That’s great to know for road trips, thanks. I’m getting a home charger installed and have several EV chargers at my job where we can charge for free but mostly everyone has Teslas. Already dreading being the person taking up two spots to charge one vehicle. What has your experience been charging at Superchargers?
Largely very good. I can think of one bad experience with EA. But it really depends on where you live.
That’s awesome. Quite a few where I’m at so very good to know! Seems like in general should just check and double check the stations before committing to the destination. Something you don’t worry too much about when looking for gas. Glad the EV chargers are growing tho, that will make these hunts less worrisome
Glad it finally worked for you and the famFeel like I need to just admit this here, but yesterday was a not great day for me. I have had my R1S Dual Motor, Large Pack for just shy of a year now and have had no problems. I will admit there are some things I think could be a little better, but still great car, definitely best car I have ever owned. Also to preface, I am looking for no pity, if you call me an idiot, I agree with you. But yesterday I made literally the wrong choice every chance I got. So please I hope someone can at least laugh at me, and learn my lesson without having to live it. Also realize that this problem has probably happened before but I digress too much.
First, I live in Peoria, IL (essentially for the purposes of this story, you can use Normal, IL home of Rivian factory and it wouldnt change a thing). I left Saturday from my home with about 95% charge to drive to St, Louis, MO to see family for a birthday party. I charged to 76% from 54% (at an EVGo) when I got to STL just so I had enough to get around and not have a longer charge coming home. (This could technically be considered mistake number 1, but lets just call it mistake 0)
Next from there I got to my brothers house with about 62% charge, and we were at his house from 830 PM Saturday, til Sunday 2 PM. I had originally thought he had a 120V outlet outside his garage I could plug into, but was wrong. So no big deal just charge on the road going home (mistake 1.0). Then Sunday morning my brother tells me he actually has a random dryer outlet in his garage and I could use it to charge then, or any time in the future. It was like 12:30 pm at this point and I was like nah, we can charge on the road. (Maybe not important, brother hasnt had house long, about as long as Ive had the Rivian and this was only my second time driving it to St. Louis and his house). Mistake lets call it 1.5. Not charging at all, at my brothers house.
Next we leave, with 62% still, from my brothers house to head from St Louis to home. Rivian App says to drive from brothers house for 2 hrs and 30 mins or so to Springfield, IL where there is an Electrify America with 4 chargers. Used this location before, newer EA and pull through spots, not been busy in my experience. Mistake # 2, not checking EA app for condition of chargers, I dont know what it would have shown, at arrival 2 chargers were down and 2 were "available".
So we drive (me, my wife, my 3 yr old, my 4 month old) to Springfield, smooth trip no issues, arrived with like I think 25% . We pass multiple chargers in STL that we could have stopped at, would have been annoying because hopefully its obvious, we were trying to minimize stops for the 4 month old. Its a charging desert between St. Louis and Normal/Peoria with the only 150kW charger or faster being the EA in Springfield that Rivian App directed me to. Now the crux of my sad tale, probably not surprising,. The EA charger in Springfield would not initiate charge. A Honda Prelude was charging at one of the 2 "working" chargers, rated for 150 kw but was only getting like maybe 30-50kW of charging. Calling EA revealed that whole station was low on recieving power, and so could not initiate a second car to charge. Literally on the phone with EA Support and the guy said verbatim... youre not going to make it. He was right, my range was just barely below what I would need to make it to next closest EA fast charger or to my house. My wife located a supposed 50 kW charger about 25 minutes away at a Chevy Dealer, I wasnt sure if EA charger would work, or how much longer the Honda Prelude would be, because of how inconsistent and slow it was charging. Mistake #3 was leaving Springfield and going to this next location (Lincoln, IL) as there might have been more options to peruse in Springfield, IL being bigger city.
Arriving in Lincoln to the supposed 50 kW charger at the local dealer, it wont let me initiate anything. Going onto the dealer website vs this "charging station" google maps listing, the 50 kW charger is not yet available to public, but next to it is a 19.6 kW Eaton Charger. I go ahead and plug into it, set up pretty easily. Charges at only 9.1-9.3 kW though, so 22 miles/hr. For reference, at this point Im at like 11% or 30ish miles of range. Exact mileage home at this point is 54 miles. Doing the math, to be safe I need 70-75 miles of charge or 22-23% to get home. There is one other 19.6 kW charger in this town at a Quality Inn and Suites, a "Blink" Charger near more food options for my family to not be sitting outside in a closed Chevy dealer parking lot. its only 4 miles away, so I pack up the family after a quick 40 minute charge that added 12 miles to go here... this while a mistake was necessary as it was 4 pm when I left the dealership, getting dark and approaching dinner time for kiddos. Call this mistake #4.
Major Advise.... never use a blink charger. I havent really experienced recently the internal rage of a clunky app/set up just failing repeatedly to accept my money and use their service. I wasted 30-45 minutes of trying to charge at this hotel only to give up, drop off my family at Culvers and return to the known working charger at the Chevy dealer. I then sat stewing in my car for an hour and 40 minutes getting just enough charge to get home. and I did it, with 76 miles of range, I made it home with 22 miles of range at I think like 7 or 8%.
In total what is normally a 3.5-4ish hour trip with the R1S turned into a 8 hr almost nightmare. Again, like I said at the outset my luck was really bad and I think I had some as I coined it in the title "Range Cockiness" because of the success Ive had doing similar trips. I do much more regular trips to Chicago, and have had very few issues, nothing like this trying to get back and forth from there.
Again sorry for the long, long post. Mostly this is for me to just let go and move on, share my experience, and pray, pray, pray that the NACS adapter shows up soon because there were Tesla Chargers in multiple spots that could have saved me but were unavailable to me for now. Again... on me, I know.
Thanks Rivian Community, Keep On Adventuring!
I had a similar experience in Grand Island NE, the EA station was being totally renovated. I thought I might be able to continue west to Kearney, but quickly realized I couldn't. There happened to be an 11K RAN charger 10 miles south in a state prairie park. So I headed for it and sat there for 2.5 hours. The first hour was to cover the detour to the RAN level 2 charger. The whole time I contemplated all the charging opportunities I passed and the fact that I did not bother checking the Plug Share or EA apps. It was a pretty park and my dog got a long walk down a natural prairie trail.Feel like I need to just admit this here, but yesterday was a not great day for me. I have had my R1S Dual Motor, Large Pack for just shy of a year now and have had no problems. I will admit there are some things I think could be a little better, but still great car, definitely best car I have ever owned. Also to preface, I am looking for no pity, if you call me an idiot, I agree with you. But yesterday I made literally the wrong choice every chance I got. So please I hope someone can at least laugh at me, and learn my lesson without having to live it. Also realize that this problem has probably happened before but I digress too much.
First, I live in Peoria, IL (essentially for the purposes of this story, you can use Normal, IL home of Rivian factory and it wouldnt change a thing). I left Saturday from my home with about 95% charge to drive to St, Louis, MO to see family for a birthday party. I charged to 76% from 54% (at an EVGo) when I got to STL just so I had enough to get around and not have a longer charge coming home. (This could technically be considered mistake number 1, but lets just call it mistake 0)
Next from there I got to my brothers house with about 62% charge, and we were at his house from 830 PM Saturday, til Sunday 2 PM. I had originally thought he had a 120V outlet outside his garage I could plug into, but was wrong. So no big deal just charge on the road going home (mistake 1.0). Then Sunday morning my brother tells me he actually has a random dryer outlet in his garage and I could use it to charge then, or any time in the future. It was like 12:30 pm at this point and I was like nah, we can charge on the road. (Maybe not important, brother hasnt had house long, about as long as Ive had the Rivian and this was only my second time driving it to St. Louis and his house). Mistake lets call it 1.5. Not charging at all, at my brothers house.
Next we leave, with 62% still, from my brothers house to head from St Louis to home. Rivian App says to drive from brothers house for 2 hrs and 30 mins or so to Springfield, IL where there is an Electrify America with 4 chargers. Used this location before, newer EA and pull through spots, not been busy in my experience. Mistake # 2, not checking EA app for condition of chargers, I dont know what it would have shown, at arrival 2 chargers were down and 2 were "available".
So we drive (me, my wife, my 3 yr old, my 4 month old) to Springfield, smooth trip no issues, arrived with like I think 25% . We pass multiple chargers in STL that we could have stopped at, would have been annoying because hopefully its obvious, we were trying to minimize stops for the 4 month old. Its a charging desert between St. Louis and Normal/Peoria with the only 150kW charger or faster being the EA in Springfield that Rivian App directed me to. Now the crux of my sad tale, probably not surprising,. The EA charger in Springfield would not initiate charge. A Honda Prelude was charging at one of the 2 "working" chargers, rated for 150 kw but was only getting like maybe 30-50kW of charging. Calling EA revealed that whole station was low on recieving power, and so could not initiate a second car to charge. Literally on the phone with EA Support and the guy said verbatim... youre not going to make it. He was right, my range was just barely below what I would need to make it to next closest EA fast charger or to my house. My wife located a supposed 50 kW charger about 25 minutes away at a Chevy Dealer, I wasnt sure if EA charger would work, or how much longer the Honda Prelude would be, because of how inconsistent and slow it was charging. Mistake #3 was leaving Springfield and going to this next location (Lincoln, IL) as there might have been more options to peruse in Springfield, IL being bigger city.
Arriving in Lincoln to the supposed 50 kW charger at the local dealer, it wont let me initiate anything. Going onto the dealer website vs this "charging station" google maps listing, the 50 kW charger is not yet available to public, but next to it is a 19.6 kW Eaton Charger. I go ahead and plug into it, set up pretty easily. Charges at only 9.1-9.3 kW though, so 22 miles/hr. For reference, at this point Im at like 11% or 30ish miles of range. Exact mileage home at this point is 54 miles. Doing the math, to be safe I need 70-75 miles of charge or 22-23% to get home. There is one other 19.6 kW charger in this town at a Quality Inn and Suites, a "Blink" Charger near more food options for my family to not be sitting outside in a closed Chevy dealer parking lot. its only 4 miles away, so I pack up the family after a quick 40 minute charge that added 12 miles to go here... this while a mistake was necessary as it was 4 pm when I left the dealership, getting dark and approaching dinner time for kiddos. Call this mistake #4.
Major Advise.... never use a blink charger. I havent really experienced recently the internal rage of a clunky app/set up just failing repeatedly to accept my money and use their service. I wasted 30-45 minutes of trying to charge at this hotel only to give up, drop off my family at Culvers and return to the known working charger at the Chevy dealer. I then sat stewing in my car for an hour and 40 minutes getting just enough charge to get home. and I did it, with 76 miles of range, I made it home with 22 miles of range at I think like 7 or 8%.
In total what is normally a 3.5-4ish hour trip with the R1S turned into a 8 hr almost nightmare. Again, like I said at the outset my luck was really bad and I think I had some as I coined it in the title "Range Cockiness" because of the success Ive had doing similar trips. I do much more regular trips to Chicago, and have had very few issues, nothing like this trying to get back and forth from there.
Again sorry for the long, long post. Mostly this is for me to just let go and move on, share my experience, and pray, pray, pray that the NACS adapter shows up soon because there were Tesla Chargers in multiple spots that could have saved me but were unavailable to me for now. Again... on me, I know.
Thanks Rivian Community, Keep On Adventuring!
Rivian bought the company and it integrates well.
I don't do many long trips that require a charger on the way. In fact, only two so far. The first one was easy from Seattle area to Oregon coast. There's a RAN in Aberdeen WA that was perfect. Used it both ways, was free back then. There was an outside plug at the Airbnb, so that was always charging when I wasn't using my R1T. On one of our side trips we found a DCFC at the PUD in Tillamook Oregon. About 70 kwh I think. And also FREE.Feel like I need to just admit this here, but yesterday was a not great day for me. I have had my R1S Dual Motor, Large Pack for just shy of a year now and have had no problems. I will admit there are some things I think could be a little better, but still great car, definitely best car I have ever owned. Also to preface, I am looking for no pity, if you call me an idiot, I agree with you. But yesterday I made literally the wrong choice every chance I got. So please I hope someone can at least laugh at me, and learn my lesson without having to live it. Also realize that this problem has probably happened before but I digress too much.
First, I live in Peoria, IL (essentially for the purposes of this story, you can use Normal, IL home of Rivian factory and it wouldnt change a thing). I left Saturday from my home with about 95% charge to drive to St, Louis, MO to see family for a birthday party. I charged to 76% from 54% (at an EVGo) when I got to STL just so I had enough to get around and not have a longer charge coming home. (This could technically be considered mistake number 1, but lets just call it mistake 0)
Next from there I got to my brothers house with about 62% charge, and we were at his house from 830 PM Saturday, til Sunday 2 PM. I had originally thought he had a 120V outlet outside his garage I could plug into, but was wrong. So no big deal just charge on the road going home (mistake 1.0). Then Sunday morning my brother tells me he actually has a random dryer outlet in his garage and I could use it to charge then, or any time in the future. It was like 12:30 pm at this point and I was like nah, we can charge on the road. (Maybe not important, brother hasnt had house long, about as long as Ive had the Rivian and this was only my second time driving it to St. Louis and his house). Mistake lets call it 1.5. Not charging at all, at my brothers house.
Next we leave, with 62% still, from my brothers house to head from St Louis to home. Rivian App says to drive from brothers house for 2 hrs and 30 mins or so to Springfield, IL where there is an Electrify America with 4 chargers. Used this location before, newer EA and pull through spots, not been busy in my experience. Mistake # 2, not checking EA app for condition of chargers, I dont know what it would have shown, at arrival 2 chargers were down and 2 were "available".
So we drive (me, my wife, my 3 yr old, my 4 month old) to Springfield, smooth trip no issues, arrived with like I think 25% . We pass multiple chargers in STL that we could have stopped at, would have been annoying because hopefully its obvious, we were trying to minimize stops for the 4 month old. Its a charging desert between St. Louis and Normal/Peoria with the only 150kW charger or faster being the EA in Springfield that Rivian App directed me to. Now the crux of my sad tale, probably not surprising,. The EA charger in Springfield would not initiate charge. A Honda Prelude was charging at one of the 2 "working" chargers, rated for 150 kw but was only getting like maybe 30-50kW of charging. Calling EA revealed that whole station was low on recieving power, and so could not initiate a second car to charge. Literally on the phone with EA Support and the guy said verbatim... youre not going to make it. He was right, my range was just barely below what I would need to make it to next closest EA fast charger or to my house. My wife located a supposed 50 kW charger about 25 minutes away at a Chevy Dealer, I wasnt sure if EA charger would work, or how much longer the Honda Prelude would be, because of how inconsistent and slow it was charging. Mistake #3 was leaving Springfield and going to this next location (Lincoln, IL) as there might have been more options to peruse in Springfield, IL being bigger city.
Arriving in Lincoln to the supposed 50 kW charger at the local dealer, it wont let me initiate anything. Going onto the dealer website vs this "charging station" google maps listing, the 50 kW charger is not yet available to public, but next to it is a 19.6 kW Eaton Charger. I go ahead and plug into it, set up pretty easily. Charges at only 9.1-9.3 kW though, so 22 miles/hr. For reference, at this point Im at like 11% or 30ish miles of range. Exact mileage home at this point is 54 miles. Doing the math, to be safe I need 70-75 miles of charge or 22-23% to get home. There is one other 19.6 kW charger in this town at a Quality Inn and Suites, a "Blink" Charger near more food options for my family to not be sitting outside in a closed Chevy dealer parking lot. its only 4 miles away, so I pack up the family after a quick 40 minute charge that added 12 miles to go here... this while a mistake was necessary as it was 4 pm when I left the dealership, getting dark and approaching dinner time for kiddos. Call this mistake #4.
Major Advise.... never use a blink charger. I havent really experienced recently the internal rage of a clunky app/set up just failing repeatedly to accept my money and use their service. I wasted 30-45 minutes of trying to charge at this hotel only to give up, drop off my family at Culvers and return to the known working charger at the Chevy dealer. I then sat stewing in my car for an hour and 40 minutes getting just enough charge to get home. and I did it, with 76 miles of range, I made it home with 22 miles of range at I think like 7 or 8%.
In total what is normally a 3.5-4ish hour trip with the R1S turned into a 8 hr almost nightmare. Again, like I said at the outset my luck was really bad and I think I had some as I coined it in the title "Range Cockiness" because of the success Ive had doing similar trips. I do much more regular trips to Chicago, and have had very few issues, nothing like this trying to get back and forth from there.
Again sorry for the long, long post. Mostly this is for me to just let go and move on, share my experience, and pray, pray, pray that the NACS adapter shows up soon because there were Tesla Chargers in multiple spots that could have saved me but were unavailable to me for now. Again... on me, I know.
Thanks Rivian Community, Keep On Adventuring!
My husband had a similar thing happen last week with his Jaguar I Pace. He knew when he started out that his range was going to be a bit tighter than usual, but thought he could make it. He was wrong. He encountered several chargers he knew of (and had used in STL in the past) that were not working. He ended up charging at the EA chargers at Walmart in Collinsville, IL (IL 157 and IL 55/70) before continuing his late night drive home to Troy. I would also let you know that we now have at least 6 chargers in Troy, IL (IL 162 and IL 55/70). There are 2 at the Holiday Inn (just west of 55/70), 2 at the Circle K gas station (a few blocks past the 2nd stoplight east of 55/70) and 2 at the Caseys (3rd stoplight east of 55/70). During the day, the Casey's might be you best option with a family as there is a park nearby. Additional chargers are being installed at the Pilot truck stop, but those have not been activated yet. I believe all these chargers are listed on Plugshare. We understand your range anxiety. We've had EVs since 2013 and have used random streetlights to connect our trickle chargers on many occasions. Things have greatly improved since then. We have an adapter for using Tesla chargers with our Jaguar, but unfortunately, most Tesla chargers are still not working for us. We're looking forward to having my RiT delivered sometime this month. Driving an EV still takes some planning and being prepared for alternative charging plans, but things are improving each day and electric is the wave of the future.Feel like I need to just admit this here, but yesterday was a not great day for me. I have had my R1S Dual Motor, Large Pack for just shy of a year now and have had no problems. I will admit there are some things I think could be a little better, but still great car, definitely best car I have ever owned. Also to preface, I am looking for no pity, if you call me an idiot, I agree with you. But yesterday I made literally the wrong choice every chance I got. So please I hope someone can at least laugh at me, and learn my lesson without having to live it. Also realize that this problem has probably happened before but I digress too much.
First, I live in Peoria, IL (essentially for the purposes of this story, you can use Normal, IL home of Rivian factory and it wouldnt change a thing). I left Saturday from my home with about 95% charge to drive to St, Louis, MO to see family for a birthday party. I charged to 76% from 54% (at an EVGo) when I got to STL just so I had enough to get around and not have a longer charge coming home. (This could technically be considered mistake number 1, but lets just call it mistake 0)
Next from there I got to my brothers house with about 62% charge, and we were at his house from 830 PM Saturday, til Sunday 2 PM. I had originally thought he had a 120V outlet outside his garage I could plug into, but was wrong. So no big deal just charge on the road going home (mistake 1.0). Then Sunday morning my brother tells me he actually has a random dryer outlet in his garage and I could use it to charge then, or any time in the future. It was like 12:30 pm at this point and I was like nah, we can charge on the road. (Maybe not important, brother hasnt had house long, about as long as Ive had the Rivian and this was only my second time driving it to St. Louis and his house). Mistake lets call it 1.5. Not charging at all, at my brothers house.
Next we leave, with 62% still, from my brothers house to head from St Louis to home. Rivian App says to drive from brothers house for 2 hrs and 30 mins or so to Springfield, IL where there is an Electrify America with 4 chargers. Used this location before, newer EA and pull through spots, not been busy in my experience. Mistake # 2, not checking EA app for condition of chargers, I dont know what it would have shown, at arrival 2 chargers were down and 2 were "available".
So we drive (me, my wife, my 3 yr old, my 4 month old) to Springfield, smooth trip no issues, arrived with like I think 25% . We pass multiple chargers in STL that we could have stopped at, would have been annoying because hopefully its obvious, we were trying to minimize stops for the 4 month old. Its a charging desert between St. Louis and Normal/Peoria with the only 150kW charger or faster being the EA in Springfield that Rivian App directed me to. Now the crux of my sad tale, probably not surprising,. The EA charger in Springfield would not initiate charge. A Honda Prelude was charging at one of the 2 "working" chargers, rated for 150 kw but was only getting like maybe 30-50kW of charging. Calling EA revealed that whole station was low on recieving power, and so could not initiate a second car to charge. Literally on the phone with EA Support and the guy said verbatim... youre not going to make it. He was right, my range was just barely below what I would need to make it to next closest EA fast charger or to my house. My wife located a supposed 50 kW charger about 25 minutes away at a Chevy Dealer, I wasnt sure if EA charger would work, or how much longer the Honda Prelude would be, because of how inconsistent and slow it was charging. Mistake #3 was leaving Springfield and going to this next location (Lincoln, IL) as there might have been more options to peruse in Springfield, IL being bigger city.
Arriving in Lincoln to the supposed 50 kW charger at the local dealer, it wont let me initiate anything. Going onto the dealer website vs this "charging station" google maps listing, the 50 kW charger is not yet available to public, but next to it is a 19.6 kW Eaton Charger. I go ahead and plug into it, set up pretty easily. Charges at only 9.1-9.3 kW though, so 22 miles/hr. For reference, at this point Im at like 11% or 30ish miles of range. Exact mileage home at this point is 54 miles. Doing the math, to be safe I need 70-75 miles of charge or 22-23% to get home. There is one other 19.6 kW charger in this town at a Quality Inn and Suites, a "Blink" Charger near more food options for my family to not be sitting outside in a closed Chevy dealer parking lot. its only 4 miles away, so I pack up the family after a quick 40 minute charge that added 12 miles to go here... this while a mistake was necessary as it was 4 pm when I left the dealership, getting dark and approaching dinner time for kiddos. Call this mistake #4.
Major Advise.... never use a blink charger. I havent really experienced recently the internal rage of a clunky app/set up just failing repeatedly to accept my money and use their service. I wasted 30-45 minutes of trying to charge at this hotel only to give up, drop off my family at Culvers and return to the known working charger at the Chevy dealer. I then sat stewing in my car for an hour and 40 minutes getting just enough charge to get home. and I did it, with 76 miles of range, I made it home with 22 miles of range at I think like 7 or 8%.
In total what is normally a 3.5-4ish hour trip with the R1S turned into a 8 hr almost nightmare. Again, like I said at the outset my luck was really bad and I think I had some as I coined it in the title "Range Cockiness" because of the success Ive had doing similar trips. I do much more regular trips to Chicago, and have had very few issues, nothing like this trying to get back and forth from there.
Again sorry for the long, long post. Mostly this is for me to just let go and move on, share my experience, and pray, pray, pray that the NACS adapter shows up soon because there were Tesla Chargers in multiple spots that could have saved me but were unavailable to me for now. Again... on me, I know.
Thanks Rivian Community, Keep On Adventuring!
The biggest takeaway here is that Blink is a steaming pile of hot garbage. I have never once been able to initiate a charge from one of their chargers despite many attempts.
Glad to hear I'm not crazy or alone here
My experience as well...There's a Blink L2 charger at the service area on the PA Turnpike Westbound at King of Prussia. We pulled in for Starbucks and a bathroom break with our destination (home) SOC at 10% so I figured I'd just plug in for 15-20 minutes to bump that a bit. 20 minutes later the stupid charger was locked with a connection issue and I didn't get a single watt out of it. We were fine, but there's a reason I don't have Blink selected as an available network in any of my apps.
At the Chevy/Buick Dealer? The charger was an "InCharge" I believe. It didnt have a way I saw to activate an account,etc although that could have been user error. Just trying to tap to pay got an error on the screen that said "not authorized" and like I said I gave up after the listing on their actual website said unavailable to public. If its worked for others... just add another mistake to my comedy of a day.
