Using ABRP and PlugShare

[Yossarian]

Let me note up front that my R1T is my first EV, so I'm a novice at EV trip planning. Thankfully, the trip I'm doing the advance planning for is not until late winter, so there's plenty of time for me to get up to speed. That said, I've spent more than few hours already and am getting increasingly frustrated with ABRP and PlugShare. Hopefully, it's just because I'm a new user, and even more hopefully, folks in this knowlegable online community can straighten me out.

This is fairly long trip, from the Philadelphia area to SLC and back, leaving in late February and returning in mid March. The distance is about 2,400 miles each way, so I broke it up into four legs of roughly 600 or so miles each, trying to finish the day at a hotel with EV charging. Since I have those planned overnights, doing the planning in legs seemed easier than doing it as one long trip. Is that truly the case

While I selected 2 charging stalls as the minimum for stops, ABRP seems to ignore this and continues to suggest single stall locations, often at car dealerships. This seems a pretty foolish strategy, particularly if there are no other charging locations close by - which is preciesly the case for one of the ABRP suggested stops. Is there any way to remedy this? In addition, at least a couple of the suggested locations are Enel/JuiceBox chargers which I suspect will not even be functional by 2025. I would like to be able to manually select a specific charging location along the route but can't seem to find a way to do this.

PlugShare presents other challenges. One is that it often suggests Tesla chargers not open to non-Tesla EV's. I have only Tesla Superchargers selected, and Plugshare knows that the vehicle its planning for is a Rivian. I can't seem to find a way to this off. PlugShare also often suggests charging stops that are at hotels which I think could be problematic; my understanding is that many hotels do not allow non-guests to use their chargers.

Since this is a winter trip, I would think that battery pre-conditioning in the cold weather is pretty important. While the Rivian Nav system automatically handles the pre-conditioning, it won't do so for the stops I planned on ABRP. Don't I need to somehow get the ABRP-planned route into the Rivian Nav system and if so, is there a way to do this?

Any help and suggestions are appreciated.

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[emoore]

Are you traveling on major highways? If so there is no need to do detailed planning. There are a lot of chargers out there. I usually plan out my rout on google maps and manually note which chargers I want to stop at. I don’t trust any of those apps for a complete road trip.

 

[Dave Cundiff]

I don't use PlugShare to select my "one and only" charger for any leg.

I use PlugShare to forecast which chargers are close to my route, have high reliability scores, and reasonable costs; and also, when choosing a most likely charger, to know what I'll do if the most likely charger doesn't work.

I don't think PlugShare will tell us which Tesla chargers need an adapter and which don't. That seems to be a design problem in the PlugShare database.

When pre-conditioning is needed, I accept the charger suggested by the Nav for pre-conditioning purposes, then navigate to the charger I actually want. That works at least sort of well, so far....

Very best wishes, @Yossarian!

 

[bigsky]

ABRP and Plugshare seem like the harder way to do trip planning. I typically may start with Google maps to get an idea of how long the trip is, but I always end up using the in-vehicle navigation for final planning, which does give you the great advantage of battery preconditioning as it selects what chargers you may need. On my Rivian, I may select mostly Tesla chargers. You can never go wrong with Tesla chargers. They will be there and working (and there may be plenty of dispensers available) when you get there.
I myself, having driven Teslas for a few years already, am 100% biased towar the Tesla Supercharger network because it is second to none in all aspects. And it may be cheaper than other charging networks for the most part.
For starters, go to the Tesla supercharger map at Find Us | Tesla
Select "Superchargers Open to Other EVs" and "Superchargers Open to NACS", grey out everything else. The former are the Tesla superchargers that have the NACS adapter built-in (it is called the Magic Dock). Pull up to it, grab the adapter, plug in. The latter are all the Tesla chargers available to Rivian, but you will need the NACS adapter (the Tesla-plug-to-CCS adapter such as this one: TYPHOON PRO | NACS DC CHARGERS to CCS1 Adapter | 500A | 1000V | DC | 1 – A2Z EV (a2zevshop.com) . It works great.
I purchased one knowing that it may take a long while to get my freebie from Rivian.
Install the Tesla app if you have not done so already, add you Rivian. The Tesla app too will tell you if you need an adapter when selecting a supercharger, and you can find them on the app as well.
There are many between PHL and SLC. It will make trip planning extremely easier, but be aware that you may have to stick to main highways/interstates, which is were the vast majority of Tesla chargers are located. EA , EVgo, ChargePoint and the others (install their apps, too. It is a very good idea to do so), I use as last resource backups.
Charging overall is getting better and better, with more and more of them popping up everywhere.
Good luck.

 

[Type_R]

You can send or share your trip information from ABRP or Google maps to the Rivian navigation. So, it can account for the charging locations and precondition prior to arrival. I use all of those methods to help plan my long trips. Even, while I’m on the road, I’m interactively updating where I plan to charge. There’s no foolproof method, and it’s a learning experience, but I made it work. Just requires more planning and input than driving an ICE vehicle. But, I prefer the trade offs over ICE vehicles, now that I’ve had the opportunity to drive a few trips. ?
I wished, there was a one and done solution. Maybe, it’ll get there in the future as we progress.

 

[blcklab666]

Are you traveling on major highways? If so there is no need to do detailed planning. There are a lot of chargers out there. I usually plan out my rout on google maps and manually note which chargers I want to stop at. I don’t trust any of those apps for a complete road trip.

How do you push it to precondition? Route to the charger?

 

[emoore]

How do you push it to precondition? Route to the charger?

Yep. I choose the charger on the Rivian nav and it starts preconditioning 30-45 min before.

 

[SoCal72]

Hi,
Is the on board navigation system and its recommended stops not accurate? Im curious why one needs other apps? Thanks

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