blturner
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Brian
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2021
- Threads
- 17
- Messages
- 263
- Reaction score
- 239
- Location
- Kansas City MO
- Vehicles
- Rivian R1T
- Occupation
- Space Pirate
- Thread starter
- #1
This is a really long rant so please just let me get it off my chest.
It's my fault that I forgot to charge Thursday night so I would be ready for working in St. Joseph and then taking the wife to a show in Lawerence where she was planning on showing the R1T to her friend's husband. Both of these are 45+ miles from my house, so I needed to start the day with at least 200 miles of range. I only have 120.
I plan on asking for a feature in the Rivian app that alerts me if I am at home, not charging and below 50% battery.
No problem, I will just drive 10 extra miles up to that 50Kw fast charger in St. Joe. during lunch. I made it to work in St. Joseph and realized that if that fast charger was down I could not even get home if I drove that extra 10-20 miles unless I built in extra time. I had not learned how to check if a charger is broken in the Chargepoint app. Yep it was broken. Same as it was 3 weeks earlier, only this time it had a sign saying it would be fixed soon. So I had to charge on the level 2 charger. Well that was taking so long I had to work remotely in my truck. I then figured out that I was not going to be able to get to Lawerence unless I went to another fast charger. There is a 24kw charger close to my house in Parkville. But at only 24 kw I would need to leave work about 1.5 hours earlier.
So off I go to fast charger #2. I checked the app and it said it was working. If I had read the comments I would have known that it is not working and has not been for several months.
Now I am in a bind. I can get home and charge there but I can't get to the fast chargers that are ALL located in the south part of town. There used to be 1 or 2 at the Hy-vee grocery stores close to my house but they used a 3G network connection and were taken out just a few months ago rather than upgraded.
So if I charge for 1.5 hours at home I will have just enough to get to the best charging spot in the whole city with 12 miles to spare. Two 350Kw chargers next to two 150Kw at Oak park mall. It is 45 min out of the way but there are good places to eat dinner there.
Well there was an accident on the highway due to the rain. I could not risk getting stuck in traffic for hours and ending up dead on the highway. So I bailed from the shortest route and started hypermiling it. Hypermiling is a great way to annoy your wife. So I only did as much as I thought I could get away with. We should make Oak park mall with about 4 miles left. Then we started hitting more traffic and blocked roads from even more accidents. I decided to bail to the nearest fast charger, a 50Kw at the Hundai dealer. They even had two there so I don't need to check the app.
We get there and the 1st charger is in use by a Ford Mustang. Walking around in the rain I spy the second charger. It is blocked by cars owned by the dealership. Bummer. So I go inside and ask if they can move one of the cars blocking the two spots closest to the charger. There was a third spot with someones car and a forth spot that I tried and the cable was just not long enough. So I go back inside and ask again if they can move one of the cars. I bet they never had two cars wanting to charge at the same time. I also suspect that the chargers at dealers are really only there for them to charge their cars and they only list them publicly so they can get some kind of subsidy. They do not want to go out in the rain, figure out what key is needed and then move the car. I am all but begging them to do just that. When they finally find a person ranked low enough to curse with this task, my wife calls and tells me that a different car left and we should be able to pull up to the charger going across the parking spaces. As I am lining up to pull onto the curb so that I can drag the charging cable over the bushes, my wife sees the Mustang leave. Sigh. Well 20 minutes at a 50Kw charger that is not really doing 50Kw and we are out of the emergency mode. But we can't stay here and make it to the show. We still have to get to Oak Park and the really fast chargers to make it.
We get to Oak Park and the 4 chargers are not marked for speed. I plug into one and it starts charging at about 100Kw or so. I don't know if that is because I have a low battery or I am on the slower charger. So I move to the other style and it will not work at all. That is broken charger #3. Someone is using the other 250Kw charger so I have to move back to the 150Kw and hope for the best. I do the math and we are going to be late for the show unless I cut the charging short. I just don't have the guts to do that for the 5th time that day.
We made it to the show during the opening monolog. Someone took our seats so we had to sit a row or two further back. Her friends loved the truck and the show was pretty good. We hit the fast charger on the turnpike so we had some more cushion for the trip home.
Total score for the day: 3 broken fast chargers, 2 in use, 1 blocked.
If my house had 200 amp service, my home charger could have saved me. But I can only charge at 24 amps.
Total lost time at work was more than $500 billable hours. I know that is a first world problem. In hind site I should have just worked from home the whole day or Ubered to work from the fast charger about 1 mile from that customer.
This was during the rain last Friday. All time record for most rain in Kansas City in one day in November. So kinda cold rain. None of the chargers had awnings but two did have puddles deep enough to go over my shoe.
Range anxiety is a thing. Thought that I could handle it. Maybe not at this rate.
It's my fault that I forgot to charge Thursday night so I would be ready for working in St. Joseph and then taking the wife to a show in Lawerence where she was planning on showing the R1T to her friend's husband. Both of these are 45+ miles from my house, so I needed to start the day with at least 200 miles of range. I only have 120.
I plan on asking for a feature in the Rivian app that alerts me if I am at home, not charging and below 50% battery.
No problem, I will just drive 10 extra miles up to that 50Kw fast charger in St. Joe. during lunch. I made it to work in St. Joseph and realized that if that fast charger was down I could not even get home if I drove that extra 10-20 miles unless I built in extra time. I had not learned how to check if a charger is broken in the Chargepoint app. Yep it was broken. Same as it was 3 weeks earlier, only this time it had a sign saying it would be fixed soon. So I had to charge on the level 2 charger. Well that was taking so long I had to work remotely in my truck. I then figured out that I was not going to be able to get to Lawerence unless I went to another fast charger. There is a 24kw charger close to my house in Parkville. But at only 24 kw I would need to leave work about 1.5 hours earlier.
So off I go to fast charger #2. I checked the app and it said it was working. If I had read the comments I would have known that it is not working and has not been for several months.
Now I am in a bind. I can get home and charge there but I can't get to the fast chargers that are ALL located in the south part of town. There used to be 1 or 2 at the Hy-vee grocery stores close to my house but they used a 3G network connection and were taken out just a few months ago rather than upgraded.
So if I charge for 1.5 hours at home I will have just enough to get to the best charging spot in the whole city with 12 miles to spare. Two 350Kw chargers next to two 150Kw at Oak park mall. It is 45 min out of the way but there are good places to eat dinner there.
Well there was an accident on the highway due to the rain. I could not risk getting stuck in traffic for hours and ending up dead on the highway. So I bailed from the shortest route and started hypermiling it. Hypermiling is a great way to annoy your wife. So I only did as much as I thought I could get away with. We should make Oak park mall with about 4 miles left. Then we started hitting more traffic and blocked roads from even more accidents. I decided to bail to the nearest fast charger, a 50Kw at the Hundai dealer. They even had two there so I don't need to check the app.
We get there and the 1st charger is in use by a Ford Mustang. Walking around in the rain I spy the second charger. It is blocked by cars owned by the dealership. Bummer. So I go inside and ask if they can move one of the cars blocking the two spots closest to the charger. There was a third spot with someones car and a forth spot that I tried and the cable was just not long enough. So I go back inside and ask again if they can move one of the cars. I bet they never had two cars wanting to charge at the same time. I also suspect that the chargers at dealers are really only there for them to charge their cars and they only list them publicly so they can get some kind of subsidy. They do not want to go out in the rain, figure out what key is needed and then move the car. I am all but begging them to do just that. When they finally find a person ranked low enough to curse with this task, my wife calls and tells me that a different car left and we should be able to pull up to the charger going across the parking spaces. As I am lining up to pull onto the curb so that I can drag the charging cable over the bushes, my wife sees the Mustang leave. Sigh. Well 20 minutes at a 50Kw charger that is not really doing 50Kw and we are out of the emergency mode. But we can't stay here and make it to the show. We still have to get to Oak Park and the really fast chargers to make it.
We get to Oak Park and the 4 chargers are not marked for speed. I plug into one and it starts charging at about 100Kw or so. I don't know if that is because I have a low battery or I am on the slower charger. So I move to the other style and it will not work at all. That is broken charger #3. Someone is using the other 250Kw charger so I have to move back to the 150Kw and hope for the best. I do the math and we are going to be late for the show unless I cut the charging short. I just don't have the guts to do that for the 5th time that day.
We made it to the show during the opening monolog. Someone took our seats so we had to sit a row or two further back. Her friends loved the truck and the show was pretty good. We hit the fast charger on the turnpike so we had some more cushion for the trip home.
Total score for the day: 3 broken fast chargers, 2 in use, 1 blocked.
If my house had 200 amp service, my home charger could have saved me. But I can only charge at 24 amps.
Total lost time at work was more than $500 billable hours. I know that is a first world problem. In hind site I should have just worked from home the whole day or Ubered to work from the fast charger about 1 mile from that customer.
This was during the rain last Friday. All time record for most rain in Kansas City in one day in November. So kinda cold rain. None of the chargers had awnings but two did have puddles deep enough to go over my shoe.
Range anxiety is a thing. Thought that I could handle it. Maybe not at this rate.
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