All electric household?

[Marchin_MTB]

I'll add that with ICE, we had to stop around the same time we would have needed to charge for potty breaks. We just didn't realize we were living the EV lifestyle already. Now we just combine the stops.

Great point. I just need to convince my wife this is the case! She compares the Google maps estimate with ABRP and concludes that the latter is much longer.

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[Zeus]

This is a question worth the consideration that you are clearly devoting to it. We traded in a CRV (sold it back to CarMax, the trade in was way better than Rivian btw) for an R1T. Our other car is an i3 with a range extender that really is not suitable for long trips, especially with young kids. As it turns out, I have also been thinking about this exact question. During the recent Southwest holiday meltdown we considered making the trip from northern Colorado to Texas in the Rivian with our two kids (5 and 9). My wife eventually got cold feet as she was worried about extending an already long drive with charging stops which, as we all know, can be hit or miss. What ensued was, shall we say, a spirited marital discussion on the pros and cons of being an all electric family with me being firmly in the pro camp. However, I completely see her point of view and I certainly don’t want to strand us between Trinidad and Amarillo either. Other than that, the EVs currently meet all our needs and offer many benefits over ICE. I’ll try to walk my wife off the ledge on replacing the i3 with an ICE. There are many plug-in hybrid options with an all electric range that would cover your commute and perhaps that will be our compromise .

Questions I would ask yourself:
do you both have patience to put up with some charging inconvenience on an occasional long trip while with the little ones?
Do you take many long (>1000 mi) road trips? There are some excellent reports on YouTube and on this forum of families road-tripping with their Rivian.

The other consideration is is your household power budget. I have a short commute, not unlike yours, but even with that the average consumption from the R1T is somewhere between 9-13 kWh/day. Turns out that a recent significant re-model and upgrades made cuts of about 15kWh/day equivalent so we ended up in the black! Nice thing is we won’t have to resize our upcoming solar array install. Sorry for the rambling reply and good luck on the decision!

Thanks for the very thoughtful and thorough response (no rambling detected).

We do occasionally (every other year) take 1600 mile roadtrip (we plan long breaks/stops to see places and visit with friends). Also, I need to check our patience-meter again. Last I checked, we should be fine, but you never know .

 

[MAR1T]

We’ve been all EV since May - R1T and a model 3. 99% of the time it’s better than having an ICE. But occasionally there’s a pain point.
The primary issue is road trips:
- There’s more planning involved. Depending on your personality that may or may not be an issue
- we tend to constrain where we stay based on charger access. We just took ski trip to NH which has really poor DCFC availability. We picked a more expensive Airbnb with a charging station.
- you have to be flexible/patient. Charging is fast enough, but if there’s a line to use the charger then it’s going to slow you down. If you’re the type that like to “make good time” on road trips, this is not for you.

Overall for me, it’s a win and I’m not going back.

 

[Zeus]

We’ve been all EV since May - R1T and a model 3. 99% of the time it’s better than having an ICE. But occasionally there’s a pain point.
The primary issue is road trips:
- There’s more planning involved. Depending on your personality that may or may not be an issue
- we tend to constrain where we stay based on charger access. We just took ski trip to NH which has really poor DCFC availability. We picked a more expensive Airbnb with a charging station.
- you have to be flexible/patient. Charging is fast enough, but if there’s a line to use the charger then it’s going to slow you down. If you’re the type that like to “make good time” on road trips, this is not for you.

Overall for me, it’s a win and I’m not going back.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Definitely something to think about. I am pretty flexible and like to consider myself as being patient, but it's hard to tell how you'll react if stranded, or if the chargers are down, or even if there's a queue (with kids in tow). Definitely things to consider for the occasional roadtrips.

 

[ohseedee]

I’m not 100% electric yet but that’s the plan within the next year for our household with young kids. I mapped out some farther places we’ve gone in ICE cars over past couple years in ABRP and realized with the R1T range I’d only have used pubic charges once or twice. In total, we will save a lot of time not having to go to gas stations. While I’ve never done a "road trip" in an EV I’m actually looking forward to it and have mapped out some destinations in ABRP and seems pretty easy.

 

[staytuned]

Power outage is one of the things that scares me

In my neck of the woods, when the power goes out, the gas stations are out of commission too. EV is a step up, in that we still have solar and a petrol generator.

Now, one of the vehicles I parted with in exchange for a Rivian, was a Mercedes turbodiesel with a WVO conversion… is electric there yet? Nahh. I should have kept that 1000-mile range beast

 

[BronxBomber]

100% EV household as well. Went from a 2019 Model S to a Porsche Taycan 4S and convinced my fiancée to take the leap. She refused to buy a Model Y, so we (she) landed on a white Premium Ford Mustang Mach E with the whiteout (?) package.

We’re in LA, so decent charging network. Honestly, the farthest we tend to drive is Sam Diego (~160 miles) and otherwise rarely have to use external charging networks. Solar and Level 2 charger installed at home. We both work remote 95% of the time, so don’t have the need to install a second. The 16’ cord is plenty long to reach both cars without us having to swap spots.

My Taycan is getting traded once my R1T makes it in or I find one meeting specs on the used market.

 

[C.R. Rivian]

Longtime lurker (1.5 years), first post. Would really appreciate any advice from more experienced folks.
Missed the pre-March prices, sulked for about a month and finally placed an order for the R1S in April 2022 (that's how much I believe in Rivian) knowing it'll be a long wait. Wife placed an order for vw id4 in August, and because we live a few hours from Chattanooga, picked her car up in October (2023 id4). I currently drive a Honda accord (but can't seem to not drive the ev. It's so exciting).

After the new delivery window update, I was moved from Jan-Dec 2024 to May-June 2023 (sorry about folks whose delivery window was pushed back. I can imagine the pain. Not gloating, as this is not the intention of this post). In all honesty, I am conditioning my mind for a delivery window of Sept-Dec, because, this is Rivian. I'll rather be surprised than disappointed.

I am thinking about trading in or selling the accord (2018) since I don't see myself driving it after the Rivian arrives. Also, the kids are young (3 years old and a 4 month old).

Here are my questions;

1. Is it possible and advisable to go all in and become a full ev household? (No cold feet about the rivian, as I plan on taking delivery and enjoying the heck out of it). The conventional wisdom is to keep one ice car.

2. How convenient would this option of an all ev household be?

3. Anything I should consider that I might be overlooking due to my excitement over evs?

We hardly take roadtrips, and we have a level 2 evse installed at home. I live only about 10 miles from work and my wife has a 100 mile round trip to work daily.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Cheers.

P.S. the accord has been fully paid off, so no loans there to worry about.

We are all electric. Kia Niro EV, 2019 and R1T, home level 2 charger. Besides not stopping at gas stations, you will appreciate no oil changes...not to mention the quiet and performance. The Niro was inexpensive, modest in size, zippy, and is dearly loved by my wife...she's just not a truck person. Talking Cars 395: Driving the 2023 Kia Niro EV - Consumer Reports is an interesting take on the latest version.

 

[Zorg]

All EV for the last 4 years. No desire to go back. Being in Norcal, we have access to a fairly robust charging infrastructure. We have done a few 1000 miles trips around CA, and regularly do the 200 mile trek up to the Sierra. All our trips have been done with a Tesla. We will see how it goes with the R1T.

 

[rivian1800]

Full electric here. R1T and Nissan Leaf ‘18. No regrets on the decision. More than that, in May I will have a Canadian trip with my grandson and, hopefully to reach 30k miles

 

[elfordon]

We will be all-electric if our max pack ever gets here.

But then we will be 100% electric at the House of Elfordon, probably more so than most of you. Our passive solar house is all electric (no natural gas or propane on the premises) with solar panels on the roof. (double solar > double rainbows )

Been driving a Chevy Bolt for 5 years now. Took it on a few long trips (in warmer weather of course).

 

[brancky3]

I'll add that with ICE, we had to stop around the same time we would have needed to charge for potty breaks. We just didn't realize we were living the EV lifestyle already. Now we just combine the stops.

This is what I tell everyone that asks me. We typically stop every 2 hours or so (ICE or EV, doesn't matter) to use the bathroom, get a snack, get drinks, etc. Factor in a 5 minute gas pump and we're at about 12 minutes for any given stop. What's the big deal adding 8 minutes onto that to charge? We're going to stop anyway, now we just have to stop at a Walmart instead of a Pilot / Flying J / TA station.

 

[manitou202]

We have been all EV for 4 years. 2.5 years with non-Tesla EVs. We live in Colorado which has some of the best CCS charging infrastructure which makes it really easy to travel throughout the state. On average we take a road trip to Phoenix, which is about 850 miles each way, once every other year. We did the Phoenix trip in our Model X four years ago and then in our Audi E-tron SUV two years ago. We are about to do it again in either the R1T or our Mercedes EQS SUV over spring break.

Personally I've never had an issue fast charging in public, but most of our public charging is around Colorado. Having two Level 2 chargers at home makes day to day charging completely seamless. When my 14 year old turn 16 in two years we plan on buying him a used Bolt/Leaf or similar as his car to stay 100% EV.

I will admit I'm regularly tempted by non-EVs, but not because they have ICE. For example before taking delivery of our R1T I test drove a Defender 110 and was really tempted to order a Defender 130. We wanted the 3 rows and I love the look of the Defender and they way it drove. But we are determined to stay EV only from now on outside of potentially buying a classic sports car at some point in the future. Maybe an old Porsche 911 if prices ever come back to reality.

 

[Big_Ike]

We've been all EV for several years now. My favorite part about it is that my teenaged daughters never visit gas stations - from a safety perspective.

Road trips to California take about an hour longer than they did in our ICE vehicles, but that's because I've become super leisurely when we stop - let's get a date shake!!!

Otherwise, it's really been fantastic.

 

[skunn]

we are all EV. Model 3 and R1T. Its great, haven't had any issues or concerns, and we haven't looked back!

Picked up a Clipper Creek dual cable charger to do load splitting of the charging circuit so both cars can charge L2 in the evening, and that has been clutch. Rivian starts charging as soon as off-peak electricity rate starts, usually has a couple of hours at full power draw, then the Tesla starts later in the evening with a "ready by" time. When both cars are charging its an even 50:50 draw. When I leave for work, the Tesla then gets full power to finish off. It does require some active thinking if both cars are fully depleted and you want to charge up to high SOC, but to 70% we've never had a problem.

We have solar, and powerwalls for our (slow) backup plan. Also in a fast-charger heavy area.

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