First time charging woes

[ElGuano]

I had a 200mi trip coming up and needed to charge beforehand. Found an EVGo charger at a Whole Foods with 4 stalls in the in-car Maps nav, but when I got there, it turns out ALL 4 CCS chargers were broken. My god. Luckily there was an EA charger a few miles away, and that worked fine.

After the trip, I had 9%/35mi left and needed to charge again. Found a Tesla V3/V4 Supercharger and it charged at 200kW for about 20 minutes, and after that I got a message "charging rate limited by charger" or something like that and it dropped to 31kW. I went outside, and the handle wasn't warm or anything. I had to get back on the road so I didn't try re-plugging in.

I normally charge at home, and we supercharge the Tesla 2-3x week and never have an issue, so this really stuck out to me as one of those "non-Tesla charging experience" things you always hear about. The EvGO situation was just exasperating. I later saw there is an "F" rating for that charger in the nav, but I've never used it before to find chargers and didn't know what the letter stood for.

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[ThumprMN]

I have never had a successful charging expirience at an EVGo. Always something wrong, or broken or couldnt get the charger to recognize my Rivian. I avoid them now.

 

[Eeyore]

I later saw there is an "F" rating for that charger in the nav, but I've never used it before to find chargers and didn't know what the letter stood for.

Well, now you've learned something new. Pro tip, chargers with an A are good to go.

 

[socaladam]

You mean EVgarbage.

Even before the R1S, we avoided them at all costs.

 

[blturner]

Sorry to hear about your difficulties.
I think this has more to do with the lack of attendants at chargers than anything else. When an employee has to drive 30 minutes to put an out of order sign up and put in a trouble ticket that goes to an overloaded installation and repair staff, customer service will suffer. I hope this is growing pains but I don't see attendants becoming a thing unless they co-locate with gas stations.
I would blame the Tesla charger not the Rivian in that second instance. A model 3 probably would have been fully charged before whatever overheated in that charger got hot.

 

[millersntx]

I’ve tried EV go twice later in the evening and both times the chargers were behind locked gates at car dealerships. I had trouble removing the network from the charging options for a while, but that was fixed in one of recent updates.
on the other hand - I’ve had pretty good experiences ( pricey though) with the Shell and Electrify America networks.

 

[johnj2803]

I actually base my charging with what is on my nav screen with their rating.

 

[BCondrey]

Plugshare always has good, current info, I use them before I stop at any non-Tesla/RAN location. And, I always checkin after charging to support the platform.

 

[risingphoenix]

Pray tell, do you only use Rivian chargers when traveling?

 

[NY_Rob]

Pray tell, do you only use Rivian chargers when traveling?

You don't leave Cali

 

[mudito]

Yeah, I prioritize Tesla SC when road-tripping. My 2nd option are both RAN and EA. I have a few EVGo around my house (which I don't use here locally of course as I charge at home) and those are either Full of Chevrolet Bolt EVs charging to 100%, or derated/non-working

About the Tesla de-rating... after 20 mins of 200kw (that's about 60kWh, right?), only happened to me TWICE. The first time, I just unplugged, switched stalls and I was back at what the truck was demanding (~130kW due to a higher SoC), the 2nd time was because I had two CyberTrucks charging in the same circuit and every other stall was also occupied with other Teslas... Hence I had to charge to ~60kW for a while as we were all power-sharing there

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