EV Dave - ranting about Rivian's navigation/DC fast charging software

[Cycliste]

I figured it was something like that. I just don’t want to be on my deathbed regretting wasting time trying to minimize slowing of the charging rate. I have a limited amount of time left to think and I would rather scroll. I am having fun thinking about charge curves and how much I want to maximize charging

https://insideevs.com/news/575986/rivian-r1t-charging-analysis/

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[diehlryan]

I'm pretty sure he did that as last resort because nothing else was working. And yeah, the guy is a seasoned EV road tripper. He mentioned that he could figure that out, but less experienced people might have a hard time figuring it out for themselves.

The estimated arrival mileage seemed to be pretty much dead accurate during his trip. I noticed that a bit later in the video that he charged something like 60 miles more than the distance to his next charging stop. He was guessing that he needed that as a buffer due to cold temps and bad weather. The nav system wasn't helping because it still didn't realize he was already at the charging stop. And as soon as he started moving again, the navigation reset itself and had him arriving with only 20 miles, so it wanted him to return to the same charging station again. I can see how that would be annoying.

If he would have simply added a charging stop (because he didn't want to go to Nashville on 1 charge) every single complaint for the next 5mins in that video would have been avoidable. Its the way Rivian says to do it.

"NOT READING THE MANUAL" came out of his mouth. That is the most ridiculous thing he said in the whole tirade. Experience doesn't absolve you from reading a manual.

FWIW, I agree the UI could be updated to be more clear but that guy didn't do himself any favors whatsoever.

 

[Deacon]

His problem is that the navigation wouldn't recognize that he was at the charger. Several times, it had him a few feet away, despite the fact that he was already charging. So he wasn't able to tell when he had enough of a charge to make it to the next charging stop because the software still had him as not arriving at his current stop. He seemed really irritated and has mentioned this more than a few times in his videos.

have not had that problem.

 

[HighVoltOverland]

First thing I noticed when he started complaining is that you don't stop the route you're on to add a charging stop. I believe this was updated recently and you can add stops in the middle of the trip.

147miles.. thats to Nashville. Well maybe its to Clarksville, who knows?! You do, its the end point on your trip for effs sake.

It did start to come across as "old man yells at clouds"

Like, you just hit cancel and started a new route, the distance is very clearly to the route you just started.

 

[Joseph D]

I haven't been on a road trip since the update to add charging stops mid route (or if I did I didn't use it). I also haven't had to rely on the trucks range estimator since I did my first road trip with it. I even had a 2 month span where my TCM module was out and my R1T was a dumb truck that had no gps, or cellular connectivity and I still made successful road trips with it no problem. I also recognize that I am an outlier in that regard.

Anyways, how I would check to see if the truck thought it could make it to the next charger was to create a new route to said charger (and change the arrival range to 1%), then remove the added charging stop that it would tell me to go to. It would then recalculate the route and tell me if it thought it could make it and if it said I couldn't, then it would let me know where on the route I would run out of juice. Is it the most elegant solution? No. Are we early adopters to the EV space? Yes.

 

[White Shadow]

It did start to come across as "old man yells at clouds"

Like, you just hit cancel and started a new route, the distance is very clearly to the route you just started.

In fairness, he tried that a couple of times and it just kept putting him as close to (but not at) the charge station. And since he was plugged in and charging, he didn't have the ability to see how much he had to charge to make it comfortably to his next stop. It's a weird quirk that happens if the vehicle doesn't see that you'be arrived at the charger.

 

[Mobius1]

I didn’t have the issue he is describing, but I did have issues with the route planning between app and in-car. I planned one leg of a trip so that I wouldn’t need to charge, but when I sent it to the car, it automatically added a charge back into the trip. Also, I had unchecked all chargers except RAN, but it kept sending me to EVGo. Annoyances but nothing that hindered my trip. I do agree with the not looking at the manual comment when there is ample room to provide a bit more info without cluttering up the UI.

 

[BigSkies]

I don’t watch rage bait YouTube videos on principle.

I have a Tesla and an R1T. I’ve found the “navigate to a charger” functionality pretty comparable between the two vehicles. The route planning generally finds good chargers, although I frequently override its choices. Usually because kids need more frequent stops. Range on arrival seems to be conservative by maybe 10%. Which seems appropriate.

Tesla’s (Google’s) maps and navigation is overall better than Rivian’s. But I don’t see major differences in the route planning side of things.

 

[Billybobgt]

Made a 1400 mile round trip a week and half ago. Return was with towing. I already knew which places I wanted to stop so I didn't have the truck plan the whole route. I would just navigate to the next charger so it would condition and then add the follow on charger as next point. I pretty much always end the navigation to the first charger as I get to the parking lot and then on the map page I believe it's telling you what to charge to and gives option to resume navigation.

I don't have any pictures as proof of how exactly it looks.

 

[majorfriend]

Just did a CA to CO roadtrip (our first in the truck). I ran into some of these issues, but it was minor annoyance, I just charged to what I needed to, canceled the route, and restarted it.

Would be nice to have it fixed, but not worth ranting about. Seems like this is more about a YouTuber trying to get views.

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