My 10,000+ Mile Road Trip In My Rivian R1S (North Carolina to Alaska Round Trip)

[ryanw]

Earlier this month I completed an almost 11,000 mile trip with my Rivian R1S (10,700'ish miles in total). I took my R1S from North Carolina, to Alaska, and back over a 25 day period. it was a truly epic trip and the Rivian performed very well. The trip, however, was not without its challenges. Most of the challenges were due to the remoteness of everything but they were all overcome and I successfully completed the trip on 8/9/24 (I left on 7/16/24).

I am the founder of a transportation company in North Carolina and the Rivian R1S is one of the vehicles in its fleet. It was probably the first Rivian used commercially in North Carolina. I have recently been reading so many stories online about various road trips of varying success so I decided to give it a go myself. I went big and decided to drive all the way to Alaska and back. This was without having the Tesla adapter too. I created a blog post about it online here:

Epic EV Road Trip (part 1 of 5) – Van in Black

It is a lot of info to cover so I broke it up over 5 posts. You can read more about it there if you want and I am also happy to answer any questions that anyone has about the trip. I figure that the questions folks would have on here would be very specific since most everyone owns a Rivian.

The big takeaways that I had from this trip were:

1) Wyoming needs more charging stations.
2) Anything can be done if you plan it properly...Don't let an EV stop you from taking that long road-trip!

It was actually a lot of fun planning this trip and it kind of reminded me of the days before GPS's when you had to actually plan out long road-trips.

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[ndmiller]

Sounds like an epic trip! 25 days away from work sound even better.

 

[COdogman]

Wow! That sounds amazing!

And yes, WY needs more charging for sure. It has a RAN station in Cheyenne but not much else to speak of. It's a shame too because there are so many great spots to visit in WY.

 

[ryanw]

Sounds like an epic trip! 25 days away from work sound even better.

Unfortunately it wasn't completely away from work. It was a nice getaway but I packed a Starlink and was able to stay connected and receive phone calls the entire trip. 25 days was a little too long to be completely disconnected.

 

[iansriv]

Earlier this month I completed an almost 11,000 mile trip with my Rivian R1S (10,700'ish miles in total). I took my R1S from North Carolina, to Alaska, and back over a 25 day period. it was a truly epic trip and the Rivian performed very well. The trip, however, was not without its challenges. Most of the challenges were due to the remoteness of everything but they were all overcome and I successfully completed the trip on 8/9/24 (I left on 7/16/24).


I am the founder of a transportation company in North Carolina and the Rivian R1S is one of the vehicles in its fleet. It was probably the first Rivian used commercially in North Carolina. I have recently been reading so many stories online about various road trips of varying success so I decided to give it a go myself. I went big and decided to drive all the way to Alaska and back. This was without having the Tesla adapter too. I created a blog post about it online here:

Epic EV Road Trip (part 1 of 5) – Van in Black

It is a lot of info to cover so I broke it up over 5 posts. You can read more about it there if you want and I am also happy to answer any questions that anyone has about the trip. I figure that the questions folks would have on here would be very specific since most everyone owns a Rivian.

The big takeaways that I had from this trip were:

1) Wyoming needs more charging stations.
2) Anything can be done if you plan it properly...Don't let an EV stop you from taking that long road-trip!

It was actually a lot of fun planning this trip and it kind of reminded me of the days before GPS's when you had to actually plan out long road-trips.

Fantastic! I'm not aware of anyone doing a trip this long. Wow! Good on you mate!

 

[moosetags]

We made that round trip pulling the Airstream with our Silverado Duramax in 2019. We had some trouble finding Diesel. I can't imagine what it must have been like trying to find adequate chargers.

Brian

 

[Whale Blubber]

The Illiad and the Odyssey, modern EV style!

 

[BeanEW]

Great trip, which I always wanted to do but afraid there aren't enough charging stations up in Canada and Alaska!!! May I ask how far did you go into Alaska? And what charging network you used?

 

[ryanw]

Great trip, which I always wanted to do but afraid there aren't enough charging stations up in Canada and Alaska!!! May I ask how far did you go into Alaska? And what charging network you used?

Canada was full of charging stations except for a section in Northern British Columbia. But there were plenty of places to charge and I went all over the place in Alaska and Canada including one section of Canada that was a 350 mile dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Alaska was a lot thinner but I was able to work it out. While in Alaska I went to Anchorage, Seward, Talkeenta, and Homer. I get into a lot of the details on my blog post so check that out as there was some challenges.

 

[BeanEW]

Canada was full of charging stations except for a section in Northern British Columbia. But there were plenty of places to charge and I went all over the place in Alaska and Canada including one section of Canada that was a 350 mile dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Alaska was a lot thinner but I was able to work it out. While in Alaska I went to Anchorage, Seward, Talkeenta, and Homer. I get into a lot of the details on my blog post so check that out as there was some challenges.

Thank you so much! Now, I have to plan my driving trip to Alaska.

 

[CharonPDX]

Fantastic! I'm not aware of anyone doing a trip this long. Wow! Good on you mate!

Yep, has my trip beat by more than double! And a much rougher route!

 

[iansriv]

The Illiad and the Odyssey, modern EV style!

As soon as I read Homer Alaska I was thinking the same thing.

 

[KRo]

I’ve toyed with this idea for some time, but haven’t had the ‘gap’ available in my schedule to do so! I was born and raised in Anchorage, now live in Portland. OR… so my trip wouldn’t be the epic 10K+ journey you made… but I’ll definitely read your blog, specifically on the journey to tackle the ‘BC GAP’ for charging!

Thank you for all of this, looking forward to reading and enjoying!

 

[mwexler2]

It’s getting a lot better even in the past three of months. I was planning a trip to Alaska from California’s 3 months ago ABRP wouldn’t even plot a path from Prince George to Fairbanks. You had to find campgrounds with 220v chargers in a few places. Now you can go the whole way with 50kw+ chargers. Sure if you are used to 200kw+ chargers it will require some patience but it’s a vacation, not formula 1.

 

[W1SE]

I just told my wife this week I wanted to plan a trip to Alaska with the R1S. What battery pack do you have. Our R1S has the max pack so I think that would lend to the extra few miles needed in some gaps.

great Job!!! I am more encouraged now

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