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Rivian vs. Cybertruck

dl4060

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Sorry. never been to Mammoth so I just let it pick a route. :)

I'm really, really hoping infrastructure improves soon. It's been building slowly for years, but I think it will be way behind the adoption rate of EVs in 2-3 years. It's bad enough it takes a long time to charge, I would hate to be stuck in a line for hours waiting for the only working charger within 100 miles.

No worries! And THANK YOU for showing me that web page. I have wanted to go electric for a while now, but I am not very well educated on it compared to the rest of you.

I think California is going to get on the charging game pretty quickly. It already is to some extent. My guess is that the Mammoth drive, up the 14 to the 395 or up the 395, will be doable with a non-Tesla within the next few years, I am just hoping for sooner than later. Like I said, my wife and I are lucky to lead the lives we do, I get to surf before I start work several days a week and we ski one of the best mountains in the U.S. 35-40 days a year, but our lifestyle does require an effective charging situation, and things are simply not quite there for non-Tesla EVs going up the 395 yet.

I have heard that Electrify America is going to be putting some charging stations up the 14/395, but I don't know that for a fact. Like I said, I'm not as well educated as you guys are yet. I really hope what I have heard is true.
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dl4060

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The route you linked was plotted for a Tesla Model 3, this would appear to the reason you only see Tesla charging options. Here are routes for a Rivian R1S (180) with a waypoint added to force the route through Victorville where there is an EVGo station with 2x 50kw CCS stalls located at the Mall of Victor Valley (1 stall usable, 1 stall under repair). This first route is with a target arrival charge of 10%:

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=17c139f5-cac3-455d-9593-032a79a36b2c

and this second route is with a target arrival charge of 90% which exposes another EA charging station closer to Mammoth with 4x 150-350kw stalls which just opened about a week ago:

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=46f2625c-72f5-429d-a7ea-a43df3af2c7f

Thanks electruck!

This is promising, but it still exposes one of the issues with a non-Tesla EV. The first route looks decent, but the charging time is an hour, which is problematic. The charging time for a Tesla on the route I used was only something like 20 minutes. The added 40 minutes would be an issue for me. If we made 2-3 trips a year to Mammoth that would not be a big deal, but we go 2-3 times a month, so the extra 40 minutes spent charging would put more of a damper on things. It is particularly an issue when we leave in the morning. My wife and I have things set up so that we get a Friday off every other week. We usually leave between 4 and 430 am on these Fridays, so long charging stops would cut into our time on the hill. The Tesla 20 minutes is doable considering it would probably cost 10 minutes to fill up on gas, but an hour would be tough. If I was leaving on Friday afternoon, and we sometimes do, that is not all that big of a deal if we leave by 2 pm, which we do to avoid traffic through LA. Sometimes we leave on Saturday morning at 4 am, which would be more of an issue. If we lose 1/2 hour of a ski day on a weekend where we are going to ski 3 days that is unfortunate, but to lose 1/2 hour on a weekend where we are going to ski 2 is a bit more problematic. Either that or I have to get up 1/2 hour earlier, which seems fine as I sit on my couch, but would be more annoying when the alarm rings at 3 am.

Thanks for all the feedback, this forum is a great resource. Like I said before, we have a slightly non-standard lifestyle, but you guys would be surprised how many people in socal are making 2 trips a month to Mammoth. It is the same way in the bay area, lots of people are hitting Tahoe two weekends a month over the whole winter.

It goes without saying that what I am wrestling with is not just a first world problem, but WAY out in the tail of the graph of the pdf of first world problems!
 

Colosaleen

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Don’t have a Tesla, those that do, can you look at the Supercharging portion of contract? Willing to bet dollars to dimes that Tesla will eventually sell off the supercharger network to someone. They are an auto manufacturing company, not a utility provider, even though they do provide utility power to large facilities.

Does the current owner contract leave open the flexibility for Tesla to sell the supercharger network to another owner and then void the current supercharger paid contracts? If the Oil & Gas companies or others were smart, they would buy them up in spades. Tesla only has them to ensure a part of the infrastructure would absolutely be developed, enough to keep selling its cars and make the entire concept fly. A future sale will happen because it is the only thing that makes sense in the long run.

Either way, Rivian and even the polarizing Cybertruck will do okay in any of these scenarios because there is not a current truck out there with this level of performance. They offer something that is not being offered by any other manufacturer. The cars and SUVs of today, more than enough competition on performance. Heavy duty trucks and 18 wheelers are going to be huge to this formula as well as faster charging technology.
 

ajdelange

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The Super Charger network, AFAIK, belongs completely to Tesla. There are doubtless contractual arrangements between Tesla and a WaWa that allows the installation of stalls on its property and between Tesla and the local utility that supplies the power but this is certainly not anything that any of us would have access to. The SC network was created solely as a marketing tool. Without it Telsa would not be where it is today nor would its future be as bright. You will note in this thread and elsewhere the hesitation of Telsa owners with regard to purchase of the Rivian offerings and as far as I can tell (doubtless colored by my own feelings) not having access to the SC network is the major (or at least one of the major) concerns.

Elon Musk promised years ago that the SC network would never be a profit center. if he is telling the truth, there is little motivation for any other entity to want to take it on nor is there any incentive for Tesla to sell it as it, as much as anything else, helps Tesla clobber the competition. We have the evidence of the other charging networks which has shown us that it is very difficult to put together a network that can sell electricity at a cost that even makes electric look favorable compared to petrol and still make a profit. To put this in perspective, wholesale electricity goes for about $0.04/ kWh. The average cost to the residential owner is about $0.12 - 0.13. Tesla SC's seem to charge around $0.21 whereas the other operators seem to be charging 2 or more times that.

If the other manufacturers want to compete with Tesla they would need to subsidize charging through the alternative networks in the same way Tesla has done with the SC network. And in fact some of them have done exactly that.

I often suggest that people, especially those with engineering backgrounds, recognize that they are not buying just a car. They are buying a transportation system which consists of several segments such as the vehicle itself, the road segment, the fueling segment, the maintenance segment etc. The fueling segment is currently a loss leader for Tesla but it gives them a tremendous advantage in sales. The consumer is, of course, still paying for his juice - he is just paying for it up front. Note that it is the premium priced Teslas that come with free supercharging. There is, thus, little liklihood (IMO, of course) that Tesla would want to sell the SC network or that anyone would want to buy it unless Tesla would agree to continue to fund it. A more sensible (again IMO) approach for Tesla would be to allow other manufacturers vehicles to charge at SC's. This would be salvation for Rivian (or at least remove what appears to be the biggest concern of potential purchasers) and Musk has said he will allow this as long as the other manufacturers would contribute their fair share to the network's operation, maintenance and expansion. I somehow think this will not happen.

Also note that Tesla is not an automobile manufacturer. It is a high tech energy/transportation company that happens to include auto manufacturing as part of its portfolio.

I guess I should point out that 80% or more of charging is done at home so that the question of having to pay twice what you'd pay for an SC charge at an EA station is really moot. But people still are really hung up on range anxiety. It's silly but that's the way it is. This is not something that you can really appreciate until you start driving a BEV.
 
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Colosaleen

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Thanks for the update but when the federal credits dissolve and they will, don’t expect a large % of owners to be installing their own power infrastructures at home. To truly compete with gasoline or diesel, EVs energy support systems need to be as portable and plentiful as gas stations period.

As more and more Tesla’s get on the road, that supercharger concept will swallow up any and all profits. It will be a boat anchor around the throat of Tesla that must be unloaded. They can operate it at an OPEX loss all they want at present but that statement does not preclude it from being sold lock stock and barrel in the future. It is a bit unrealistic to think that every manufacturer must have their own proprietary charging network. Sure they can do it right now while small but the future network WILL be an all users network in the future similar to the gas station concept.

Take away the revenue stream of Oil & Gas and they will invest their dollars where they WILL make money. Problem with a lot of EV or gasoline supporters is they always feel it is an all or nothing in either direction, it is not. Energy is energy and energy when you need it will drive the consumer.

The one misconception that has to be removed right now is EVs are so much cheaper to own and operate. They are not. Utilities will keep raising the price of electricity depending on demand. Have a home charging network, the government will find a way to tax you for that. Can even see where you need a new battery and there is a hefty disposal tax or fee. It will come eventually because it has to.

Right now Rivian has it right. Focus on range, function, style, performance and quality. This will drive its success not the typical EV Pollyanna concept of taking a stance on this it that.

To prove my point, my engineering solutions company architects, designs, configures, installs and real-time monitors communication networks for Autonomous Mining Trucks and Mining Companies worldwide as one of our solutions. Sure the manufacturers had the market cornered for their machines but then the liability came in for the networks performance to loss production revenue when down, it opened up opportunities which should not have been there. They are there because of history. Proprietary communications networks/protocols and supporting infrastructures NEVER work for long. The only way to solve the real problem is industry standards and open it up to all. Once automation companies did this, the industry exploded. Same will be for the EV charging infrastructure.

For me, I am buying a Rivian for the performance, the looks, functionality and configuration. I simply can not get this level of performance in current gasoline or diesel trucks. Thus a Rivian it is.

But that is just my opinion. Will to bet Amazon is looking at this option to provide a network for all manufacturers to use. It really is the only option that makes sense.
 

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ajdelange

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Thanks for the update but when the federal credits dissolve and they will, don’t expect a large % of owners to be installing their own power infrastructures at home.
The fed credit for the Teslas dropped to $3750 in Jan of this year, to half that at the end of June and I believe it is now gone (end of Dec.) I honestly don't see that the federal credit has anything to do with this though clearly the $7500 I got more than covered the two HPWCs I bought. This is not the UK where they do get a credit for the charging system as well as the car. Some states may offer credits for the charger too. I would expect any buyer who can (i.e. home owners as opposed to some renters or condo owners where it isn't permitted) to install a home charger "infrastructure" which may be no more than a NEMA 14-50R receptacle. I say this because AFAIK nearly all buyers do. Again this is something you won't appreciate until you actually have experience operating a BEV but the home solution, usually relatively inexpensive, is just too convenient to turn down and is one of the major advantages of BEV ownership in the eyes of most. I haven't been to a gas station in a year and don't miss it.

To truly compete with gasoline or diesel, EVs energy support systems need to be as portable and plentiful as gas stations period.
That's demonstrably not true. As 80% of charging is done at home and will continue to be it is clear that the external EV energy supply system can be much smaller than the gasoline system used by ICE vehicles. The sticky bit is that external charging must be available to the extent that it can support peak demand at high travel times of the year such as the recent Thanksgiving holiday. This means building stalls that will have utilizations of a percent or 2. Example, Baie St. Paul with its 12 stalls in the middle of farm land on a not particularly heavily traveled highway. Maybe something happens in Baie St. Paul on one or two days a year but most of the time you will find 12 stalls empty. At the same time there are reports of 18 and 24 stall stations having waits. Tesla is now experimenting with their MegaPacks on trailers which they can dispatch in times of unusual demand. There are probably more SC's in California than anywhere else and lots of people would like to see the number doubled but even were Tesla to do that the number of stations would still be a fraction of the number of gas stations in the state. That is, of course, for the current demand level.

In addition to home charging Tesla has "Destination Chargers" which are just HPWC's given (yes, given) to businesses who are willing to pay for the electricity they use. These can frequently be used rather than a Super Charger. None the less, when you are on a road trip, you do need superchargers.

As more and more Tesla’s get on the road, that supercharger concept will swallow up any and all profits.
There are no profits to swallow up. The SC network is a marketing expense. Tesla recoups part of the cost from some users, and from increased sales.


It will be a boat anchor around the throat of Tesla that must be unloaded. They can operate it at an OPEX loss all they want at present but that statement does not preclude it from being sold lock stock and barrel in the future.
It's not a boat anchor now. It benefits the company. As the volume increases and the network expands the costs will go up but the benefits to Tesla will increase proportionately. I don't think you appreciate just how valuable an asset to Tesla the SC network is. Of course they can sell it any time they want to but, as I noted in my last post, they wouldn't want to and no one would be interested in buying it unless Tesla guaranteed its profitability going forward. In the future, who knows?


It is a bit unrealistic to think that every manufacturer must have their own proprietary charging network. Sure they can do it right now while small but the future network WILL be an all users network in the future similar to the gas station concept.
I don't think anyone suggested that. We all hope for standards in the connectors, of course, and we're pretty much down to CCS and its European variant for everybody but Tesla but when Telsa started out there was NO standard and they had to roll their own. It is a relatively simple problem to put a Tesla connector of an EA station or a CCS connector on a Tesla station. The latter is done in Europe. The newer charging stations are already similar to the gas station model. You can buy electricity from Tesla or you can buy it from EA or EVGo at many. This is similar to the availability of diesel and petrol at some "gas" stations.


Take away the revenue stream of Oil & Gas and they will invest their dollars where they WILL make money.
Interesting that none of them have except PetroCanada and perhaps some others I don't know about. They get more bang for their buck in lobbying to slow the acceptance of electric vehicles. Besides which it is not clear that EV charging is a place where money is to be made, at least not now. I think there are about 130 M cars on the road in the US and about 1% of them are electric i.e. 1.3 M. The average driver does about 10K miles per year meaning that he'll use about 2.5 MWh of electricity 80% of which he'll buy directly from the utility leaving 0.5 MWh to be obtained from external chargers. That implies 0.65 GWh to be shared among all the chargers out there of which there are currently about 50,000 i.e. about 13 MWh per station per year. At the average $0.12/kWh that's a whopping $1560 return for each stations that now exists and you can see why the newcomers have to charge as much as they do to keep their heads above water. This just drives more people to home or Destinaton Charging.


The one misconception that has to be removed right now is EVs are so much cheaper to own and operate. They are not.
Yes, they are. Again, you will see this when you own and operate one. If you have to use non Tesla DC chargers you will not save on fuel when on road trips relative to an ICE vehicle but you will save on oil changes, emission inspections, brake pad replacement, transmission fluid etc. Count the opportunity costs with the higher price tags and its possibly a wash. I wouldn't advocate buying an EV as a way to save money. They simply represent a better way to make and operate a motor vehicle.



Utilities will keep raising the price of electricity depending on demand.
If this is the old argument that increasing the number of EV's is going to stress the grid that argument has been shown to be jejune. Having an EV has increased my average electric demand by less than 5%. Given 100% of the cars on the road were electric the increased burden on the grid would be less than 10% but it's going to be 20 years before EV's constitute 50%. I have no doubt that that the investor owned utilities will try to use the spectre of uncontolled EV demand as an argument. It's a pretty feeble one and it's success will depend more on the extent to which the utility controls the state rate commission than it will on actual demand.


Have a home charging network, the government will find a way to tax you for that.
That's going to be tough to do as an ordinary electrical outlet constitutes a a "charging network". Government does lose road maintenance funding with EVs and many states do charge an extra registration fee to try to recoup some of that.



Right now Rivian has it right. Focus on range, function, style, performance and quality.
I do believe Rivian has it right in all respects except that its charging solution isn't as good as Teslas. Ceteris paribus (availability) I would probably switch to the Cybertruck because of that and I expect many other Tesla owners would too. But I know that the charging network is not something that comes into my daily use of my BEVs and so will live with the shortcomings and keep my Rivian reservation.


This will drive its success not the typical EV Pollyanna concept of taking a stance on this it that.
I have no idea what that means. I don't think many of us that actually operate EVs suffer from disillusions about their relative advantages and disadvantages.



The only way to solve the real problem is industry standards and open it up to all. Once automation companies did this, the industry exploded. Same will be for the EV charging infrastructure.
I believe the CCS standard is an excellent example of bureaucratic fumbling but nevertheless it has emerged as the standard. Thus it is open to all today. Build a charger with a CCS connector and people will charge with it. The question is as to whether you can do this profitably. Tesla knows they can't but sees the value of their network as a sales tool. EA is really doing their network as a penance. They are going to have to figure out how to at least break even if they are to stay in business. Circuit Electrique is part of a large government owned corporation and I believe PetroCanada is (or was) the same. How the others stay in business I don't know and fear that they won't.[/QUOTE]
 
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Mr_funnypuns

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An insightful article that identifies some of the problems of a stainless steel body. We’ve identified a few points in our conversations here. This article discusses some of the problems involved in repairing the DMC-12 stainless steel body as a point of comparison for the CT stainless steel body. The labor required to repair a stainless steel body panel would seem to suggest a higher insurance rate.

Anyone know what the cost of insurance on a DMC-12 was vs. comparable vehicles back in the day? Was a little before my time.

https://apple.news/ALmYX2ojaQN6sPh2acQ-T0w

 

RayzorBEV

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My Cybertruck's RN112808XXX. That's exactly 2 hours after the unveiling. I ordered the Tri-motor midrange version which together with the top model have now been moved up on delivery priority. Hopefully, we'll see them in late 2021. My Rivian R1T 135 should be ready in late 2020 but I'm not sure where I stand in the line? Anyone has any idea how to tell?
 

RayzorBEV

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I ordered the R1T and the Cybertruck. I currently has the Model 3 Dual Motor AWD and are very pleased with my services rendered so far. Tesla has both mobile service vans and a service center near where I resides.
I'm a little concern about how Rivian plans on providing services to our BEVs. Will Rivian be able to open enough service centers/mobile service vehicles to cover all the States?? What will be the turn around time for services? Will Ford be tapped for services? Anyone has any insights to share?
 

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Just saw this picture of the Cybertruck screen. Is from the Motortrend article. Range is 620 miles.
Rivian R1T R1S Rivian vs. Cybertruck upload_2019-12-11_21-0-26
 

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Just saw this picture of the Cybertruck screen. Is from the Motortrend article. Range is 620 miles.
upload_2019-12-11_21-0-26.jpeg
Saw that. Makes me wonder whether that is an accurate readout or if it was manually programmed for hype purposes.
 

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Well they have that mileage stated for the roadster so we know if possible. Might not be what they end up doing, if they offered it I would go for it.
 

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I ordered the Tri-motor midrange version
I don't believe that you can have both a Tri-motor mid-range at the same time, unless you missed a comma in there and actually ordered 2 trucks

My Rivian R1T 135 should be ready in late 2020 but I'm not sure where I stand in the line? Anyone has any idea how to tell?
There is no where to tell where you fall in line for your Rivian order until you actually customize your order by selecting the 135kWh battery with all of the options that you desire. Until then, you are in the dark with the rest of us.

Will Ford be tapped for services? Anyone has any insights to share?
Cox Automotive will be providing all of the Mobile Service for Rivian. This was made known at the ATL Pre-Order event back on 13 September.
 

RayzorBEV

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I don't believe that you can have both a Tri-motor mid-range at the same time, unless you missed a comma in there and actually ordered 2 trucks



There is no where to tell where you fall in line for your Rivian order until you actually customize your order by selecting the 135kWh battery with all of the options that you desire. Until then, you are in the dark with the rest of us.



Cox Automotive will be providing all of the Mobile Service for Rivian. This was made known at the ATL Pre-Order event back on 13 September.
Oops, my bad. Yeah mistake, ordered the top line tri-motor Cybertruck. I also ordered the midrange 135kWh R1T. Thanks for the info about ordering and having COX providing the mobile service. Can't wait!
 

ajdelange

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Just saw this picture of the Cybertruck screen. Is from the Motortrend article. Range is 620 miles.
Don't get too excited folks. I've seen ranges of as much as 999 (the highest the display can show) on my X100D. If you set the consumption monitor for instantaneous or 5 miles and run down hill you will see large ranges based on small Wh/mi consumed over that recent distance (or instant in the case of the instantaneous mode).
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