Reservations About My Reservation

[ajdelange]

One last point. Every friend that I know that has an EV puts the environmental part at the top of the reasons to change to EV.

Perhaps that true out there on the left coast but I really rather doubt that to be the case. My impression is that the environment is, if considered at all, thought of as a "nice to have" but "cool", performance and convenience come first.

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[DucRider]

One last point. Every friend that I know that has an EV puts the environmental part at the top of the reasons to change to EV. DucRider, maybe you drive an EV to have one of the fastest straight line vehicle and performance is important to you but thats different then what my circle of friends talk about. Not saying it's wrong and I hope my comments are not looked at as harsh, its not my intent. I do appreciate the feedback.

Many people use the environmental benefit to justify the additional cost. Often it is just part of the picture.
There is a national conference every year called EV Roadmap. Several years ago (3? 4?). They had a panel of current EV owners and Utilities, Government and NGO asked them a bunch of questions. Turned out the "Environmentally friendly" was not at the top of their list.
It is my experience/opinion that for the majority of EV owners, the "cake" is the myriad other factors that make EVs attractive. Good for the environment is the icing on that cake.

If you ask your friends (without bring up this subject/discussion first) what their favorite thing about their Tesla (or other EV) is, I would be surprised if "Green" was the first thing many of them mention.

And I currently drive a Honda Clarity Electric. Nowhere near a "performance" vehicle by any stretch of the imagination. But it does have instant torque, is smooth, quiet, cheap to operate (fuel and maintenance), convenient, quiet, comfortable, etc.

And I am very familiar with "range anxiety" in an ICE. In my case it is motorcycle touring (well off of the freeways whenever possible). Fuel stop planning is indeed vital. 35 years ago my bike had ~100 miles of range - I've got nearly double that now, but still need to pay attention. I've run out of gas once in that time frame, but as recent as a couple of years ago we had to backtrack and detour 30 miles because the gas station we planned to use was only open on something like Tuesday and Friday afternoons.

 

[Moonjock]

I'm in for the performance and it's something totally new. Environmentally friendly really depends on where your electrity come from. Where I live it's a mix of hydro and diesel fuel. The "Green" nature doesn't factor in for me at all. I'm still considering a diesel truck due to little or no charging between where I live and the major city (306 miles) away.

 

[RivFly]

Very interesting comments for sure.! I disagree with most of them but hey, that’s cool.

This is really giving me a different side of EV life then my current circle or friends, that’s enlightening.

As for a couple major points. I still disagree with trucks and range, shorter being better?! More range for a truck means it can do what a truck can do.......and thats be a jack of all trades. Yes, impress the girlfriend in the countryside on the weekend and do the work during the week. To me and how I’m seeing it, as an example......I can drive to Death Valley in two days from WA state, approximately 900miles with two dirt bikes in the bed. That’s at least three stops, one full charge from home then an hour break to the overnight motel for another full charge for the remaining distance? Does that sound correct? If I had less range all that takes longer and will add another few hours or even another day? Maybe I don’t understand how to look at this from an EV perspective ? Last year as another example, a buddy of mine picked me up from San Jose and we drove to Long Beach for a trade show in his Model 3. We stopped three times, two required for the car and once for us to stretch our legs. He was explaining to me how his Model 3 had so much better range then his two previous EV’s to which I agreed and said “I couldn’t live with something that didn’t have appropriately 400mile range”. To me.......for my travels, I need range.......and it’s not to impress a girlfriend in the countryside on the weekend but to get to and from places my family and friends want and need to go.

As far as performance verse environment, I’m surprised you guys are here for performance That’s puzzling to me.......you guys drag racing trucks???

Anyways, thanks for the input everyone.

 

[skyote]

you guys drag racing trucks???

Not at my age, anymore. But I do like to go fast on occasion, and I will use every last hp at times. Actually thought about getting a Corvette for several years, but now we can have a truck/SUV that's just as fast & much more practical in many ways (3 row R1S for me).

I guess I'll be able to get to sports practices & games, or the grocery store, really quickly when I need to. ;-)

 

[Jehorton]

I just like the thought of rolling up to a red light with someone next to me thinking his sports car would beat anyone, little does he/she know that my ELECTRIC truck would burn him 9 times out of 10. That’s a plus. Also for all the people in this forum who think what I just mentioned is breaking the law I’d only accelerate until I hit 9mph over the posted speed limit.

 

[ajdelange]

As far as performance verse environment, I’m surprised you guys are here for performance That’s puzzling to me.......you guys drag racing trucks???

No, that's not what we/they mean. Performance to us means rapid, smooth acceleration, regenerative braking, lots of miles between charges, pretty fast charging, an autopilot that while it may not do all it is claimed to do is a great help on long trips, sophisticated navigation system, over the air updates.....

As to the environmental concerns: while only 20% of respondents to my little poll listed environment as the main reason for ordering a Rivian another 54 said it was important to them. That's higher than I expected.

Shorter range is never better. But stop thinking in terms of range. Think in terms of the energy available on board. Most (but not energy taken to run a heater or air compressor or set of lights) will be turned into miles but at differing rates depending on the nature of the load. More is better except in one regard. A smaller battery is less expensive.

 

[DucRider]

Very interesting comments for sure.! I disagree with most of them but hey, that’s cool.

This is really giving me a different side of EV life then my current circle or friends, that’s enlightening.

As for a couple major points. I still disagree with trucks and range, shorter being better?! More range for a truck means it can do what a truck can do.......and thats be a jack of all trades. Yes, impress the girlfriend in the countryside on the weekend and do the work during the week. To me and how I’m seeing it, as an example......I can drive to Death Valley in two days from WA state, approximately 900miles with two dirt bikes in the bed. That’s at least three stops, one full charge from home then an hour break to the overnight motel for another full charge for the remaining distance? Does that sound correct? If I had less range all that takes longer and will add another few hours or even another day? Maybe I don’t understand how to look at this from an EV perspective ? Last year as another example, a buddy of mine picked me up from San Jose and we drove to Long Beach for a trade show in his Model 3. We stopped three times, two required for the car and once for us to stretch our legs. He was explaining to me how his Model 3 had so much better range then his two previous EV’s to which I agreed and said “I couldn’t live with something that didn’t have appropriately 400mile range”. To me.......for my travels, I need range.......and it’s not to impress a girlfriend in the countryside on the weekend but to get to and from places my family and friends want and need to go.

As far as performance verse environment, I’m surprised you guys are here for performance That’s puzzling to me.......you guys drag racing trucks???

Anyways, thanks for the input everyone.

1. Performance is much more than 0-60 or 1/4 mile time.
2. The Rivian R1T is not a "truck" in the sense that you seem to be using it. Unlikely that 2 dirt bikes will fit in the 50" bed (possible that there will be some provision with the tailgate down). Not sure what you mean by "do the work during the week".
3. The Rivian will be extremely unlikely to have 400 miles of range for the trip/usage you describe. Highway range, particularly with dirt bikes in the bed or pulling a trailer will be shorter. How much less will depend greatly on your speed.
4. As to the ~900 miles to Death Valley from WA (Yakima? Tri Cities? Vancouver?), available charging will dictate route, stops and time. You are unlikely to get a full charge overnight at a motel, even with a L2 charging (240V) available. Almost all charging at hotels/motels will be 7 kW or less, which translates to 25 to 30 hours for a full charge. As of today, high speed DCFC is only available by routing down I5 or thru Salt Lake.
   
   
   
   The above stations will allow the Rivian to charge at it's fastest level (300+ kW). There are other options, but they would be slower than using these stations.
5. As to the time of the trip and charging, there is a bit more planning involved that plugging start and end into google maps. Charging station location and speed need to be considered, as well as the "taper" when charging a battery. Very rarely will it make sense (time and $$ wise) to charge to more than ~80% when using a fast charger on the road. Optimizing charging stops for the Rivian is still a complete unknown as we do not have any idea what the taper looks like (as the battery fills, charging slows)
   Model 3 as an example (V3 Superchargers will be faster):
   
   
   
   If you get a chance, have one of your friends with the Model 3 (preferably a LR version) put in a route from your home to Death Valley. It will show suggested charging stops, time at each of those stops, etc. If you are reasonably near a Tesla store (Portland?), drop in and have them show you.

 

[jarross]

Regarding performance: I agree it's not about 0-60 times. For me, its the ability to get instant response if I need to get around a vehicle quickly (ie...60-80 times). It's about having 4 wheels with power all of the time and enough ground clearance to avoid rocks sticking up at random places in the trail. To get these things in an ICE, you have tradeoffs of excessive fuel consumption or excessive road noise. Plus, I like the promise of simplicity of maintenance. I'll probably be wrong to some degree with all of these things, but someone has to take the risk of being wrong to make evolution of the technology possible. Ps..I do worry about range, but I don't mind driving slower to get wherever and I grew up during a time when gas stations were harder to come by and gas mileage in my dad's pickup was terrible (REALLY terrible). So I know what is possible if motivated.

 

[JeepersAlley]

Normal concerns for a new vehicle. I felt the same way when I ordered my Model 3 having never sat in one, much less driven one. Granted, Tesla was already established with the S and X, but many of the same concerns apply. It was the best decision of my life. Now I hope to make it the 2nd best decision of my life by buying an R1S

This is my story too. Exactly. Lol

 

[UP Finn]

Perhaps that true out there on the left coast but I really rather doubt that to be the case. My impression is that the environment is, if considered at all, thought of as a "nice to have" but "cool", performance and convenience come first.

You're right. I just sold my Trackhawk and bought a Model Y performance. I wanted a unique car while I wait to see what/when Rivian comes up with. My 1st EV. Taking care of the environment is a good thing, but not high on my list for buying an EV.

 

[ajdelange]

As to the time of the trip and charging, there is a bit more planning involved that plugging start and end into google maps. Charging station location and speed need to be considered, as well as the "taper" when charging a battery.

This is why you want to do planning with a program like A Better Route Planner which knows where the chargers are and selects a route for you which minimizes trip time. It knows about terrain and speed limits and it allows you to specify things like how fast you want to go relative to the speed limit, how much weight you are carrying in addition to the driver and road conditions. This is a big one as even a modest rain can impose an additional energy requirement of as much as 35% e.g. transform my 280 Wh/mi X into a 380 Wh/mi car.

Very rarely will it make sense (time and $$ wise) to charge to more than ~80% when using a fast charger on the road. Optimizing charging stops for the Rivian is still a complete unknown as we do not have any idea what the taper looks like (as the battery fills, charging slows)

Not a complete unknown surely as we do know from remarks by Scaringe that the trucks will be able to accept 300 kW from a 350 kW charger and where taper starts doesn't really make that much of a difference until and unless you get into a situation where you must, or want to, charge to high SoC (above 70%). Knowing just these things make it possible to come up with pretty good estimates of charging times.

The minimum trip time comes from frequent (but not too frequent) stops for charges that don't go too far past the SoC level at which taper starts as what counts is the average power delivered by the charger and that starts to drop when one gets into the tapered region. The table below shows what happens if one charges from 10% to 60% or 70% (thus adding 200 or 240 miles EPA range) via an EA 350 kW charger (from which the Rivians can accept 300 kW). The left most column is the percent SoC at which the truck starts to taper down from 300 kW and the calculations assume taper to 10% of maximum (30 kW) at full charge. The second column gives the charging times to 60% to the left of the slash mark and to 70% to the right and the third column the effective average power.

Start of Taper, % SoC	Time, 10% to 60/70% SoC, minutes	Average Power Delivered. kW 60%/70%
10	25.0/33.0	219.4/196.4
20	22.7/30.0	237.6/215.6
30	20.8/27.4	259.1/236.3
40	19.4/25.2	278.9/257.7
50	18.4/23.3	294.0/277.8
60	18.0/22.1	300.0/293.5

As the table shows the difference between starting taper at 10% and 60% amounts to only 7 minutes while at 70% final SoC it amounts to 11 min. The taper will probably not start as low as 10% and it will probably not start as high as 70% so it will probably be in the 30 - 60% zone implying charging times between 18 and 20.8 minutes to 60% and 22.1 - 27.4 minutes. Not a huge span IMO but any given reader might not share my opinion.

Now we have to recognize that there will be times, especially as the EA network builds out, that we won't be able to limit charges to 70% or less. If, for example, I ask ABRP to take me from Virginia to Key West it will have me stop at an EA charger in Jacksonville where it will have me charge from 10% to 85% SoC and that, it says, will take 38 minutes which implies that taper starts at 39.4% (same model as above - flat to the break point then linear taper down to 10% of the maximum at 100% SoC). Should R.J. disappoint us and deliver cars that start to taper at only 20% that time would grow by 8 minutes. Should he delight us and deliver cars that don't taper until reaching 70% SoC then it would shrink by 8 minutes.

Model 3 as an example (V3 Superchargers will be faster):

Examples are great but please keep in mind that they are examples. The actual charge profile a vehicle receives at a given charger at a given time is negotiated between the car and the charger and varies with the conditions of both the car and station at the time. This, as we have shown, doesn't make that much difference though. This example shows charging to 90% which one does not typically do for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that many SC in high traffic areas will cut you off at 80% or limit you to half an hour's occupancy of a stall. And it takes time - lots of time - as the charger is only delivering 1/4 of it's peak capacity at those high levels. And it isn't particularly good for the battery. To do what this example shows would take 56 minutes (with a V3 it would take 28). Were the charger to start tapering at 30% rather than at the 45 shown on the chart those times would increase to 65 (V2) and 32 (V3) minutes and you would be in the stall 9 minutes (V2) or 4.5 minutes (V3) longer.

If you get a chance, have one of your friends with the Model 3 (preferably a LR version) put in a route from your home to Death Valley.

A Better Route Planner is named as it is because it is indeed a better route planner than Tesla's at least in terms of convenience and your ability to have it consider all the information you have at hand. It's estimates of charging times seem reasonable even in it's models for cars such as the Rivian. Sitting comfortably at your desk you can gain an great deal of insight as to how BEV driving works. This is not to say that the Tesla tool isn't useful. You will soon discover, assuming as i think we can, that Rivian will have equivalent tools on board, that you can just jump in the car and go in most cases. Being all hung up on range at first and especially in anticipation of delivery of a BEV is quite normal but it will pass.

 

[RivianKnight]

Rivian keeps losing me more and more with every press release. They really have not defined their audience well. People who want an adventure vehicle don't want to waste money on a plush interior. People who want luxury galore probably aren't gonna go off-roading. Like I think thick canvas seats would be awesome so my dogs don't tear them up. The idea of any type of plastic interior is not appealing to me. I want a big battery pack and long range, but I don't need heated and cooled seats, 7 way seats, automatic environmental controls, a stupid expensive radio, etc. I want a simple, rugged, and capable vehicle. I don't think the Rivian is going to be that. I think it is going to be like a Range Rover. All about bragging rights, but rarely ever utilized.

I disagree, I want both luxury and off-road. We do a lot of camping and football tailgating, but this will also be my primary car so comfort matters to me.

 

[ajdelange]

I think you are exactly what they are aiming at. I remember some old reviews of the Lexus SUV's that said something about it being unlikely that the rock crawling feature would be needed on a typical trip to Nieman Marcus but that were it located in the Serengetti the driver would be taken there in style and comfort. I often think of that when thinking about the Rivian.

 

[iliadz]

Maybe they are not doing the best job on this, but as for the comments on a luxury vehicle " People who want an adventure vehicle don't want to waste money on a plush interior. People who want luxury galore probably aren't gonna go off-roading. Like I think thick canvas seats would be awesome so my dogs don't tear them up".. Rivian seems to be addressing this.
I know in one video I watched the person who made choices on what material to put in the interior mentioned every fabric or material he worked with he would wipe the soul of his shoe on it to ensure if it left a lasting mark, he wouldn't use it. The floors themselves are not carpet, so dirt comes up easy.

For me, it will be great for outdoors. At the same time, I'm not going to take said 90K vehicle rock climbing, nor am I going to fjord it through 3 feet of water.

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