Tesla saves Rivian - Mammoth Mountain Edition

[White Shadow]

Experience has been mostly negative.

I will say the Moderate suspension setting has been a huge improvement over Soft and Stiff.


Here's a summary of my poor planning skills:
1) Spend the night in Bridgeport the night before Mammoth so we could top up at the EA charger
2) Snow mode up the mountain and arrive to our condo with 180 miles of range
3) Underground assigned parking spot is 50 feet from the nearest outlet, I brought the mobile charger but didn't bring a 50 foot extension cable, won't make that mistake next time.
4) Kept the Rivian in the underground spot for most of the trip bc the nearest lift is a 10 min walk and warmer temps preserves battery
5) Woke up early on Day 2 to charge for an hour at the Tesla station before the lifts opened.
[Why didn't I just leave the Rivian plugged in while I skied? I was thinking about other EV owners that might be in a tougher spot than me and at that time it seemed there was only one working J connector in town for public use. I guess a few of the people in the comments would just plug in and bail?!?]
6) Tried to charge on Day 4, but an R1T owner had plugged in and bailed
7) Called the Westin and Juniper Springs to ask about valet charging - no go bc it's Spring Break and they are maxed out
8) Original Post

It's amazing to me that the folks on this forum always blame the owner.

To those asking why I'm not positive/thankful - I am thankful for the Mammoth Recreation Center and Tesla -they saved the trip and I titled the thread with that positive message

I realize you're going to get a lot of heat from EV apologists here....after all this is an EV forum. But in all honesty, I appreciate reading about real-world experiences like this because it shows some of the limitations that people can face with an EV. Not everything is going to be sunshine and roses all the time, so reading about hardships during a trip kind of keeps everything real, if you know what I mean.

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[Redline]

I own a Model Y and I'm happy. We bought the Rivian for 'Adventure', once the Tesla adapter ships owning a Rivian will be a much better experience. Tesla saves Rivian.

The Tesla adapter is the primary reason I haven't sold the R1S.

I'm guessing your X is filled with Elmo RTs. Maybe the CyberTruck is more your speed?

 

[Redline]

I realize you're going to get a lot of heat from EV apologists here....after all this is an EV forum. But in all honesty, I appreciate reading about real-world experiences like this because it shows some of the limitations that people can face with an EV. Not everything is going to be sunshine and roses all the time, so reading about hardships during a trip kind of keeps everything real, if you know what I mean.

The entire main stream media/social media has turned full anti-ev. Is it really hard to find out hardships?

 

[Zoidz]

Seems so strange to me that so many people, especially on these forums, are so negative. Negativity breads negativity, life is so much simpler when we focus on the positive things in our lives. I challenge people to try it for a few weeks, might just change your life. ??


“It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.” really
― Germany Kent

This reminds me of the old saying "How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb......... Just one, but the light bulb must really want to change." A lot of people are happy only when they are unhappy and making it known.

 

[White Shadow]

The entire main stream media/social media has turned full anti-ev. Is it really hard to find out hardships?

To be honest, I don't really know. I hardly consume any EV-related content anywhere other than this forum and a few YouTube channels such as the Out Of Spec channels, and they are, for the most part, very positive on EVs.

 

[Redline]

To be honest, I don't really know. I hardly consume any EV-related content anywhere other than this forum and a few YouTube channels such as the Out Of Spec channels, and they are, for the most part, very positive on EVs.

Because they are EV specific outlets.

 

[Dark-Fx]

It's amazing to me that the folks on this forum always blame the owner.

Well, you blamed Rivian for navigating you the long way, so I'll happily blame the person who apparently knew better but followed the "wrong route" anyway.

This would be an entirely different story if you had planned to stop at that station that day anyway.

 

[Redline]

How I picture OP following the NAV

 

[White Shadow]

Because they are EV specific outlets.

Of course. I do like their content, but mainly because I think they are fair. While obviously being very pro-EV, they also don't shy away from the difficulties they experience on a daily basis.

 

[Kobra]

In my opinion the op is over reacting. 93 miles range is plenty to last 2 days in mammoth and drive down to bishop to charge. The drive to bishop only takes about 7 or 8 percent which is about 15 miles of range.

I have done the mammoth trip 5 or 6 times. Once I stayed 5 days in freezing temps while parking outside. Drove to the lifts every day. Still made it to bishop with 15% charge., but I started out with 93% from Bishop.

The key is to charge as much as you can before heading up from bishop. On our lat 3 day trip I only charged up to about 70% and had no issues. Made it back with about 30%.

 

[beaker]

Hope you feel better soon

 

[JeremyMKE]

This string is doing a good job staying just north of Toxic.

My take is that this is a Rivian forum and TYPICALLY not particularly fond of Tesla hence a pretty negative response to the OP.

I dont want a Tesla but respect it for what it did to make EVs a reality for the world, including charging infrastructure. A comparison is Starbucks, I typically prefer a different coffee shop BUT Starbucks made decent coffee available nationwide a reality. Before Starbucks it was mostly Gas Stations/McDs where you could get coffee reliably throughout the day, and being nice that wasnt great. I love Starbucks for that.

My OPINION is the OP was inviting and baiting a little with the title and tone. If you were running out of gas do you blame BP or Chevron because they didnt open a Gas station where you needed it? Do you blame Ford?

Sharing struggles is GREAT, but blaming the Manufacturer for this?

 

[EVsinROC]

First... you could have purchased an A2Z or Lectron adapter before you went to Mammoth and been charging at one of the two Tesla Supercharger locations. Second, the ability to charge at a Supercharger station is controlled by Tesla, not Rivian or Ford. The decision to open up superchargers to the masses has more to do with securing free money from the government for infrastructure grants, over truly just wanting to be the nice guys in the EV world. Last, the approved adapters are supplied by, once again, Tesla, who I'm sure are is super eager to get them out as fast as possible.

I'll be heading up in a couple weeks with a borrowed Lectron from Rivian employee neighbor. I hope everything works out for the both of us.

So you think Elon decided to open up the SC network b/c he wanted “free money from the government”? He doesn’t have enough already? Is he in it only for the money (what are his material possessions ie house?) what would we have done if he didn't open up SC network for long toad trips? We should be thanking Tesla for superior technology and foresight. Tesla is revolutionary, Rivian and all other EVs & OEMs are evolutionary. That is a major difference

 

[Dark-Fx]

Is he in it only for the money

Nah, can't be that. The interesting thing is you'd think that Tesla wasn't very popular before 2021.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World's_Billionaires

Why does this thread have to devolve into a discussion about Elon just because the OP mentioned Tesla, anyway?

 

[Jblaze121]

Considering the amount of posts on how to charge for mammoth, this planning failure just shows we’ve moved beyond the early adoption stage.

I literary posted one over a year ago before snow mode….

The math is simple

30% from bishop
10% for each night in mammoth
10% to get back to bishop
+your preferred buffer (10-20%)

e.g 4 nights in mammoth was 90% for me

sometimes the weather is nice and I don’t have the family and ski rack on top and have made it up from bishop with only using 22% like a few weeks ago. Head wind is the biggest variable for this trip. (R1S quad)

If you do choose to use the skate rink, only plug 2 works for non teslas at 9kw/h

if you have a Tesla destination adapter, you can use plug 1 on the other side of the parking lot for 6kw/h

all this should be moot once we have faster chargers and/or chargers by June / mono lake open up.

Really sad it wasn’t opened this week, would have gladly skied June yesterday and grabbed a charge after.

can’t wait for next season when 0 planning will be necessary

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