[BF Flyer]

We seem to have problems connecting to 3rd party chargers. 350kwh chargers are all over the map with actual charge rates. Tonight an Electrify America 350 kWh charger delivered a whopping 35 kWh rate. Failed 3 times before actually connecting.
Even the new Rivian Adventure Charger in Truckee delivered a disappointing 50 kWh last night.
Then when we came home to top it off our home charger failed. This is not reliable for longer trips. Can’t sit for 3 hours to recharge. Anyone have any insight? Love the truck. Not so much to difficulty charging on the road.

 

[O. horridus]

Try a reboot of your truck.

 

[Michael]

We seem to have problems connecting to 3rd party chargers. 350kwh chargers are all over the map with actual charge rates. Tonight an Electrify America 350 kWh charger delivered a whopping 35 kWh rate. Failed 3 times before actually connecting.
Even the new Rivian Adventure Charger in Truckee delivered a disappointing 50 kWh last night.
Then when we came home to top it off our home charger failed. This is not reliable for longer trips. Can’t sit for 3 hours to recharge. Anyone have any insight? Love the truck. Not so much to difficulty charging on the road.

Yes Electrify America charger in Withville VA stopped charging after 10 min and had to restart. After restarting it finished charging at 150kw very fast and my first experience with a super charger very impressive and really the only way to travel. I sat for around 7 hours on a 5.5kw hybrid charger to get 30 mi added ,because that was the only option before. Sad that hotels and car dealerships think those chargers are worth installing maybe they think we have 2 days to sit and read the paper.

 

[Mf66]

Got my R1T I;September and have put 6;000 miles on it so far. The EA and Rivian issues are real. I have owned a model X since 2016 so familiar with Evs and road trips. My take- Tesla is like Mac ( the software and hardware made by same people so it works well). Rivian is Windows ( hardware and softwre issues. Buggy software. Minor issues)

key issues

- handle locations don’t always line up with charge port. some stations I have had to park in one stall and use the charger on the adjacent stall as it is only one that will fit. Less of an issue when chargers are empty.

- handshake- the chrger and authentication is often times an issue. I have tried starting session on app and then plugging in handle, plug in handle and then start session on app, plug in handle and then use nfc reader, give up and use credit card. Sometimes it just works great. Sometimes it doesn’t. There is little rhyme or reason why as far as I can tell.

- I have had several issues where you plug in and the charger tells you to plug in. The charger does not recognize that the car is plugged in. the charge port makes a noise when it recognizes the charger. If it doesn’t make that noise you will not start a session. Period.

- speeds- The car does try to warm the battery for fast charging if you navigate to it. This appears to be more hit and miss. Doesn’t always work.

my Charging past few weeks. These are when it was on my account. If I gave up and used credit card it isn’t on here . If EA threw a complimentary session it isn’t in here either.

EA Springfield,IL - 16 min. 48 KWH. 209 kw max

EA Lebanon, MO. 10 min. 22KWH. 144 kw max

EA Mount Vernon, MO 13 min 43 kWh. 209 max

EA Mount Vernon, MO. 10 min. 25 kWh. 190 max ( previous session had error and ended)

EA Vinita,OK. 2 min. 6kwh. 212 max ( session fault and then couldn’t get it to work with app so used credit card)

Bristow,ok. 10 min. 18kwh 202 max. ( session issue same as above)

Weatherford,OK. 19 min 49 kWh 156kw max

Erick,OK. 24 min 71kwh 206 max

Amarillo,TX. 31 min 81 kWh. 210 Max

Tucumcari,NM 14 min 42kwh. 207 kw max

Pueblo,CO. 9 min 21kwh. 181 kw max

Colby,KS. 25 min 65kwn. 191 max

Lexington,NE. 41 min 97 Kwh 198 kw max

Lincoln, NE. 43 min. 95kwh. 206 Max

Council bluffs, IA. 9 min 22kwn. 205 max

Willimsburg,IA. 12 min. 33kwh 194 max

When it works it is fast and easy. BTW I would say at 80% of these session I was the only car there.

 

[Switters74]

I have found that there are a number of factors impacting charging in "real-life" scenarios in the Rivian. There is a great article showing that the 350kw and 150 kw have similar charge rates of charge with the 350 having a small bit of an edge. That being said, due to exterior ambient temperature, state of charge (SOC), and battery temperature - the Rivian has significant variability in how fast it can accept a charge. In addition, while Electrify America chargers seem all the same, I have had HUGE variability in the actual amount of electricity they deliver (even when taking the car variables into account). I am hoping some OTA updates from Rivian will help us with the Rivian variables over time. For the networks, we definitely need som more efforts on behalf of the national chargers. Electrify America and EVGO are by far the most reliable. I highly suggest not depending on ChargePoint - I have been disappointed a number of times by them.

 

[thebishman]

1: Stop and unplug and then re-start the EA charger;

2: if still very slow; move to another 150kW or 350kW charger and try it;

3: if the other chargers are occupied, call EA and have them re-boot the charger. Many times this will work, and EA will comp the charge session also.

 

[Harleykidd]

@Mf66 thanks for the info you shared, I noticed you had several "short" <20 min charging sessions over the past few weeks. Was that your doing or the chargers stopped working ? In comparison my sessions are generally 30 min or longer.
BTW it looks like you are on the road a lot!

 

[Louisdeg]

I haven’t used a Fast charger yet. What does it cost? Are you worried about battery damage from repeated fast charging? thanks to for the detail.

 

[Mf66]

@Mf66 thanks for the info you shared, I noticed you had several "short" <20 min charging sessions over the past few weeks. Was that your doing or the chargers stopped working ? In comparison my sessions are generally 30 min or longer.
BTW it looks like you are on the road a lot!

My approach ( right or wrong) is to optimize charging. The goal is to get down the road as quickly as possible. I also Look at charging speeds. If the charging tapers it is likely better once it gets below 100kw to go to the next charger and charge there.

Example Weatherford, OK. Erick,Ok charger is 74 miles or Amarillo is 190 miles. Do I do the deep charge to go to Amarillo or is it better to do a quick fast charge and go to Erick. I only got 156kw max at Weatherford so that decision was made easy. I also prefer to stop more frequently as it makes the charges go by faster. A 45 minute charge makes me tired. 20 minutes I am done so quick it’s easy. Different for everyone I am sure.

For costs- my most expensive charge was $24.18 in Erick,Ok for 71 kWh. My cheapest was in Lincoln,NE. It was $11.08 for 95.8kwh. Some states make EA charge by KWH some require time based. It’s kinda dumb. Looks like the EA pricing by the minute with a fast charging car is too low. Hard to make money selling power for $0.11/ KWH in NE.

 

[Mf66]

I haven’t used a Fast charger yet. What does it cost? Are you worried about battery damage from repeated fast charging? thanks to for the detail.

Fast charging does take a toll but the car works hard to baby the battery. Keep the car at 70% as much as you realistically can. If you need to charge to 100% do it and then drive it right away. Don’t leave car at 100% all the time. If I can chose between DCFC and AC charging and time doesn’t matter I always pick AC.

The battery will degrade. It will likely stop degrading at some level. Tesla has tons of data on this. My early Model X has tons of DCFC. It is a p90D model. Battery has degraded by 12% and has stayed there for a while. We will see…

 

[Louisdeg]

I did my first fast charge this week, 195 miles in 1 hour 1 minute and then the charge was “stopped by station” at 73% - 85kw for $19.13 at Sturbridge. MA. I emailed EVgo but haven’t heard back, is there some sort of time limit? The one hour timing is suspicious. One of the 4 chargers was out of service.
At home I set 70% and charge when I’m below 100 miles. I’ve had the charge soon warning twice now at 20 something miles so I’m not stressing the battery.
Stop and Shop in Wareham MA had a free class 2 -right in front -closer than the handicap spots even. An encouraging sign that business are trying to attract EV users.

 

[EaglesPDX]

It looks like you got good charging rates for all but 25% of the trip. That's not bad considering early days of charging infrastructure.

I have the Chademo adapter and have been purposely using EA, EVgo, WCEV, Chargepoint to see how non Tesla charging would be. Chargepoint has been the best but I have CP at home and have the fob so plug and swipe and always just works. With EA using the app, it's been pretty seamless and seems better now than previous two years. Whenever I have issues (and this applies to Tesla also) I always call and ask them to look. They have often been able to reboot it and have given me free charging when I do call. If not, at least it gives them a heads up to fix it. Most times I'm usually the first/only person to report an issue. Same is true for Tesla when I find out of order chargers. They'll look at the charger and put in a maintenance ticket but their own software did not report and I was the first customer to report it. Driving 1600 miles to Thanksgiving and at least one or more chargers out at each of the Tesla stations. It is odd that chargers ever go down.

I wonder if CP has the right idea on the fob. It seems to keep everything local vs the apps which require disparate devices communicating. I'd have no problem with a few 1x2 plastic fobs on the key chain.