jeeden
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Jeremy
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2020
- Threads
- 54
- Messages
- 970
- Reaction score
- 1,473
- Location
- Northern VA
- Vehicles
- Rivian R1S, 2016 Ford Escape, 2015 Ford Mustang GT
- Occupation
- Project Manager
- Thread starter
- #1
Had a great road trip up to New Hampshire yesterday.
Charging
Used the RAN charger in Newark, DE, Tesla at East Brunswick, NJ, Tesla at Vernon, CT, and a quick top-up at Tyngsborough, NH. All were great stops, no lines at any of them with plenty of chargers. New Brunswick, NJ was a good charging experience, but very busy and loud, and not anywhere to be outside of the Rivian. Vernon was great with a brand new Starbucks to visit just 20 ft away, but the charger was derating it said (still got like 175kw), maybe because it was 102 degrees at the time! Tyngsborough was also great with some good restaurants around and right off the highway, but we didn't eat. The A2Z connector worked great and I used the Tesla app to initiate all the charges because I bought the tesla membership for this month to get the discount. I might have gotten a couple of curious looks from Tesla owners until I plugged in and then they paid no attention to me, parked on the far right for all the chargers.
Beer
We also worked at a stop at Treehouse Brewing to pick up some beer orders for my group of friends at home, a great stop even if you aren't into beer as they have lots of cocktails, food, and indoor/outdoor seating while being very dog friendly and EV friendly (we plug in to charge there more for the premium parking than the charge
). We always try to make a stop there. We never waited on charging the whole day. Even on the quickest stops, by the time the family of 5 hits the bathrooms and the dog gets some sniffing time and water, we always had exceeded the 15 min the Rivian planned for by 5 minutes or more (this annual trip is my driving limit, any further, forget that noise, I'm flying)
Performance/Comfort
The Rivian did great through scorching temps, cranked air conditioning, Packed Yakima Roof Box on the crossbars, Amazon Prime music the whole way, Pet Mode or Camp Mode for the labrador and kids at every charging stop, and torrential downpours near our destination.
Navigation
The Nav continues to be too conservative with the range estimates at 74mph or so, but right on at 80mph, but you can click on "remove all charging stops" to get the unnecessary charging stops out of the way. It did really well routing us around traffic nightmare due to construction on both levels of the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan and getting us up the Palisades Parkway and on a shortcut from that to the Tappan Zee Bridge. In some other spots the Nav was frustrating with not understanding express lanes and choosing routing that might be shorter, but definitely would not be faster (luckily we knew the area well enough to override with confidence, but sometimes you just want to zone out and follow the nav routing)
AppleGreen Chargers
One note, I noticed that all up the Merritt Turnpike in CT, all through MA, and coming soon to the NJ Turnpike are Applegreen DCFC. I didn't use any because we have the Tesla membership for the month, but they look REALLY well done. Rivian might consider adding them to the Nav Software.
Charging
Used the RAN charger in Newark, DE, Tesla at East Brunswick, NJ, Tesla at Vernon, CT, and a quick top-up at Tyngsborough, NH. All were great stops, no lines at any of them with plenty of chargers. New Brunswick, NJ was a good charging experience, but very busy and loud, and not anywhere to be outside of the Rivian. Vernon was great with a brand new Starbucks to visit just 20 ft away, but the charger was derating it said (still got like 175kw), maybe because it was 102 degrees at the time! Tyngsborough was also great with some good restaurants around and right off the highway, but we didn't eat. The A2Z connector worked great and I used the Tesla app to initiate all the charges because I bought the tesla membership for this month to get the discount. I might have gotten a couple of curious looks from Tesla owners until I plugged in and then they paid no attention to me, parked on the far right for all the chargers.
Beer
We also worked at a stop at Treehouse Brewing to pick up some beer orders for my group of friends at home, a great stop even if you aren't into beer as they have lots of cocktails, food, and indoor/outdoor seating while being very dog friendly and EV friendly (we plug in to charge there more for the premium parking than the charge
). We always try to make a stop there. We never waited on charging the whole day. Even on the quickest stops, by the time the family of 5 hits the bathrooms and the dog gets some sniffing time and water, we always had exceeded the 15 min the Rivian planned for by 5 minutes or more (this annual trip is my driving limit, any further, forget that noise, I'm flying)Performance/Comfort
The Rivian did great through scorching temps, cranked air conditioning, Packed Yakima Roof Box on the crossbars, Amazon Prime music the whole way, Pet Mode or Camp Mode for the labrador and kids at every charging stop, and torrential downpours near our destination.
Navigation
The Nav continues to be too conservative with the range estimates at 74mph or so, but right on at 80mph, but you can click on "remove all charging stops" to get the unnecessary charging stops out of the way. It did really well routing us around traffic nightmare due to construction on both levels of the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan and getting us up the Palisades Parkway and on a shortcut from that to the Tappan Zee Bridge. In some other spots the Nav was frustrating with not understanding express lanes and choosing routing that might be shorter, but definitely would not be faster (luckily we knew the area well enough to override with confidence, but sometimes you just want to zone out and follow the nav routing)
AppleGreen Chargers
One note, I noticed that all up the Merritt Turnpike in CT, all through MA, and coming soon to the NJ Turnpike are Applegreen DCFC. I didn't use any because we have the Tesla membership for the month, but they look REALLY well done. Rivian might consider adding them to the Nav Software.
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