steelwheels
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I’ve just completed my first of hopefully many road trips in my new R1T. This is my first EV and I had only had it for a week before departing for South Padre Island. When you get south of San Antonio and west of Houston it is one giant charging desert, so I attempted to plan extensively. My dad and I left early Sunday morning and our first stop was at an EA station in Georgetown. It was free and worked beautifully. it quickly ramped up to 206kw and we had just enough time to get some coffee and breakfast at a nearby Summer Moon Coffee. From there we had 2 choices, stop in Northern San Antonio at another EA station and then a PlugShare in Corpus Christi, or stop FreeWire run by EV Connect in Cuero. I chose the EV connect as it was a relatively new station and the quicker route, plus Corpus was available as a backup should something go wrong.
Upon arriving in Cuero, we found the EV Connect station to be down and 2 separate customer service representatives were of no help at all. Luckily, there was also a 7.7kw charger a few blocks away. We charged there for an 1.5 hours while we got some ice cream at a local creamery, Green Cow. It was delicious but there wasn’t much else going on so we decided to leave and limp down to Corpus Christi where there are 3 fast chargers. Unfortunately to make it all the way there, we could only do 55mph despite the speed limit being 70. We had plenty of time to then realize that all the fast chargers are at dealerships; and it being Sunday, they were all closed. We tried transfer our hotel stay for that night from South Padre to Corpus, but they refused to help us.
Thankfully, in all of my planning I remembered there was a slow and unreliable 24kw charger at a Harley Dealership. We pulled in there with approximately 15 miles of range left. It appeared to be nonfunctioning as well. Right as I was about to unplug and pull off to head for a hotel it kicked in and began charging. We sat there for about 4.5 hours to get the needed 180 miles of range we needed. After going 10mph under the limit and drafting behind an 18 wheeler for an hour of the nearly 3 hour drive we arrived at our hotel with 12 miles of range, only to find all the hotel chargers ICE’d or Tesla’d.
My dad, who isn’t super knowledgable about EVs told anyone who would listen all about the all electric truck we drove down in. The South Padre Island area is huge for winter Texans, so I got to do a lot of promoting for Rivian and EVs as a whole. The vast majority of them were surprisingly receptive. We were mainly there to do some fishing and birding but did take the R1T out on the beach a few times, including to see StarBase.
We drove home on a friday so were able to use one of the fast chargers in Corpus Christi. It got a bit nerve wracking when we left there for San Antonio. We were showing 60 miles of extra range but the truck was saying we weren’t going to make it. I quickly figured out there was a very strong headwind and the range began to drop like a brick. The only thing I can figure is the truck knew about the headwinds and took this in to account. Does anyone know if this is true?
We arrived to one of the only fast charging stations in all San Antonio with another R1T there and the classic ID4 charging to 100%. We plugged in and it took off great. Then the charger derated about 5 minutes after we walked away to get lunch. When I got back to the station there were 2 other cars there and it turns out 3/6 chargers were not connecting to anybody’s car and the one I had initially plugged in to was capping out around 45kw for everybody. Finally the 3rd stall I tried gave good speed and we were able to leave about 30 minutes later.
Overall, the truck drove amazingly. I couldn’t recommend it enough. Even with 2 suitcases, a cooler, and camera gear we didn’t have to keep a single thing in the bed of the truck. Despite this being my first trip in an EV and all the major charging issues on the way down, I would still do the same trip with the R1T again, just not on a Sunday.
Upon arriving in Cuero, we found the EV Connect station to be down and 2 separate customer service representatives were of no help at all. Luckily, there was also a 7.7kw charger a few blocks away. We charged there for an 1.5 hours while we got some ice cream at a local creamery, Green Cow. It was delicious but there wasn’t much else going on so we decided to leave and limp down to Corpus Christi where there are 3 fast chargers. Unfortunately to make it all the way there, we could only do 55mph despite the speed limit being 70. We had plenty of time to then realize that all the fast chargers are at dealerships; and it being Sunday, they were all closed. We tried transfer our hotel stay for that night from South Padre to Corpus, but they refused to help us.
Thankfully, in all of my planning I remembered there was a slow and unreliable 24kw charger at a Harley Dealership. We pulled in there with approximately 15 miles of range left. It appeared to be nonfunctioning as well. Right as I was about to unplug and pull off to head for a hotel it kicked in and began charging. We sat there for about 4.5 hours to get the needed 180 miles of range we needed. After going 10mph under the limit and drafting behind an 18 wheeler for an hour of the nearly 3 hour drive we arrived at our hotel with 12 miles of range, only to find all the hotel chargers ICE’d or Tesla’d.
My dad, who isn’t super knowledgable about EVs told anyone who would listen all about the all electric truck we drove down in. The South Padre Island area is huge for winter Texans, so I got to do a lot of promoting for Rivian and EVs as a whole. The vast majority of them were surprisingly receptive. We were mainly there to do some fishing and birding but did take the R1T out on the beach a few times, including to see StarBase.
We drove home on a friday so were able to use one of the fast chargers in Corpus Christi. It got a bit nerve wracking when we left there for San Antonio. We were showing 60 miles of extra range but the truck was saying we weren’t going to make it. I quickly figured out there was a very strong headwind and the range began to drop like a brick. The only thing I can figure is the truck knew about the headwinds and took this in to account. Does anyone know if this is true?
We arrived to one of the only fast charging stations in all San Antonio with another R1T there and the classic ID4 charging to 100%. We plugged in and it took off great. Then the charger derated about 5 minutes after we walked away to get lunch. When I got back to the station there were 2 other cars there and it turns out 3/6 chargers were not connecting to anybody’s car and the one I had initially plugged in to was capping out around 45kw for everybody. Finally the 3rd stall I tried gave good speed and we were able to leave about 30 minutes later.
Overall, the truck drove amazingly. I couldn’t recommend it enough. Even with 2 suitcases, a cooler, and camera gear we didn’t have to keep a single thing in the bed of the truck. Despite this being my first trip in an EV and all the major charging issues on the way down, I would still do the same trip with the R1T again, just not on a Sunday.
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