[Dave Cundiff]

Exactly. But if I keep my average above 2.0 miles per KW on that display, I absolutely expect to get the milage shown. In my experience it isn't far off at least with our Launch R1S. This is exactly how gas cars estimate mileage as well and we're all used to. Everyone knows that if it says 50 miles to empty and you start flooring it, you're not getting anything close. Funny after a track day with my McLaren I filled the tank and it told me I had 75 miles of range! Full throttle is like you are pouring gas out of a cup.

I believe Rivian's range estimates assume efficiency from about 2.5 to about 2.85 miles per kWh, depending on configuration and rim/tire size.

That's barely achievable for most of us, because we don't WANT to drive for optimal efficiency/range.
Rivian has a reputation for at least reasonable integrity in their range estimates.

Best wishes!

 

[ventura]

Rivian may not be marketing well to first time EV buyers. if you had a tesla before, the range estimate is pretty good. Corvettes also have good gas mileage, until you floor it. First time EV drivers enjoy the juice in the beginning until it gets old. Likely impacts range perception as well.

 

[LoudMusic]

I believe Rivian's range estimates assume efficiency from about 2.5 to about 2.85 miles per kWh, depending on configuration and rim/tire size.

That's barely achievable for most of us, because we don't WANT to drive for optimal efficiency/range.
Rivian has a reputation for at least reasonable integrity in their range estimates.

Best wishes!

The vehicle has HUNDREDS of horsepower. Many Hundreds. Who chooses to drive that vehicle efficiently? If that's the goal, get a Hyundai Ionic5. They are impressive vehicles.

 

[moi]

…
So what do you see as the problem here?
Using 30% of your battery for 100 miles of driving equates to a full-charge range of 333 miles. That's well within what is advertised, depending of course on the size of your battery pack, on whether you have quad or dual motors, R1T or R1S, and type of tires/wheels. You don't mention any of those things, and don't say what you expected to happen, and you didn't say what the EPA rating is for your configuration, so we have no way of telling whether your expectations are reasonable. But you seem to think this is one of your "biggest issues"?

Does he own a dual max pack with range wheels advertised to be 410 miles?

 

[O. horridus]

Why get caught up in the semantics. Everyone knows what he's saying. Drive 60 miles and lose 90+ miles of range.

It's not semantics. The words used are a symptom that reflects the OP's underlying misunderstanding. If the OP doesn't make an effort to understand, then he is going to be forever dissatisfied with his purchase. If he doesn't understand, then there is nothing Rivian service can say or do to satisfy him. And in this case, it's HIGHLY likely that there is NO PROBLEM AT ALL with his vehicle, but that his expectations are completely wrong because he lacks knowledge.

And no, you don't "Drive 60 miles and lose 90+ miles of range" because the battery DOESN'T STORE RANGE. You NEVER HAD 90 range to begin with. You had a certain amount of kWh, and that kWh could be spent on different things. If you spend it going up a mountain, you don't get a lot of distance from it. If you spend it going DOWN a mountain, you get a lot of distance from it. The only number that has any truth at all is the kWh in the battery - the "miles" you get out of those kWh are extremely variable and dependent upon your route, your driving style, your speed, etc.

Let me make another analogy:
If I have $15 and take it to Costco I can get 10 Hot Dogs and 10 Sodas (with refill).
If I take that same $15 to the ballpark, I can maybe if I'm lucky get 1 hot dog and soda.
But no-one has ever said "I had 10 hot dogs in my wallet but was only able to get 1 when I went to the game". See how that works? Everyone understands money, and no one would expect that $15 gets you 10 hot dogs and 10 sodas everywhere.

Again, this language is something totally different than what you would read when talking about gas powered vehicles. It portrays EVs as some incomprehensible device that works differently than expected. If you can get past that and realize that EVs work exactly the same way as the gas powered vehicles we are all familiar with, then you will be much happier in life.

The point being, Rivian's range calculation is significantly off when compared to other companies and many of us have data to prove it.

Bullshit. Rivian's range calculation, specifically the range remaining that is displayed when you navigate to a certain location, is pretty much spot-on. I have 10,000 miles of road trips saved in a spreadsheet that confirms this. If anything, Rivian is extremely conservative in its estimates and will tell you you will have a lot LESS range when you arrive than you end up having in real life. That's because the range calculation in the navigation knows where you are going, knows the elevation changes, knows your drive mode, and has learned your driving style including how fast you usually go on highways. That's enough to make a reasonable prediction of how many kWh you will use and what you will have remaining at your destination.

Do you perhaps own a Tesla? Tesla is the only company that I know of that has systematically gamed the EPA rating system to try to make themselves look better. Every other company's EPA estimates are pretty much accurate in my experience. Both gas and EV.

 

[moi]

The obvious… how one drives (acceleration , deceleration, braking, etc), use of heat/ac/etc, and the external factors (wind, terrain, temperature, etc) affect actual range.

 

[lcmdpc]

OP should find a level straight road and record his metrics. Then drive that stretch of road on a calm, temperate day while on driver+ at the legal limit or slightly below. Stop and record his metrics. Do the math using difference in SoC so calculate what he is really taking out of the battery pack per mile.
Everything you do -acceleration, hills, turning, tires, carrying or towing weight, even quality of road surface impacts on energy use. Only by taking up the variables will he know his best case usage.
Then he can examine if his behavior or local setting explains his numbers or if there’s actually something off kilter.
Im said to get 305. I actually get 280. In my area 30m deserts exist so only work with 250 in my thinking. But really try to only have gaps of 200 as I wish to avoid ever charging to 100%.
I do wish the drivers screen showed the following metrics-battery use at that moment and battery use per trip. The 15m usage isn’t that helpful. I would prefer metrics that might influence my behavior. 15m slices don’t do that and the graph isn’t helpful as you can’t correlate your behavior to the graph.

 

[Bogeyman]

The obvious… how one drives (acceleration , deceleration, braking, etc), use of heat/ac/etc, and the external factors (wind, terrain, temperature, etc) affect actual range.

Correct - and that applies to any vehicle, EV or ICE. And don't forget tire inflation pressure.

One of the more puzzling things to me was that the OP said "freeway use going with the flow of traffic.." Now, in the 15 months and 24K miles that I have had my R1S, I have found that there are two factors that have the greatest impact on range. First, and everyone knows this, is speed. Even on relatively flat terrain, the driver can see the average mi/kwh drop as the speed increases. So "going with the flow of traffic" can mean a lot of things. One truly has to know the actual speed for this to be meaningful. Second is temperature. I was very surprised last year in a comparatively mild winter that my range was roughly 15% less than when the ambient temps are warm.

 

[Dave Cundiff]

When we drove my wife's R1T from Maryland to its new home, we had headwinds in Washington State that reduced our efficiency to about 1.8 miles per kWh at 70 mph. Because R1T is so steady in the wind, we didn't realize how hard the R1T was working until we checked the efficiency.

I hope @Cb9894 is getting confident about the range he will and won't get under various conditions. These are amazing vehicles! Most of us are very happy, after we learn how to manage EVs. Fortunately, our family's Bolts since 2019 taught us most of what we needed to know to be happy with our Rivians.

Glad to see so much constructive input for our new Rivian owner!

 

[DaisyRivian]

You said:

If you think that sentence means you are "using 30% more miles then we are getting" then you need to take English lessons. And BTW, it's "than", not "then".

Again, there's no such thing as "using miles". You don't use miles. There are no miles in the tank to use up. You have a comprehension problem here, and unless you can provide details and pose the problem in a logical manner, the rest of us can only guess where your misunderstanding lies. The fact that you keep stating that you use x miles to go y distance is an indication that you don't understand what's happening, so how can you say it's a problem?

My guess is you're looking at the battery gauge behind the steering wheel and not realizing that this is a battery level, just like on your cell phone. There is no way the vehicle can tell you how far you can go with a particular battery % because there is no way the vehicle knows whether you going to be driving uphill or downhill, for example. Just like there's no way for your cell phone to say when the battery will run out, because it doesn't know how you will be using your phone. In the Rivian settings, there is an option that will display this battery level as % or as (% * EPA range), or as both simultaneously. If this is what you are looking at and thinking it's telling you how far the car can go, regardless of where you go or how you drive, then perhaps you should change the setting to % so it doesn't mislead you as to what it's really indicating.

Tone. Be kind.

 

[OkieRivian]

We have a 2023 R1S Adventure Series; love it. No problems. In regard to EV mileage, as also a current Telsa owner (third Tesla; having owned a 3 an X and now an S); EV mileage is never what is promised or touted on screen or by the mfg. In Tesla, as in Rivian, one will see the estimated mileage number on the dash screen. E.g 300 miles. However, when driving, Tesla also provides a submenu screen which shows you “livetime" actual mileage you can expect to drive based on road conditions, your speed, outside wind conditions, temperatures, and any and all electronics you are making use of in the car. Notably Rivian does not provide this detailed screen. That true mileage you can expect to drive in the Tesla will invariably be quite different from the estimated mileage number that shows on the Tesla dashboard. E.g. on trips we would see we have available 300 miles to drive on the Tesla dash, but opening the submenu, the car shows that in actuality under the current driving conditions our “true" available drive miles is e.g. only 250. On trips we learned never to pay attention to the dashboard mileage estimate but to rely solely on the actual true mileage submenu screen and plan recharging stops accordingly. So even when Tesla (and Rivian) advertises that an EV model will get 350 miles on a single charge, just understand that is bluster. Your actual true mileage in any EV is going to be drastically affected by speed, road conditions, wind, weather, electronics and a barrage of other factors. It would be great and very nice if Rivian provided such a submenu “true mileage” screen for drivers as does Tesla, so Rivian could see at a glance what is the actual “true” mileage available at that minute to them. Greatly relieves the “am I going to be stranded” fear factor on guessing the EV mileage based only on the dashboard estimate.

 

[OkieRivian]

Supplemental: many times in the Tesla S on trips, the “true” mileage subscreen would advise us in detail as to outside wind speed/direction, road elevation changes, temperatures outside and our use on interior electronics while driving and Tesla S itself would do the math and then issue a recommended speed that would provide us so many xxxx miles to reach our intended destination with so many xxx miles left in the battery. I would love Rivian to provide such an info screen!

 

[ChrisG]

I have had my 2025 R1S, dual motor, max pack for about 2 months and this thread has helped make sense of a few things for me. But first, a little background: This is my first EV, although I had done a pretty decent amount of research into them before my purchase. I knew that unlike ICE cars, EVs tend to get worse mileage on the highway than they do around town and mileage estimates in general are pretty generous. My max pack shows 410 miles of range when fully charged, although I've only charged that high once. I keep it at 70% day to day and about 85% or 90% before leaving for a road trip. I've driven 3,028 miles so far, with a lot of that being trips between Northern VA and South Jersey. I believe the Gen 2 max pack battery is 142 usable KWh, which would mean that the range estimate on the dash equates to ~ 2.8 KWh / mile. I tend to drive about 80 - 85mph (and I still get passed in Jersey - they drive FAST). At that speed, the 15m monitor settles out at a little above 2 miles / KWh, and like the OP, I also get a lot less than the stated range shown on the dash. When I plug my trip into the Rivian GPS, the range it estimates is pretty accurate. I usually end up with a few more miles of range when I arrive than predicted by the GPS before leaving. When driving around town I get better mileage, but I'm not sure that it is above the 2.8KWh that the dashboard battery meter assumes. The 15m range (efficiency) graph shows a line at 2.0 KWh and says that I am adding range above the line and losing range when below the line. I have wondered why they show it at 2.0 since the real "break even" is somewhere around 2.8KWh for my vehicle (based on my understanding of my battery size). Based on some of the other posts, it seems like this is left over from the gen 1 quad motors. Rivian needs to update that line based on which vehicle one has to make it accurate for that vehicle. It sounds like the main complaint of the OP is due to not understanding that EVs tend to get better mileage around town than they do on the highway, which is opposite ICE vehicles. It would be helpful if Rivian updated its 15m range graph for gen 2 vehicles as well. If he was driving around at 80 mph like me, and that graph was showing that his driving is hitting the target range while at the same time getting 30% less than what the dashboard battery range estimates, then I can see how that would create confusion. I've also had a few minor service problems since picking it up. Most have been fixed by rebooting the car, which I've had to do about 3 times over 2 months. (One could argue that needing to reboot your car is a problem in and of itself, as I never had to do that with my ICE cars.) When I picked up the car, the wireless battery charger didn't work and I've got some very minor trim and panel alignment issues. I chuckled to myself that the OP complained about the time his car has spent in service, because even though I entered my service tickets before driving off of the Rivian lot on August 16th, my first appointment is next week. So I echo his service complaints, albeit for different reasons.

 

[R. Kiel]

Why get caught up in the semantics. Everyone knows what he's saying. Drive 60 miles and lose 90+ miles of range. Nobody cares about battery percentage unless you equate that to range...as in miles. We've had our R1S now since May of '23 and the range indicator has been significantly more accurate than our previous Tesla. If you are driving and keeping the Miles per kilowatt over 2...you should be getting the mileage shown. Rivian estimates the mileage base on that 2.0 (at least for the Quad motor Launch Edition) and it certainly should equate to real world range on average.

CB9894, use the graph on the driver display to monitor your energy usage. If you can't see a graph, hold the far left button down on the steering wheel and it will scroll through the different screens until it comes up. I think Rivian may have been optimistic with the other battery packs they've released and are using a different formula for range that is harder to actually achieve. I've see others complain about the range with dual motor large packs.

I recently did a test regarding nominal vs actual mileage . Total miles driven 210. Average speed around 63 mi/hr. Mostly level with some minor hills, with power setting at “conserve“. The difference worked out to a tad over 9%. Incidentally, the navigation system send us via all sort of back roads; hence to relatively low average speed. (I think the navigator lady prioritizes the shortest rather than the fastest route.)

 

[O. horridus]

Now, in the 15 months and 24K miles that I have had my R1S, I have found that there are two factors that have the greatest impact on range. First, and everyone knows this, is speed. Even on relatively flat terrain, the driver can see the average mi/kwh drop as the speed increases. So "going with the flow of traffic" can mean a lot of things. One truly has to know the actual speed for this to be meaningful.

Specifically, the energy use varies with the square of the velocity. That means if you go twice as fast, you spend 4 times as much energy combating aerodynamic drag. This is a huge deal, and it affects EVs and ICE vehicles equally.

For instance, if you drive 70 mph instead of 60 mph, you're going to use 36% more energy ! [(70/60)^2 ~= 1.36.] And consequentially, when driving 70 you will only get a fraction of the range that you get when driving 60. (Science Rules!)

Now, aerodynamic drag is just part of your energy usage. But it's a large part. And this affects gas vehicles exactly the same as it affects EVs. Again, just math.

 

[solard532]

We have had the vehicle a little over a month and non-stop issues. Was in the shop for 10 days and supposedly resolved the issues, but only 2 of the 4 issues resolved, but the 2 biggest issues still remain. We are losing 30% more charge in less then 100 miles of freeway only driving, flat terrain.

We drove 45 miles the first day after the supposed repairs and used 72. The next day we drove 60 miles and used 92 miles. Service and follow through is the worst I have ever experienced. First texting, then long waits to no avail on the toll free line. Press 1 for a call back and of course no call backs. Very, very disappointed in this purchase and would not recommend buying one to anyone. We love the vehicle, just can’t continue with the ongoing issues 🙁

Sorry to say but that seems pretty normal. That's roughly what I'm getting with my Gen 1 R1T. I drive the hell out of it every day for work and pleasure and it's the best vehicle I've ever driven or owned in my life and that includes my wife's Model Y.

 

[Liam Jacobs]

I've had my gen2 R1S since Aug 19th. Dual Performance Max AT. I have had various problems, most of them minor. However I am also not getting anywhere near the Advertised Mileage. I posted another thread about this after my first 800 mile trip, where I only averaged 1.91 m/kw. I was told overwhelmingly in that thread, that I was driving "too fast" (75ish). Since then, I have put about 500 more miles on it, with none of it over 55, and still am not getting anywhere near the Advertised Mileage, I am only getting about 2.07 m/kw. Now to get my Advertised Mileage, the car would need to be at 2.5 m/kw. I came from a Chevy Volt, I have had some experience with electric/batteries, and I routinely got the advertised mileage in my daily commuting, exception being in the winter cold.

Some of the issues that I have had since picking it up:

• Door Locks unlock on their own, without me being near the car. (ie too far for my phone to trigger the unlock)(Side note, the Gen2 doesn't come with Keyfobs, which in my opinion is a big miss)
• Cruise control not working (Unavailable at this time message)
• Missing fasteners in the fender well
• Trim misaligned
• Rattle coming from dash area
• Drive Cam not working (I set it up, and after leaving the car for a few hours and coming back, it will not work, and has turned off power to the USB ports. Only a software reboot will restart the power to the USB ports)
• A faulty parking sensor, shows object hitting car, when nothing is there, and sensor is clean
• Unable to pause audiobook I am listening to, when cellular is unavailable

The 15m range (efficiency) graph shows a line at 2.0 KWh and says that I am adding range above the line and losing range when below the line. I have wondered why they show it at 2.0 since the real "break even" is somewhere around 2.8KWh for my vehicle (based on my understanding of my battery size). Based on some of the other posts, it seems like this is left over from the gen 1 quad motors. Rivian needs to update that line based on which vehicle one has to make it accurate for that vehicle.

I think ChrisG makes a great point, the Efficiency Graph, should be adjusted based on your particular spec of vehicle, which then gives a goal for drivers to shoot for. In addition, the batteries rated mileage on the dash, should be replaced with a number that shows your most recent, say 1k miles, of usage range, or make this an option in the menu. (IE 100% battery for me, would show like 300 miles, not 370.)

Some other things that I think would be good, may be specific to me.

• A way to reset the cellular connection (my work uses cell jammers, and when I get in the car, I cannot access anything, normally for my phone I put in airplane and back and bypass the jammer.)
• Option to turn on the charging lightbars, during charging, even when the car is locked (IE I walk away at work, and its plugged into the Level 2 charger, coworkers could see if its charging/current state of charge) I am already plugged in, not like they would slow the charge by a significant margin.

-The ability to buy 3 or 1 Cargo Cross Bars, they are only sold in sets of 2, and there are 3 spots on the R1S.

I also still have not received my spare tire kit, my all weather mats, or the 2 key fobs I ordered before leaving with the car. Earliest available service date was Oct 4. Which I am not even sure if they are going to honor, as the nearest service center is 7 hours from me.

All that being said, I really do like the car, and it drives smooth, comfortable, and quiet (except the rattle), it has plenty of power, and suits my needs for size and use. But all these little things, and the big range question mark, spoil the enjoyment. Rivian customer service has been super nice on the phone, and showed genuine concern over the issues I have been having, however it seems to break down when they try to schedule the service center to fix anything.

Lastly the order process with preorder pricing, was atrociously bad. If there was a competitor with similar features/options/price, I would have jumped ship. It made me feel like I was not appreciated as someone who committed to purchase, before the product was even made.

 

[ProDriven]

It's not semantics. The words used are a symptom that reflects the OP's underlying misunderstanding. If the OP doesn't make an effort to understand, then he is going to be forever dissatisfied with his purchase. If he doesn't understand, then there is nothing Rivian service can say or do to satisfy him. And in this case, it's HIGHLY likely that there is NO PROBLEM AT ALL with his vehicle, but that his expectations are completely wrong because he lacks knowledge.

And no, you don't "Drive 60 miles and lose 90+ miles of range" because the battery DOESN'T STORE RANGE. You NEVER HAD 90 range to begin with. You had a certain amount of kWh, and that kWh could be spent on different things. If you spend it going up a mountain, you don't get a lot of distance from it. If you spend it going DOWN a mountain, you get a lot of distance from it. The only number that has any truth at all is the kWh in the battery - the "miles" you get out of those kWh are extremely variable and dependent upon your route, your driving style, your speed, etc.

Let me make another analogy:
If I have $15 and take it to Costco I can get 10 Hot Dogs and 10 Sodas (with refill).
If I take that same $15 to the ballpark, I can maybe if I'm lucky get 1 hot dog and soda.
But no-one has ever said "I had 10 hot dogs in my wallet but was only able to get 1 when I went to the game". See how that works? Everyone understands money, and no one would expect that $15 gets you 10 hot dogs and 10 sodas everywhere.

Again, this language is something totally different than what you would read when talking about gas powered vehicles. It portrays EVs as some incomprehensible device that works differently than expected. If you can get past that and realize that EVs work exactly the same way as the gas powered vehicles we are all familiar with, then you will be much happier in life.


Bullshit. Rivian's range calculation, specifically the range remaining that is displayed when you navigate to a certain location, is pretty much spot-on. I have 10,000 miles of road trips saved in a spreadsheet that confirms this. If anything, Rivian is extremely conservative in its estimates and will tell you you will have a lot LESS range when you arrive than you end up having in real life. That's because the range calculation in the navigation knows where you are going, knows the elevation changes, knows your drive mode, and has learned your driving style including how fast you usually go on highways. That's enough to make a reasonable prediction of how many kWh you will use and what you will have remaining at your destination.

Do you perhaps own a Tesla? Tesla is the only company that I know of that has systematically gamed the EPA rating system to try to make themselves look better. Every other company's EPA estimates are pretty much accurate in my experience. Both gas and EV.

I'm glad you're so lucky. I also have thousands of miles of data proving I get 70% of the range advertised on the dash...in Minnesota, on flat roads, at 75-degrees. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Or, if you're so confident all Rivians perform like yours, wanna trade?!

 

[Beach Cruiser]

If you use "premium" miles to fill your tank then it will run better. It's worth the extra cost.

Seriously, what is this supposed to mean? You don't use up "miles" because you didn't put "miles" in your tank in the first place. You put in energy, measured in kWh. If you get less than the EPA range per kWh it's for the exact same reasons you would get less than the EPA range per gallon in an ICE vehicle. Have you ever in your life uttered a phrase like "we drove 60 miles and used 92 miles" about a gas-powered vehicle? I hope not. Instead you probably have said something like "I only got 12 miles per gallon on that drive". If you understand why you got fewer miles per gallon than the EPA number in your gas vehicle, then you should understand why you're getting fewer miles per kWh than the EPA number in your Rivian.


So what do you see as the problem here?
Using 30% of your battery for 100 miles of driving equates to a full-charge range of 333 miles. That's well within what is advertised, depending of course on the size of your battery pack, on whether you have quad or dual motors, R1T or R1S, and type of tires/wheels. You don't mention any of those things, and don't say what you expected to happen, and you didn't say what the EPA rating is for your configuration, so we have no way of telling whether your expectations are reasonable. But you seem to think this is one of your "biggest issues"?

Also, what drive mode is being used? THere is a significant difference in my R1 between Eco, All Purpose and Sport.

 

[Liam Jacobs]

Also, what drive mode is being used? THere is a significant difference in my R1 between Eco, All Purpose and Sport.

It has to be a Dual motor, which does not come with a Conserve (Eco) mode. Only All Purpose and Sport.