Apprehensively considering trip from Milwaukee to Littleton CO. for Christmas: advice please

[bd5400]

ABRP doesn’t show any leg of the trip needing to be more than 200 miles so even with winter range losses it looks like you’ll be ok. I’d just pay attention to efficiency to make sure speed+HVAC usage aren’t dragging you down too far.

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[SDRTAZ]

Everyone, thank you in advance for your kind consideration. I'm a first time EV owner with built-in range anxiety. I'm looking for advice on building a route to Littleton Colorado. Has anyone out there made a similar trip? I vaguely remember a thread about a western bound trip from the Great Lakes area to Colorado.

I've read a lot of negative commentary about relying on the Rivian onboard navigation system. With that in mind, I've got the following applications loaded the old iPhone: EA, ABRP, ChargePoint and PlugShare.

I am familiar with the drive having made the trip multiple times in past years. But the coordinating of charging opportunities, arriving at a destination with the proper SoC and so on, well............

Honestly.....I would recommend you take an ICE vehicle instead. Rent one if needed. Yes, you can totally make it and range anxiety really isn't a thing after you have gotten used to your EV. What is real is "charger anxiety" and that is much more difficult to plan for.

I am currently on my 4th EV and 2nd BEV. The R1T will be my 3rd when it arrives. My existing car gets 300 miles of range on local freeways (68-70 mph average speeds). On road trips at 75 mph it drops to 260 miles max. Add in precipitation like rain or snow and the range drops to around 220 miles max. And that is without the heater running.

Then factor in that DCFC is really only useful to 80% and then you should get on your way to the next station....that puts your actual range between charges around 175 miles if there is any weather.

Electrify America stations are very unreliable and you might spend a couple hours trying to get a reasonable charge. If it was summertime then I would say to give it a try but I would not recommend a new EVer take a long road trip like that during the winter. Especially in the northern states.

EVs are great for very many things. Road trips aren't one of those things unless you drive a Tesla, and they are MUCH more efficient than the Rivian. If I am not mistaken, they go about twice as far on the same energy so DCFCing on a road trip is much less anxiety because those machines usually work pretty.

The CCS system that we have available to us at the moment is not really that great. It is improving but not there yet IMO.

 

[skigramps]

This community is outstanding. So many excellent insights from varying perspectives. All you guys are great!

Charger anxiety is maybe the more accurate reference. It’s a fact that I’m still not that comfortable and confident in this wonderful S. I had considered a “practice “ run of a shorter distance. Even though I’m retired, I’d have family members with me that are still on a work and school schedule.

COdogman and Riviot had me on the way. Enter crashmbt and now I’m troubled by tire issues.

Lots to consider here……..leaning toward a no go for now.

 

[JaMa]

Everyone, thank you in advance for your kind consideration. I'm a first time EV owner with built-in range anxiety. I'm looking for advice on building a route to Littleton Colorado. Has anyone out there made a similar trip? I vaguely remember a thread about a western bound trip from the Great Lakes area to Colorado.

I've read a lot of negative commentary about relying on the Rivian onboard navigation system. With that in mind, I've got the following applications loaded the old iPhone: EA, ABRP, ChargePoint and PlugShare.

I am familiar with the drive having made the trip multiple times in past years. But the coordinating of charging opportunities, arriving at a destination with the proper SoC and so on, well............

I think your concerns are well justified. But, the only thing that would make me fly instead of drive would be the charging network, nothing else. Rivians map app can be bypassed with a simple Apple Carplay/phone stuck to the dash with a magnetic holder, and based on lots of road trips Ive seen and taken I know this truck will do it with ease. The conserve mode in particular is really good and makes the truck perform at or above the rated range, especially on the way out of Colorado - pretty much downhill for 200 miles in every direction.

But - EA and associated public networks are uniformly horrible. Until they get to the level of the Tesla supercharger network, I would not attempt it. I am not a Tesla fanboy even though I own one, but I can tell you from using my model Y to roadtrip and alternately renting a couple of other EVs on Turo and using the public network, this is a night and day conversation. One of these trips was from Lincoln, NE to Parker CO so I think I can safely say I know what you are up against.

My 2c,
J

 

[Aardvark]

A few thoughts and lessons from 15+ multi-thousand mile EV trips since 2016. A lot of these have already been mentioned.
1. A Better Route Planner can be loaded on your phone or PC. This is the best place to start. Use the advanced editing screen and adjust as many parameters as possible. In our experience, ABRP is always conservative.
2. As a new EV owner, and taking a cold weather trip, be conservative on each leg. Take some extra charging time and plan on arriving at next charger with 15 to 20% charge remaining. As you get comfortable, you can reduce that.
3. At every stop, check the status of the next 2 chargers on the route on PlugShare app.
4. Always have a Plan B in case your planned charger is down. Make sure you have a level 2 station within range of your planned CCS stop just in case. We have accounts with 3 common charging networks to cover level 2 options. We've mostly only used ChargePoint and having the CP card has been handy.
5. We always carry adapters for NEMA 14-50, and TT-30 (campground 50 and 30 amp charging respectively) to increase Plan B options.
6. Cold weather: dress warmly, use seat heaters, use absolute minimum cabin heat needed. Use Conserve mode on highway. When stopping at hotel, charge on arrival - don't let battery cold soak overnight then try to charge in morning. Leave some charging capacity (5 to 10%) and top off in the morning to warm the battery before hitting the interstate.
7. Plan meal stops and hotels based on charging availability. Note that PlugShare has a temp filter of "Only show chargers with lodging"

Enjoy the adventure! You got this!!

 

[Aardvark]

A couple more thoughts...
8. You have a built-in reserve. It's called "slow down". Drag has a far greater impact on range than your drive mode setting. Even slowing down 5 mph will have a significant positive impact on efficiency.
9. Don't know if the R1T has an equivalent function to Tesla Enhanced Autopilot, but we've had great success with auto-drafting behind semis in very cold weather. A few years back we were on I80 in Nebraska during a polar vortex. Temps between -15 and +10F. It was going to be tight making the next charging stop. We rolled in behind a truck doing 70, put it in autopilot, and watched our "charge at destination" begin to climb from 5% to 15%.

 

[skigramps]

Aardvark, I’d love to be your wingman…….so many great pieces of advice. Given all the various considerations I’m leaning toward holding off on this adventure. I’ll work on a couple of practice trips to build confidence.

 

[bd5400]

A couple more thoughts...
8. You have a built-in reserve. It's called "slow down". Drag has a far greater impact on range than your drive mode setting. Even slowing down 5 mph will have a significant positive impact on efficiency.
9. Don't know if the R1T has an equivalent function to Tesla Enhanced Autopilot, but we've had great success with auto-drafting behind semis in very cold weather. A few years back we were on I80 in Nebraska during a polar vortex. Temps between -15 and +10F. It was going to be tight making the next charging stop. We rolled in behind a truck doing 70, put it in autopilot, and watched our "charge at destination" begin to climb from 5% to 15%.

In my experience, the closest setting in Highway Assist has a larger gap than the closest setting in Autopilot, so while you can certainly draft behind a semi with Highway Assist on you probably get a bit less of a benefit compared to Autopilot.

 

[R1Sky Business]

A few thoughts and lessons from 15+ multi-thousand mile EV trips since 2016. A lot of these have already been mentioned.
1. A Better Route Planner can be loaded on your phone or PC. This is the best place to start. Use the advanced editing screen and adjust as many parameters as possible. In our experience, ABRP is always conservative.
2. As a new EV owner, and taking a cold weather trip, be conservative on each leg. Take some extra charging time and plan on arriving at next charger with 15 to 20% charge remaining. As you get comfortable, you can reduce that.
3. At every stop, check the status of the next 2 chargers on the route on PlugShare app.
4. Always have a Plan B in case your planned charger is down. Make sure you have a level 2 station within range of your planned CCS stop just in case. We have accounts with 3 common charging networks to cover level 2 options. We've mostly only used ChargePoint and having the CP card has been handy.
5. We always carry adapters for NEMA 14-50, and TT-30 (campground 50 and 30 amp charging respectively) to increase Plan B options.
6. Cold weather: dress warmly, use seat heaters, use absolute minimum cabin heat needed. Use Conserve mode on highway. When stopping at hotel, charge on arrival - don't let battery cold soak overnight then try to charge in morning. Leave some charging capacity (5 to 10%) and top off in the morning to warm the battery before hitting the interstate.
7. Plan meal stops and hotels based on charging availability. Note that PlugShare has a temp filter of "Only show chargers with lodging"

Enjoy the adventure! You got this!!

Wow...u got this down to a science.

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