New Rivian dispensers and non competitive pricing

[BigSkies]

The new pricing does sting. I used to go out of my way to use RAN. I'm pretty indifferent now.

I have trips that utilize DCFC roughly once a quarter.

I had stopped doing detailed route planning in Colorado, as the charging infrastructure was getting good enough. Now I feel I need to go back to detailed route planning just to cut out the amount I pay.

My Rivian NAV routed me to an EVGo station charging $0.7/kWh on a recent trip, when it could have routed me to cheaper alternatives. The NAV has made huge improvements in getting me to reliable stations, but I can't trust it to route me in an economically efficient manner.

Now I'm going back to studying charging stops just to cut out the ridiculously overpriced chargers.

I'm willing to pay a minor premium for P&C and amenities for stops around meal-time. But anything over maybe $0.05/kWh isn't gonna happen.

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[theonetruestripes]

I had stopped doing detailed route planning in Colorado, as the charging infrastructure was getting good enough. Now I feel I need to go back to detailed route planning just to cut out the amount I pay.

By “detailed route planning” do you mean more or less then “telling A Better Route Planner” where I want to go and letting it work it out?

My Rivian NAV routed me to an EVGo station charging $0.7/kWh on a recent trip

If that “$0.70”, or “$0.07”? Sorry, my brain is telling me “that isn’t normal price notation...with typical decimal notation though that is 70¢ per kWh which is like Hawaii prices! On the other hand hand why would he per upset with 7¢?”...

 

[BigSkies]

By “detailed route planning” do you mean more or less then “telling A Better Route Planner” where I want to go and letting it work it out?



If that “$0.70”, or “$0.07”? Sorry, my brain is telling me “that isn’t normal price notation...with typical decimal notation though that is 70¢ per kWh which is like Hawaii prices! On the other hand hand why would he per upset with 7¢?”...

I over-planned my first few EV road trips. I went through PlugShare and made sure all chargers were working. I had backup chargers in mind in case some were broken.

I’m now more comfortable with charger reliability, and feel safe just plugging a destination in ABRP or the Rivian Nav. Rivian’s charger grading helped a lot with this.

I still did a little more detailed planning when going through Death Valley, due to the nature of the area. But I’m mostly comfortable plugging something in the Nav and going.

That changed a bit when going through Nevada. I re-looked at the pricing, and the EVGo it routed me to in Winnemucca was $0.69/kWh. There is an EA a couple miles away at $0.64/kWh. It’s not a huge savings, but I would have made that detour if I had paid more attention to route planning. I also probably would have charged for a bit longer at my prior stop as well.

 

[theonetruestripes]

I re-looked at the pricing, and the EVGo it routed me to in Winnemucca was $0.69/kWh. There is an EA a couple miles away at $0.64/kWh.

That is a weird bit of psychology that many people are subject to. Looking at the larger cost items, and working hard to get a small savings on them, but not looking as hard at the lower cost items and when you could get a larger savings. Like seeing $0.69/kWh and saving 5¢ per kWh, but not looking at say the $0.56/kWh charges and replacing them with $0.40/kWh charges at a 16¢ savings.

It sort of kind of makes sense, you are looking at the bigger items first in the hopes of bigger savings. I guess if you are going to spend limited time optimizing it makes sense to look at the charge stops where you buy the most kWh to optimize them first...or at every stop because you really don’t know which you will save the most on util you look at the alternatives.

At least ABRP organizes the output in a way that makes it easier to see the expensive stops!

A pity we can’t adjust the weights on how important charging cost is to us in ABRP (I wouldn’t expect that sort of flexibility in the built in nav -- that is the kind of thing that you expect the manufactures to pick reasonable defaults, and probable provide few if any options).

 

[BigSkies]

That is a weird bit of psychology that many people are subject to. Looking at the larger cost items, and working hard to get a small savings on them, but not looking as hard at the lower cost items and when you could get a larger savings. Like seeing $0.69/kWh and saving 5¢ per kWh, but not looking at say the $0.56/kWh charges and replacing them with $0.40/kWh charges at a 16¢ savings.

It sort of kind of makes sense, you are looking at the bigger items first in the hopes of bigger savings. I guess if you are going to spend limited time optimizing it makes sense to look at the charge stops where you buy the most kWh to optimize them first...or at every stop because you really don’t know which you will save the most on util you look at the alternatives.

At least ABRP organizes the output in a way that makes it easier to see the expensive stops!

A pity we can’t adjust the weights on how important charging cost is to us in ABRP (I wouldn’t expect that sort of flexibility in the built in nav -- that is the kind of thing that you expect the manufactures to pick reasonable defaults, and probable provide few if any options).

Agreed. I think a good starting point would to have the Nav highlight both the price/kWh and the expected total charging cost when viewing the total trip.

Even if the Nav isn’t optimizing for cost, it would help call attention to outliers.

 

[theonetruestripes]

a good starting point would to have the Nav highlight both the price/kWh and the expected total charging cost when viewing the total trip.

Yeah, or letting ABRP “export” a trip into the Rivian app (which looks like it is an actual thing that could happen on a technical level -- the Rivian API the app uses can save trips as basically a series of lat-longs so if ABRP knew how to export that you could just plan in ABRP, shove the trip out to Rivian and drive it without needing the in-car Nav needing to participate in “low cost routing”).

Maybe I should check to see if ABRP has a route exporter, I could write something that transfers them.... (big talk from the guy that hasn’t succeeded in writing something that actually logs in via that app and opens the liftgate or frunk yet...I miss having a watch app like Tesla had for a brief month or so)

...which may be an unreasonable amount of work given how infrequently I actually use public charging! (and that two of those routes have a reasonable cost L2 charger in the parking lot of my destination)

 

[zymolysis]

I think they are testing the elasticity of their pricing now that they are opening up to all.
I hope that they reduce their pricing when they see underutilization.

Surely any sane retailer shops the competition. How can pricing DCFC so far above the competition be called "testing?" Everyone already knows the end result.

 

[Jonger1150]

Rivian....

$0.39 - $0.45 a kWh for Rivian owners and a higher rate for non-Rivian owners would be more appropriate.

 

[therealcmj]

But if I can get that at a supercharger for cheaper, why would I ever hit a RAN charger?

After the BP spill people decided they would absolutely not buy gas from BP. No matter the price. Some people will absolutely make the same decision with Tesla.

As time goes on the tooling for route planning will continue to improve and help you optimize for whatever combination of cost, time, amenities, brand, etc that you want. It's literally just a computational problem that we can solve by throwing data + compute at the problem to automatically sort it out.

 

[theonetruestripes]

It's literally just a computational problem that we can solve by throwing data + compute at the problem to automatically sort it out.

& also a UI problem, finding a way for people to communicate their desires without getting bogged down or badly miscommunicating…

frequently with modern computing getting a good UI is harder then solving the underlying problem!

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I just had my 6 months free charging kick in and had 2 charges so far for free. The thing that I was thinking watching the dollar amount tick up on the dash during the session was the tax benefit they get from the higher pricing. My 2 charges were 41.77 and 81.70, since this is part of a sales promotion it is tax deductible so the higher prices give more deductions.

Not sure if this is the best way to get tax deductions but if the majority of the RAN charges are free because of the incentive program?? I will be curious to see now that the free charging is no longer part of that incentive if we see the prices adjusted in the next several months to be more competitive.

Solid theory, but I’m not sure how much loss harvesting Rivian needs to do when they have yet to show a net profit.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Earth calling malditofman. Earth calling malditofman. Do you read me?
You sadly missed the purpose of Branden's video, who I believe is quite the authority in DC fast chargers, btw.
"Even at 63 cents that's far less than buying hydrocarbons for most people."
This has to be the most pathetically absurd, sad, most mendacious statement anybody ever posted on any forum. You could not be more wrong if you tried!

In my neck of the woods, EV suckers pay $0.65 per kWh at RAN chargers. ICE drivers pay $0.14 for a kWh of hydrocarbon energy. Do the math for any place in America, any place, period. The result will be just the same. EV drivers get scammed; ICE drivers do not.

In other terms you perhaps will understand. Your RAN charger in Barstow at $0.63 per kWh. Beats "$4.75 across the street..." LOL, LOL, LOL. Dude, check your computer, your calculator. Must be broken. That outlandish $4.75 (in your view) for gas "across the street" is actually $0.142 per kWh of energy.
I know, I know. I am not a mathematician, but I will go out on a limb nevertheless and submit to you that $0.142 per kWh is less, much less. Indeed, far less than $0.63 per kWh.

Hey, Mr. Scaringe, is that you?
Boy, your hopes for RAN chargers are quite rich.
Next thing, you might say that when Rivian comes out with pigs that fly and have Connect+, those will even displace folks already charging at RAN stations. Priority charging for the former.
So because this will be quite the utopic RAN charging network, okay for Rvian to charge outrageous prices now and for as long as possible, cutting back only when your utopia materializes.

C'mon, man!!!

Reading these two pissy comments full of scorn and attitude towards two different posters, you really have some nerve being critical of my posts. You need to chill out and cut the shit.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

For me, charging price, my wallet, shall always come first. Everything else around a charger is a far third. To each his own.

Reason why my R1S is charged at home and rarely goes on long trips. Or else Tesla chargers only with membership. My Model S with free electricity for life rules for long trips.

Buys a 100k dollar car and is worried about Pennies of charging cost. Yeah, that makes total sense.

 

[theonetruestripes]

I re-looked at the pricing, and the EVGo it routed me to in Winnemucca was $0.69/kWh. There is an EA a couple miles away at $0.64/kWh.

That is a weird bit of psychology that many people are subject to. Looking at the larger cost items, and working hard to get a small savings on them, but not looking as hard at the lower cost items and when you could get a larger savings. Like seeing $0.69/kWh and saving 5¢ per kWh, but not looking at say the $0.56/kWh charges and replacing them with $0.40/kWh charges at a 16¢ savings.

It sort of kind of makes sense, you are looking at the bigger items first in the hopes of bigger savings. I guess if you are going to spend limited time optimizing it makes sense to look at the charge stops where you buy the most kWh to optimize them first...or at every stop because you really don’t know which you will save the most on util you look at the alternatives.

At least ABRP organizes the output in a way that makes it easier to see the expensive stops

Buys a 100k dollar car and is worried about Pennies of charging cost. Yeah, that makes total sense.

People are funny that way.

Humorous take: after spending $100k on the truck how much do you think is left for charging?

 

[HaveBlue]

Long drives on an ice are opportunistic for me. Need gas see gas buy gas. I don't shop online to see if there's an arco down the street.

Funny how we've all changed now that we can do more than look at the other station across the street.

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