[EVRider]

For those of you who have used A Better Route Planner (ABRP), the Rivian app, or Plugshare to plan a route, which do you prefer?

I'm going from Los Angeles to Monterey soon and I'd like to dial in my charging stops. ABRP has me stopping only once. Curious if there's a big difference between planners.

 

[Joelster]

I use the Rivian Nav when driving around but if I have to drive any distance, I will research the trip using ABRP. Considering purchasing the subscription as it then integrates better with Apple Car Play which my wife's car has. I have not yet found much value in the Plugshare app.

I think one of the biggest drawbacks of the Rivian Nav is that it only gives you a point A and a point B. Kind of a drag when planning a trip in an EV where you know you might have several points between your starting point and your final destination.

 

[choqni]

I use the Rivian Nav when driving around but if I have to drive any distance, I will research the trip using ABRP. Considering purchasing the subscription as it then integrates better with Apple Car Play which my wife's car has. I have not yet found much value in the Plugshare app.

I think one of the biggest drawbacks of the Rivian Nav is that it only gives you a point A and a point B. Kind of a drag when planning a trip in an EV where you know you might have several points between your starting point and your final destination.

I have found that Plugshare is super useful for information about specific chargers, like if they work or how well they work. ABRP is great for mapping a theoretically possible EV route, but it can be out of date. Sometimes ABRP routes to stations that don't work at all, even the subscription version. Plugshare crowdsources (user reviews) almost real time info about charging experiences. Too bad there's not yet one app that does it all. We are in the purchasing process to get our R1S now. Maybe they'll improve the navigation software, but I expect to have to continue relying on apps too.

 

[Mattwho]

I've done that trip twice and both times I ran into trouble charging in Paso Robles. The EA chargers at the Bank Of America on Paso were very busy or not working. Not sure how to do so but I'll try to avoid needing to charge in Paso Robles next time.

 

[RidingRoadsAndTrails]

Similar to the other answers, we did a road trip from Denver to Madison, WI. ABRP is the best first step to plan the complete route with the stops and how much to charge at each stop. In general, our state of charge was a little better than the ABRP projection.

For each charging stop, check PlugShare to see how much success folks recently had at the charging station. Also, look for close-by fall back chargers just in case. PlugShare also provides the street address of the charging stations which is great for the next step.

For each leg of the trip, use Alexa to navigate to the charging station and let it know that it is a charging station so that the truck knows to condition the batteries for the charge as you arrive. "Alexa - Navigate to the charging station at 123 Main Street Anytown AnyState". It may come back with several choices, pick the right one and you are good to go.

Some of the reports of ElectrifyAmerica stations not working did not hold true for us where they worked fine for us but someone an hour earlier could not charge.

We did have 2 instances where the truck would not sync to the EA station and a hard reset (press & hold the left steering wheel button and the hazard button at the same time) resolved it.

Along the I-80 corridor, there were plenty of CCS (fast charging) stations. However, turning north to WI, level 2 or worse was the best we could do and that got a little stressful. I believe CA is much better for charging availability.

 

[flyfisherman]

I have found that Plugshare is super useful for information about specific chargers, like if they work or how well they work. ABRP is great for mapping a theoretically possible EV route, but it can be out of date. Sometimes ABRP routes to stations that don't work at all, even the subscription version. Plugshare crowdsources (user reviews) almost real time info about charging experiences. Too bad there's not yet one app that does it all. We are in the purchasing process to get our R1S now. Maybe they'll improve the navigation software, but I expect to have to continue relying on apps too.

I just drove my R1T from Nantucket MA to Silverthorne CO. Started out just using the Rivian NAV, but on the first day it routed me to a charger that was not yet fully operational so I changed to ABRP, using PlugShare to check that the chargers were working. Those checkin comments on Plugshare are so useful, often you know which individual charger you want to pull into. When the Rivian NAV system could see the chargers, which was most of the time but unfortunately not all of the time, I would use it to route to the next charger. Then it would condition the battery so hopefully the charging would go faster.

 

[Dr. W.]

ABRP... I never leave home without it. It covers ALL the chargers. Real-time weather alone it worth the upgrade to premium. I can see the infrastructure is in place for the app to talk to car to obtain live data on State of Charge and recent consumption, as well as sending back planned trip waypoints to the Rivian app... as it does with Tesla. However, that convenience is apparently still an upgrade or two away. IMHO, ABRP has the algorithms right. In my experience, its range assessment have been spot on and it has never taken me to a "bad" charger.