SoCal Rob
Well-Known Member
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We took our first long (a little over 560 miles total) road trip in our R1S this weekend, from Orange County to Paso Robles and back.
Before leaving I removed our temporary spare and put our full-size spare behind the 3rd row, just in case. I used ratchet straps to secure it to the tie downs on the rails and to the car seat tether points.
The trip up involved two charging stops: the first one was at EA in Santa Barbara. The bad news was that the EA app wasn’t working quite right because the dispensers weren’t communicating with EA. The good news is that plugging in initiated a charging session which ended up being free. We had to wait about 5 minutes for a charger and there was a Jack in the Box close by for a couple sodas. The second stop was in Paso Robles where we pulled right up to an available charger at the EA station. We took a short walk to a convenience store where we took a bio break Overall, our EA experience was very good.
We stayed with friends so our R1S was outside over two nights with below-freezing temperatures.
On Saturday night we saw the Vine Street Christmas Victorian Showcase. It was a cool event, but the real reason I mention is because one of the vehicles in the little parade was a Rivian!
On the trip home we stopped at the Buttonwillow RAN first. It was the first time we’ve used a RAN charger and it was a great experience! The location had 9 stalls with 8 available when we arrived. The plug and charge was convenient and the speed was great. There was a Subway and Starbucks on site so we left fully caffeinated.
Our second charging stop was at an EVgo station in the parking lot of an In-N-Out Burger. The Rivian refueled faster than we did so we had to move it then finish eating.
Sorry, I should’ve taken pictures of our Rivian and I’ll do better next time.
I thought the trip was a fantastic first experience, especially since I’ve heard so many public charging horror stories. I never let our SOC get below 35% out of an abundance of caution and I probably will be a little less conservative next time. We have 20” stock AT tires with freeway speeds typically 74-79mph along with some dense traffic around L.A. plus some high winds, some cold temperatures, and a lot of elevation change up to a maximum a bit over 4,000’. We averaged 2.06 mi/kWh which I thought was pretty decent given all of the above.
A friend with no EV experience made the trip with us and he thought the whole experience was very… normal. Except for the lack of engine noise.
Before leaving I removed our temporary spare and put our full-size spare behind the 3rd row, just in case. I used ratchet straps to secure it to the tie downs on the rails and to the car seat tether points.
The trip up involved two charging stops: the first one was at EA in Santa Barbara. The bad news was that the EA app wasn’t working quite right because the dispensers weren’t communicating with EA. The good news is that plugging in initiated a charging session which ended up being free. We had to wait about 5 minutes for a charger and there was a Jack in the Box close by for a couple sodas. The second stop was in Paso Robles where we pulled right up to an available charger at the EA station. We took a short walk to a convenience store where we took a bio break Overall, our EA experience was very good.
We stayed with friends so our R1S was outside over two nights with below-freezing temperatures.
On Saturday night we saw the Vine Street Christmas Victorian Showcase. It was a cool event, but the real reason I mention is because one of the vehicles in the little parade was a Rivian!
On the trip home we stopped at the Buttonwillow RAN first. It was the first time we’ve used a RAN charger and it was a great experience! The location had 9 stalls with 8 available when we arrived. The plug and charge was convenient and the speed was great. There was a Subway and Starbucks on site so we left fully caffeinated.
Our second charging stop was at an EVgo station in the parking lot of an In-N-Out Burger. The Rivian refueled faster than we did so we had to move it then finish eating.
Sorry, I should’ve taken pictures of our Rivian and I’ll do better next time.
I thought the trip was a fantastic first experience, especially since I’ve heard so many public charging horror stories. I never let our SOC get below 35% out of an abundance of caution and I probably will be a little less conservative next time. We have 20” stock AT tires with freeway speeds typically 74-79mph along with some dense traffic around L.A. plus some high winds, some cold temperatures, and a lot of elevation change up to a maximum a bit over 4,000’. We averaged 2.06 mi/kWh which I thought was pretty decent given all of the above.
A friend with no EV experience made the trip with us and he thought the whole experience was very… normal. Except for the lack of engine noise.
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