R1S Gen 2 Dual Max: Buy back program advice?

[BTOR]

That 410 range will be very handy in those unexpected road detours. Case in point my wife and I where driving back from the Columbia River Gorge(WA/OR) in mid July on I-84 - towing a 500lb mini trailer with two 16ft sea kayaks. We just got a heads up on google maps that i-84 just closed 10miles ahead of us due to a bad accident. OR DOT online indicated it could be closed for many hours. We were in the middle of the eastern OR desert but we just charged up about 45min before and still had about 300mi range, but the detour on Rivian Nav (pregoogle) and google maps disagreed and indicated a 2.5+ hr detour and a couple of mtns to climb with arrival at a EA charger in the middle of a small ranching town (pop 200)with 10% battery. We made it to the EA charger with 8% but without that big 410 battery we would have been stranded or would have to wait out the i-84 closure - which opened 6 hrs later. 2.5K road trip on my DMAX 2025 R1S and no issues, total

The trailer is a Yakima rack and roll model upgraded to haul a bit more weight. Total weight including kayaks is about 500+ lbs. In Rivian trailer mode it senses the drag of the trailer and recalibrates the range estimate after maybe 10-20miles of driving on the highway. Then you can create a named trailer profile for that trailer and aerodynamic load (includes measured drag due to kayaks - or other stuff like aero boxes, bikes, etc.). My experience with this light and min aerodynamic drag was only a 10% or less penalty hit to range especially if I stayed a few mph below the higher speed limits (70 and above) (much of I-84 thru eastern OR and western ID is 80mph). Once the vehicle calibrated itself for the specific trailer profile it revises the range estimate as long as you are in trailer mode and that profile. In practice I found the Rivian range est in trailer mode to be conservatively biased - you actually had more range (10%+/-) in most scenarios after a charging session. The range algorthim would slowly update to match real distance to destination in the last 50-100 miles before reaching destination. Two significant variables seamed to be major contributors to range descripency. Head wind and ouside temp. For instance if I had a 20-25mph head wind which at times I had and the outside temp was 100F+ the range descripency went negative (less actual range than initial vehicle estimate. Fortunately with the updated Rivian energy app you are able to see the energy consumption of the HVAC alone and came in handy on that 2.5+hr detour since we arrived with slightly less battery than first estimated. We did have some variable head winds and hot conditions for the lower elevation part of the detour. In trying to ensure we could make it to the EA charger we lowered the speed to 5mph below the 50-65 limit, turned off the AC for the last 50 miles and kept the windows closed for better aerodynamics. Interesting to note that a couple of yrs ago I did another long distance road trip with the same trailer and kayaks with my 2016 Tesla MX and the range penalty on the Tesla was much higher maybe 20-25% . After driving EVs for almost 9 yrs now a lesson learned practice that I use on longer road trips is charge to a SOC with the next charging stop target in mind but have some backup chargers closer for unexpected scenarios. That practice was invaluable with my recent 2.5hr detour and would not have been possible without that big Rivian 410 battery.

Nice summary and great advice with your SOC BKM (best know method) or “learned practice” as you refer to it. THANKS!

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