Report: first use of Rivian Adventure Network Charger RAN + (major 350 kw EA issue) & 20" vs 21" wheels efficiency comparison.

[kizamybute']

NOTES on first use of a Rivian charger, an issue with an 350 kw Electrify America charger "again" and a general comparison of the same general trip on 20" all-terrains versus 21" stock wheels / tires.

Completed a trip to Vegas this week. Typically, I aim for the Electrify America chargers, especially right now since they have been offering free charging for the past few weeks.

Today, entered my home as the destination and it kept pointing me to this charger I hadn't heard of and it wasn't an Electrify America charger, so I kept manually searching for the EA charger and entering that destination in. For whatever reason, as I neared Barstow, decided to see where Navigation would take me if I reset the destination and that's when I happed to just barely catch it was routing me to a Rivian Adventure Network Charger. Of course, I had to try that one. My first such experience. Thank you Rivian, reminded me of my Tesla days. Was SO EASY. Just plugged in and away it went. Got up to 196 kw delivered early on. After 30 minutes of charging, it was down to 105 kw after having added 160+ miles of range.

Was cool to see the Rivian app send out notifications when I hit 50 miles of range and another at 30 miles of range to warn of low battery and very low battery.

With this, the Rivian easily is the preferred EV for travel, especially when compared to the Tesla. This thing just performs amazing at 80 MPH. Doesn't make logical sense that 7,000 lb brick at 80 MPH is this efficient. I hope Rivian is on the fast track to getting more of these chargers in.

When I arrived in Vegas, had another fairly major issue after using an EA 350 kw charger. It charged up to 210 kw, but then stopped at 75%. Tried to restart it 4-5 times and it charged for a minute then stopped again. Finally gave up and left, only to discover the truck had no power. Looked down and I had notifications of a system fault and battery fault. Was paranoid about what to do. It drastically reduced power output. I called Rivian and they instructed me to simply shut down the vehicle for 30 minutes (let it rest) and start it up again. I went to check in and just the 10 minute stop to check in did the trick. Came out and the truck was back to normal. Was a bit unnerving though. Second time I've had issues using 350 kw EA chargers. Others have reported similar issues. Appears it heats the battery up too much too fast and the truck doesn't like it. Might be better off sticking to the 150 kw chargers until they figure this out.

No such issues with the Rivian network charger. Worked as simply as well as a Tesla Supercharger and was very happy to have had the opportunity to use it. Here's hoping they build up their network quickly. We see how well Tesla's do in the market place. If Rivian has similar capability, it should be a great selling point.

For my first time ever, as the Tesla would never make it that far, I actually completed my trip from Northern Los Angeles to my western / southern location in Vegas via a NON-STOP trip. Never remotely came close to being able to do that in any Tesla I've owned or driven.....

Home to Vegas

Rivian Adventure Network charger in Barstow!

Shortly after plugging in @ Rivian Charger...

After 30 minutes @ Rivian Charger

As a final side note. I made a similar trip to Vegas a few weeks ago on 20" All-Terrain Tires and got 1.98 mi per kWh. This time, 1 MPH faster, on stock 21" road wheels / tires, except with 5mm wheel spacers and no aero covers and got 2.27 miles per kWh. Was the difference of being able to make it to Vegas non-stop or not. While the Average speed was only 66 MPH, for much of the trip I was closer to 80 MPH on the freeway portions of the trip.

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[Guy]

Great review and the efficiency gap you saw tracks with other data of an approximate 12% difference between the 20 AT and 21 AS set ups.

 

[MoreTrout]

I haven't had a negative EA experience yet after using them several times now. The 200+ peak I get on the 350 kw chargers rarely lasts more than a minute or two before settling back to around 170-185. Interestingly, I recently stopped at one that only had 150 kw stations, and was surprised to see it ramp up to around 175 kw for the majority of the charge. The next stop had a 350 kw station I have used successfully a couple of times, but would only give me 35 on either cable. So I plugged into the adjacent 150 kw station and same thing, it went up to 160 - 170 kw. So in reality, the charging times for either the 150 kw or the 350 kw stations were essentially the same.

 

[EzMev]

What are 5mm spacers?

“expect with 5mm spacers”

 

[jebinc]

NOTES on first use of a Rivian charger, an issue with an 350 kw Electrify America charger "again" and a general comparison of the same general trip on 20" all-terrains versus 21" stock wheels / tires.

Completed a trip to Vegas this week. Typically, I aim for the Electrify America chargers, especially right now since they have been offering free charging for the past few weeks.

Today, entered my home as the destination and it kept pointing me to this charger I hadn't heard of and it wasn't an Electrify America charger, so I kept manually searching for the EA charger and entering that destination in. For whatever reason, as I neared Barstow, decided to see where Navigation would take me if I reset the destination and that's when I happed to just barely catch it was routing me to a Rivian Adventure Network Charger. Of course, I had to try that one. My first such experience. Thank you Rivian, reminded me of my Tesla days. Was SO EASY. Just plugged in and away it went. Got up to 196 kw delivered early on. After 30 minutes of charging, it was down to 105 kw after having added 160+ miles of range.

Was cool to see the Rivian app send out notifications when I hit 50 miles of range and another at 30 miles of range to warn of low battery and very low battery.

With this, the Rivian easily is the preferred EV for travel, especially when compared to the Tesla. This thing just performs amazing at 80 MPH. Doesn't make logical sense that 7,000 lb brick at 80 MPH is this efficient. I hope Rivian is on the fast track to getting more of these chargers in.

When I arrived in Vegas, had another fairly major issue after using an EA 350 kw charger. It charged up to 210 kw, but then stopped at 75%. Tried to restart it 4-5 times and it charged for a minute then stopped again. Finally gave up and left, only to discover the truck had no power. Looked down and I had notifications of a system fault and battery fault. Was paranoid about what to do. It drastically reduced power output. I called Rivian and they instructed me to simply shut down the vehicle for 30 minutes (let it rest) and start it up again. I went to check in and just the 10 minute stop to check in did the trick. Came out and the truck was back to normal. Was a bit unnerving though. Second time I've had issues using 350 kw EA chargers. Others have reported similar issues. Appears it heats the battery up too much too fast and the truck doesn't like it. Might be better off sticking to the 150 kw chargers until they figure this out.

No such issues with the Rivian network charger. Worked as simply as well as a Tesla Supercharger and was very happy to have had the opportunity to use it. Here's hoping they build up their network quickly. We see how well Tesla's do in the market place. If Rivian has similar capability, it should be a great selling point.

For my first time ever, as the Tesla would never make it that far, I actually completed my trip from Northern Los Angeles to my western / southern location in Vegas via a NON-STOP trip. Never remotely came close to being able to do that in any Tesla I've owned or driven.....

Home to Vegas

Rivian Adventure Network charger in Barstow!

Shortly after plugging in @ Rivian Charger...

After 30 minutes @ Rivian Charger

As a final side note. I made a similar trip to Vegas a few weeks ago on 20" All-Terrain Tires and got 1.98 mi per kWh. This time, 1 MPH faster, on stock 21" road wheels / tires, expect with 5mm spacers and no aero covers and got 2.27 miles per kWh. Was the difference of being able to make it to Vegas non-stop or not. While the Average speed was only 66 MPH, for much of the trip I was closer to 80 MPH on the freeway portions of the trip.

Noob here… picking up R1T tomorrow and driving hit home (seven hour trip). How can I see where all of the open R network chargers are from say my phone or Mac? Only thing
I can find is “the planned network,” and not “actual network”….

 

[kizamybute']

Great review and the efficiency gap you saw tracks with other data of an approximate 12% difference between the 20 AT and 21 AS set ups.

While the "average MPH" only varied by 1 mph between the two trips, the most recent trip on the 21's was actually at higher freeway speeds. On the 20's, I averaged around 75-77 MPH. On this trip, was closer to 80-82 MPH most of the way (per the speedo, actually 3 MPH less on radar or via a GPS app on my phone, or google maps. Made it to Vegas MUCH faster this time around and used 15 kWh less battery doing so. That extra 33+ miles of range was the difference of being able to make it all the way to Vegas without a charging stop. Had I maintained the same speed, the figures may have been slightly higher. Had I also left the aero covers on and not put on the 5mm wheel spacers for "appearance" reasons, the numbers might have slightly improved even further.

 

[kizamybute']

What are 5mm spacers?

“expect with 5mm spacers”

Sorry, spell check or auto correct. I revised the OP to correct the spelling. I put 5mm wheel spacers on the 21's to push the wheels out closer to the edge of the fenders for appearance reasons.

 

[kizamybute']

Noob here… picking up R1T tomorrow and driving hit home (seven hour trip). How can I see where all of the open R network chargers are from say my phone or Mac? Only thing
I can find is “the planned network,” and not “actual network”….

Unfortunately, Rivian doesn't have a very good map with their chargers yet. Probably because there are literally, only 4 or 5 of them that have been built and are now working in the country. Would assume at some point, as they get more built out, they'll provide a better map.

The only way I found it was using the truck's navigation system. It defaulted to that location. I just had to pay attention to the name of it (missed it the first couple of times). You can also search for chargers using the navigation map in the truck / suv and tap on the green lightning bolts to get the details about each charger that shows up. For now, as far as I am personally aware, the truck itself is the only reliable way to look for the very limited number of functional Rivian Adventure Network chargers.

 

[VenturaLuke]

Noob here… picking up R1T tomorrow and driving hit home (seven hour trip). How can I see where all of the open R network chargers are from say my phone or Mac? Only thing
I can find is “the planned network,” and not “actual network”….

As someone else said, you really cant. You will be able to in the truck's nav. Or you can check out plugshare and find them on there. I see you are in the PNW so unless you are picking up in San Francisco or something, you won't have any RAN chargers near you yet. There are 2 just north of SF and then 3 more in SoCal/High Desert/Eastern Sierra. Aside from those, its just Salida CO so far. Have an awesome trip on your shake down drive home!

 

[jebinc]

As someone else said, you really cant. You will be able to in the truck's nav. Or you can check out plugshare and find them on there. I see you are in the PNW so unless you are picking up in San Francisco or something, you won't have any RAN chargers near you yet. There are 2 just north of SF and then 3 more in SoCal/High Desert/Eastern Sierra. Aside from those, its just Salida CO so far. Have an awesome trip on your shake down drive home!

Picking up in Bend, OR.

 

[Florida Panhandler]

What are 5mm spacers?

“expect with 5mm spacers”

Wheel spacers are used either for purely cosmetic reasons to make the wheel/tires stick out further from the wheel wells or to make a bit more space for big brake kit or wheel upgrades. They literally are just blocks of special-made metal placed in between the hub and wheel assembly and yes- they typically put further stress on the wheel bearings.

 

[GZR1S]

Man that’s freaking great with the RAN chargers in Barstow . We always stop at Barstow from vegas to socal and back in the Tesla .

 

[Dirty_B]

Noob here… picking up R1T tomorrow and driving hit home (seven hour trip). How can I see where all of the open R network chargers are from say my phone or Mac? Only thing
I can find is “the planned network,” and not “actual network”….

What's an "R" network - RAN? Well forget about it there's like, what 6 stations in the country? You can see them on the RIvian website. Best bet is to get some third party app like BRP. The RIvian app is OK but BRP is a little better IMO.

 

[kizamybute']

Man that’s freaking great with the RAN chargers in Barstow . We always stop at Barstow from vegas to socal and back in the Tesla .

Hopefully they add Baker to the list and somewhere around the mid-point between L.A. and Frisco. That would pretty much cover most of the trips Californians take, including the other one already in Bishop.

 

[HAL]

Noob here… picking up R1T tomorrow and driving hit home (seven hour trip). How can I see where all of the open R network chargers are from say my phone or Mac? Only thing
I can find is “the planned network,” and not “actual network”….

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