Long distance navigation (and charging infrastructure) has significantly improved

[josh0]

We’re planning our regular trip from Maryland back to New Mexico, and after messing around in the various navigation apps, I have to say it’s amazing how much the Rivian’s built-in nav has improved!

The first time we did this drive a year ago (literally two days after I picked up my R1T, the first EV I’ve ever driven! ?), I used the built-in nav on day 1 of the drive, and absolutely hated it. It had us stopping about every 100 miles, which felt like an incredibly slow pace, but I didn’t trust my instincts enough to override it yet. After that I used ABRP, and manually input the stops without letting it add extra charge stops.

This time, the Rivian app tells me we can make it to our first night in the Indianapolis area (exact same stop as before) with only two charge stops, about 220 miles apart, instead of the four it thought we required last time (longest distance 140 miles).

Part of that might be that we can now use Superchargers, which both stops it suggests are at, but before, the very first stop was at the RAN charger in Breezewood, PA, and this time it’s having us go all the way to Morgantown, WV before charging. If I tell it to avoid chargers that require an adapter, it still only says we need two stops, but this time it’s EVgo chargers, and it’s 230 miles to our first stop instead of 130 it was the first time.

When I put it ABRP now, it gives me three stops (also all Superchargers), and predicts a 30 minute earlier arrival in ‘quickest arrival’ mode.

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[Mathme]

When doing a long drive that requires multiple stops in a day, I've generally had really good luck with ABRP. Then while on the trip itself, I only program from one stop to the next (I find I still have to swipe on the map to get it to precondition at Level3 chargers) otherwise the GPS seems to have a silly little mind of it's own (you know ...send ya 15 minutes off the freeway to charge before going to your planned charge stop that's right off the freeway).

While on road trips in my Quad with AT 20s, I've gone as few as 100 miles while climbing up over the Sierra Nevada's, to around 200ish miles on an 85-20% charge in about 30-40 minutes. Typical distance is 150-180 miles or 2.5-3 hours of driving (and bladder comfort) time.

 

[bmo]

Agree. Long distance navigation is great now. It does seem to dynamically adjust better too depending on inclines driving characteristics. I've charged at 4 Tesla Superchargers. And only had one not work for me.

 

[elatrickWheels]

I agree. We’ve just completed a 5,600-mile road trip in our R1S. We took a scenic loop from Northern California to Houston and back, with about 14 days of driving and sight-seeing along the way. What worked well for us was:
- Use ABRP to help with overall route-planning, to ensure feasibility (and avoid getting stranded in a charging desert). Identify a highlight for each day and a destination for the end of every day.
- Thereafter, use the Rivian’s navigation:
- Begin each day by plotting a route to *tomorrow’s* destination. That way, when I arrive at today’s destination, I know I’ll have enough charge to make it to at least the next charger when I set off tomorrow.
- Each day typically involved multiple stops, some for charging and some for sight-seeing. Adding destinations via the Rivian UI worked quite well. I began to find it even easier to look up places on my iPhone and then “send to my Rivian”, where there’s the option to add to an existing route or start a new one.
- Most of the time the recommended charging stops were convenient for us. Occasionally they weren’t, and I ignored them. In these situations the trick is to use the nav system to “Remove charging stops,” and then “Add charging stops” a few miles down the road so that it could recompute.
- With few exceptions (I80 in Nevada, Moab—>Albuquerque, SW New Mexico) we could use RAN or Tesla Superchargers.
- A2Z NACS adapter was a game-changer. (The free one from Rivian was delivered the day after we left. Oh well.) I paid for Tesla charging membership for the month to get better prices, which definitely paid off on this long trip. This almost eliminated range anxiety. You still have to plan each hop between charging oases, but the Tesla chargers (almost) always work and are available. We seldom felt the dread of arriving at low charge to find the few chargers either occupied or out of order.

 

[josh0]

I agree. We’ve just completed a 5,600-mile road trip in our R1S. We took a scenic loop from Northern California to Houston and back, with about 14 days of driving and sight-seeing along the way. What worked well for us was:
- Use ABRP to help with overall route-planning, to ensure feasibility (and avoid getting stranded in a charging desert). Identify a highlight for each day and a destination for the end of every day.
- Thereafter, use the Rivian’s navigation:
- Begin each day by plotting a route to *tomorrow’s* destination. That way, when I arrive at today’s destination, I know I’ll have enough charge to make it to at least the next charger when I set off tomorrow.
- Each day typically involved multiple stops, some for charging and some for sight-seeing. Adding destinations via the Rivian UI worked quite well. I began to find it even easier to look up places on my iPhone and then “send to my Rivian”, where there’s the option to add to an existing route or start a new one.
- Most of the time the recommended charging stops were convenient for us. Occasionally they weren’t, and I ignored them. In these situations the trick is to use the nav system to “Remove charging stops,” and then “Add charging stops” a few miles down the road so that it could recompute.
- With few exceptions (I80 in Nevada, Moab—>Albuquerque, SW New Mexico) we could use RAN or Tesla Superchargers.
- A2Z NACS adapter was a game-changer. (The free one from Rivian was delivered the day after we left. Oh well.) I paid for Tesla charging membership for the month to get better prices, which definitely paid off on this long trip. This almost eliminated range anxiety. You still have to plan each hop between charging oases, but the Tesla chargers (almost) always work and are available. We seldom felt the dread of arriving at low charge to find the few chargers either occupied or out of order.

This is pretty much how we do it, too. I only just got my A2Z, so haven’t had the pleasure of Supercharging yet, but we’re heading up to upstate New York in a couple days, so that will change.

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