping. No cell service for 10 miles in any direction, even on hilltops.

This is not at all unheard of in the Sierras.

So you get to your campsite with 60% remaining - all is great. Then you want to go wheeling the next day, so you look up the fun backroads that you know are there because you grew up driving them in your Jeep but guess what, they don't show up properly on the nav because offline maps are hot garbage.

You go anyway because thankfully you remember locations, exit points, and routes (hooray for functioning brain). Go out for a few hours, slow crawling over level 3-4 stuff, and you get back to your campsite with 40% after a fun and mild day. Then camp mode does something stupid and you burn 5% overnight, because it doesn't actually go to sleep (yes, fix this ffs).

You're now at 35%, have another night camping, and want to get home. Great, plug your next charging stop into the nav and you'll know if you can make it, right?

Right?

No. No you cannot. Offline destination SOC doesn't work. This is dumb.

TL/DR: There are three major problems here.

1) Offline maps MUST have a mode where you can actually see useful things in no-cell zones. Offline resolution is abysmal, you can't see enough detail to be useful for forest roads.
2) Destination SOC MUST work whether you have cell coverage or not - this cannot be difficult to process on-vehicle guys. You've got at least 4 GPUs on board.
3) Fix camp mode and let the truck sleep properly. 3-5% overnight with power-save ON is absurd. It'd be easier if I just locked the truck and turned off my phone, used the key card (which I did on night 2). (yes, I've dealt with this dozens of times, but last weekend really irked me)

 

[Zathras]

Any way to store maps ahead of time for map regions outside cell coverage?

I keep topo and satellite maps for the regions I plan to drive stored in GaiaGPS on my phone. When my son was younger he did not like backroading, he would say "Oh, no!" whenever I switched to GaiaGPS on CarPlay. No CarPlay in Rivan.

Gaia Classic Topo Maps for northern NH and northwestern Maine take up less than 50MB on my phone.

I've had a reservation for R2 since March 7 2024. Order invite expected this month or next. Hoping for CarPlay, but realistically researching dashboard mounts for my iPhone.

Zero chance you'll getr CarPlay any time soon. Maybe with Gen 3 they'll have enough storage to allow for caching maps for areas we designate with charging and other location options on the maps included?

 

[JacobAZ]

^^^^ 100% this ^^^^


3) Fix camp mode and let the truck sleep properly. 3-5% overnight with power-save ON is absurd. It'd be easier if I just locked the truck and turned off my phone, used the key card (which I did on night 2). (yes, I've dealt with this dozens of times, but last weekend really irked me)

This is fixed, has been for some time, at least for me. I Put truck in camp mode as you say. Also turn off our phones (no signal anyhow). Lock the truck. As long as the R1 can sense the phone it continues to do something and use too many watts. I do not know why, but locking the truck is also important. I do these things before going to bed. In the morning I unlock the truck (have to use key card), turn on outlets for camp kitchen, and start coffee. Display shows overnight the truck used between 0 and a few hundred watts.

 

[Dark-Fx]

They do some amount of map data caching, but I don't think they've ever really shared what that means. I've never been far enough outside of coverage for it to matter.

 

[mikehmb]

This is fixed, has been for some time, at least for me. I Put truck in camp mode as you say. Also turn off our phones (no signal anyhow). Lock the truck. As long as the R1 can sense the phone it continues to do something and use too many watts. I do not know why, but locking the truck is also important. I do these things before going to bed. In the morning I unlock the truck (have to use key card), turn on outlets for camp kitchen, and start coffee. Display shows overnight the truck used between 0 and a few hundred watts.

For sure - but the issue remains if you leave the doors unlocked. It won't sleep. For camp mode, this should be, IMO, straightforward and default behavior.

 

[JacobAZ]

For sure - but the issue remains if you leave the doors unlocked. It won't sleep. For camp mode, this should be, IMO, straightforward and default behavior.

I agree, it would be nice, or at least Rivian tell us what we need to do, rather than discover through trial and error. We all have different priorities and preferences. The designers have to make decisions as to what they believe most people want/need. When the design is not my preference I adapt or find a workaround. For example, the entire world is designed for right-handed people, since this covers 90% of population. Lefties have to adapt, a lot. Few righties have any idea how much adapting lefties have incorporated into their life. Very few things are designed with lefties in mind.

 

[AdamEk]

Cell coverage has improved a lot since the last time I looked it up, but the North Maine Woods still have a vast area of no coverage. I don't blame the cell companies for not putting any towers there, no one lives there year round. It's a big area once owned by logging companies (lumber or paper). There used to be almost no roads there. Logs were moved out by river drives. When they stopped doing river drives in the 1970's the Great Northern Paper company built the "Golden Road" from Millinocket out into the woods. From the Golden Road trunk a whole networks of logging roads and skidder trails spread out into the whole region.

Truck drivers got rich (by northern Maine standards) hauling pulp wood out along the Golden Road.

• Company owned road.
• No speed limit.
  • Loaded trucks crawled up the steepest hills and zoomed everywhere else.
  • Unloaded trucks zoomed back out to pick up another paying load. When you're paid by mile, your daily pay is greater the faster you go.
• No load limit. (Strongly built timber bridges. Only limit was what your truck and trailer could handle.)
• No size limit. (No overpasses. No overhead structure on the bridges.)
• The more wood they could haul per load the more they got paid. They built extensions on logging trailers. Twice as wide and twice as tall as road legal trailers. Some truckers with powerful trucks hauled tandom trailers.
• Truck drivers were paid by cord per mile.
• Only one rule of the road. Loaded trucks have absolute right of way.
  • If they hit your car you didn't get out of the way in time and you have to pay for any damage to their truck.
  • Loaded trucks tend to drive in the middle of the road so the crown of the dirt road doesn't tip their top heavy trailers. Outbound unloaded trucks would go almost off the road to get out of the way.
  • The public is allowed access for camping and hunting but have to sign an agreement to that rule of the road.
• Lots of CB radio chatter.
  • Loaded trucks warn when they are about to come over the crest of every named hill.
  • CB doesn't have the range to reach from the deep woods out to Millinocket, but truckers can relay messages up and down the road.

It was an exciting few decades, but the Millinocket mill at the end of the Golden Road closed in 2014. These days you either need a road legal trailer for when you leave the Golden Road on the way to your customer or arrange a transfer of your load to other road legal trailers.

Great Northern built the Golden Road. They used to do maintenance after every mud season. The new landowners do some maintenance, but the road is much rougher than it was.

This is not virgin forest. Most of that region was clearcut by the end of the 1800's in the era of wooden shipbuilding. Great Northern bought it all in the 1890's since paper making doesn't need large logs. Pulp wood harvesting in a spruce forest is like farming with a 20-year growing season. With the end of river driving most logging is done out of sight of paddlers on the lakes and rivers.

 

[ZheWiz]

You all realize your phone can download maps, right? And you do realize you can still navigate with your phone even without CarPlay/AA, right?

You guys invent problems where there are none.

 

[Robot Overlord]

I agree, it would be nice, or at least Rivian tell us what we need to do, rather than discover through trial and error. We all have different priorities and preferences. The designers have to make decisions as to what they believe most people want/need. When the design is not my preference I adapt or find a workaround. For example, the entire world is designed for right-handed people, since this covers 90% of population. Lefties have to adapt, a lot. Few righties have any idea how much adapting lefties have incorporated into their life. Very few things are designed with lefties in mind.

Great points about lefties. Our daughter is one of them. We found a great lefties-only shop in the Disney village during one trip down there.

 

[rvnxyz001]

Your phone may also die, always keep printed maps and a compass!

 

[Robot Overlord]

Cell coverage has improved a lot since the last time I looked it up, but the North Maine Woods still have a vast area of no coverage. I don't blame the cell companies for not putting any towers there, no one lives there year round. It's a big area once owned by logging companies (lumber or paper). There used to be almost no roads there. Logs were moved out by river drives. When they stopped doing river drives in the 1970's the Great Northern Paper company built the "Golden Road" from Millinocket out into the woods. From the Golden Road trunk a whole networks of logging roads and skidder trails spread out into the whole region.

Truck drivers got rich (by northern Maine standards) hauling pulp wood out along the Golden Road.

• Company owned road.
• No speed limit.
  • Loaded trucks crawled up the steepest hills and zoomed everywhere else.
  • Unloaded trucks zoomed back out to pick up another paying load. When you're paid by mile, your daily pay is greater the faster you go.
• No load limit. (Strongly built timber bridges. Only limit was what your truck and trailer could handle.)
• No size limit. (No overpasses. No overhead structure on the bridges.)
• The more wood they could haul per load the more they got paid. They built extensions on logging trailers. Twice as wide and twice as tall as road legal trailers. Some truckers with powerful trucks hauled tandom trailers.
• Truck drivers were paid by cord per mile.
• Only one rule of the road. Loaded trucks have absolute right of way.
  • If they hit your car you didn't get out of the way in time and you have to pay for any damage to their truck.
  • Loaded trucks tend to drive in the middle of the road so the crown of the dirt road doesn't tip their top heavy trailers. Outbound unloaded trucks would go almost off the road to get out of the way.
  • The public is allowed access for camping and hunting but have to sign an agreement to that rule of the road.
• Lots of CB radio chatter.
  • Loaded trucks warn when they are about to come over the crest of every named hill.
  • CB doesn't have the range to reach from the deep woods out to Millinocket, but truckers can relay messages up and down the road.

It was an exciting few decades, but the Millinocket mill at the end of the Golden Road closed in 2014. These days you either need a road legal trailer for when you leave the Golden Road on the way to your customer or arrange a transfer of your load to other road legal trailers.

Great Northern built the Golden Road. They used to do maintenance after every mud season. The new landowners do some maintenance, but the road is much rougher than it was.

This is not virgin forest. Most of that region was clearcut by the end of the 1800's in the era of wooden shipbuilding. Great Northern bought it all in the 1890's since paper making doesn't need large logs. Pulp wood harvesting in a spruce forest is like farming with a 20-year growing season. With the end of river driving most logging is done out of sight of paddlers on the lakes and rivers.

Thanks for the local history lesson. Our local oldest son attended college in NH and now lives up there. I’m always amazed at how he navigates with no cell coverage. He’s learned so much about the NH/VT road networks in the years he’s been running the White Mountains trails.

 

[AdamEk]

You all realize your phone can download maps, right? And you do realize you can still navigate with your phone even without CarPlay/AA, right?

You guys invent problems where there are none.

Using a phone while driving is illegal in many states.

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