A Rivian Ride

Hi-Yo Silver – from New York to Key West, Florida

Like almost any boy child of the 20^th century, I’ve always loved my cars, but it was small ones, an MG in 1957, followed by a couple of VWs, my first truck – a Toyota Tacoma in 1975 which I replaced with another when that one rusted out, a Jeep Wrangler and a Mini Cooper Convertible in recent years. I eventually did have an affair with a Ford F-150, but she didn’t really charm me like my sporty girls.

A few years ago, though, when I was undergoing chemo for a life-threatening cancer, I saw the announcements for the Rivian truck and told my wife it was going to be my reward if I beat the big C, and plunked down my $1,000 deposit.

Now it’s three years later, and damn if I’m not well, and behind the wheel of a shiny R1T pickup. I’d been thinking about what to name her. I had been clever with my sailboats, the Moveable Feast that I lived on for a while, and Smart Woman to celebrate a new relationship. As I looked at the truck, with its gleaming metallic LA Silver paint, and thought about my now defunct 1990’s email address of LRanger@sprynet.com, I decided, like the Lone Ranger, to call my new steed Hi-Yo Silver.  

It was just delivered to me in Manhattan and I’m driving it down to my home in Key West, Florida, a 1,500-mile shakedown cruise. It’s not an engine break-in, the Rivian rep assured me, like we used to worry about with those old gas vehicles, but a break-in period for me. I’m now 85, and I really have had very little need of a car in recent years because you can walk or bike anywhere in my home town of Key West. My last car purchase was that Mini in 2012.

So this is the journal of a codger who jumped from a 13-foot-long mini-car with 175 horsepower to an 18 foot long beast with 800 horses. Rivian bills itself as an adventure vehicle, and I certainly did have adventures, but not of the sort the company had in mind. I’m an old sports car rally buff, the competition where you have to follow a course guided only by obscure clues to checkpoints (I remember “man, boy, dog” being a clue to a Howard Johnson’s restaurant with that graphic) and do so at a prescribed rate of speed. This was before GPS or calculators; we used a slide rule to compute average speed. I mention this only because my Rivian jaunt reminded me of a rally, with the charging stations being the checkpoints, and maintaining battery status being the target. That is, the goal of the trip is to get from New York to Key West without wasting hours at a charger, but not… ever… running out of juice.

The car itself has a navigation system and there are multiple apps that highlight chargers and recommend when and for how long to use them. The goal seems to be maintaining a cushion of at least 20% charge, a range of about 75 miles.  So the system has suggestions like stop here and plug in for 11 minutes. In some theoretical world, this may work, but it’s practical nonsense. Once you’ve troubled to go locate a hard to find grocery store, you buy a six-pack, not a single can, and so it is with charging.

Day One – New York to Chestertown, Md. Ten Miles to Go

My wife joined me on the first leg of the trip, going to visit a relative on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, with a brief stop in New Jersey. She loved the new car smell, the beauty of the truck, the comfort of its seats, the feeling of power and authority in this 7,000 lb. quadruped. So on our first on-ramp, I decided to give her a taste of its 0 to 60 acceleration in just over 3 seconds. (That’s closing on 1g.)  Her screech of terror made it plain this was not a good idea. She’s no fan of roller coasters, either. Okay, back to cruising.

We started out the trip with a 70% battery charge which should have taken us a little over 200 miles, and that was about the distance we had to go. Clearly a charge on the way was prudent. I know that in hindsight. But the navigation screen reported a lesser distance and indicated I would have a 20% reserve. Apparently it was showing distance/reserve to some intermediate point, not to the final destination. I understand this software glitch has recently been corrected, but I blithely set off on our trip through sparsely settled Central New Jersey (think the Pine Barrens where Tony Soprano had a famous hit) and then onto the rural Eastern Shore, with a very false sense of security. Miss a charging opportunity on this route and you’re in trouble, something I did not fully realize until I was well into the rural charge desert. Stupid, careless, I know.  But there I was, with my charge level ticking down and nothing available but slow chargers that might take an hour just to give me another 20 miles of range.

Okay, the adventure begins.  Do you go five miles out of the way and spend a half hour to an hour just for a safety cushion, or forge ahead on the charge you have? We were heading for a dinner date. Right in Chestertown there was a fast charger that could top me up while I had dinner. Perfect… if I got there. If not, a tow from Roadside Assistance and the evening plans destroyed. If I stopped for the slow boost, we’d probably mess up dinner anyhow. So after an aborted half hour diverting for a probably useless slow charger, I bit the bullet. It was then white knuckle all the way, watching the charge status tick down – 15%, 10%, 5%. How accurate is that prediction, I asked Rivian tech support? “We really don’t know,” they said. I understand that it would depend on a number of factors, but I know from gas car experience that an “Empty” fuel tank is not empty.  No such reassurance from Rivian tech.

So I became an involuntary guinea pig testing the accuracy of the truck’s estimation software. I was easy on the pedal, tried to maximize use of regenerative braking, kept it in Conserve Mode (only using two of the four motors) and finally pulled up to the Chestertown DC fast charger with 4% in reserve (about 10 miles), pretty much as predicted, and began pouring in the electrons. I guess the predictive system is pretty accurate.

This location offered only a 50kw charge rate, but with a dinner break, I returned to the car with 50% (about 150miles) in the tank. This, I learned, was the low end of DC Fast charging. For smaller lighter vehicles, with smaller batteries, this would have been sufficient. But with a 135kw battery to power the truck, we’d have to aim for faster stations.

Lesson for today: Double check your distance and range. Measure twice, drive once.

Day Two – Chestertown to Alexandria, Va. via Baltimore.

Today’s total run was 145 miles, meaning I should add charge sometime during the day.  At lunch with my brother in the Baltimore suburbs, he tipped me off to DC Fast chargers in front of a nearby Trader Joe’s store. They didn’t show up on any of my apps, not Rivian, not Plugshare, not ABRP, nowhere.  But wisely trusting my brother more than apps, I found two chargers were indeed there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only person who knew about them.  Both were occupied and looked to be so for some time.

Rather than wait, I moved onto a bank of chargers 20 miles toward our destination (at the BWI airport cell phone waiting lot) and spent a half hour for a security charge. This was a 150kw charger, part of the Shell Recharge network.

Lessons for today: There are high speed chargers that aren’t in the apps. Just as I learned when sailboat cruising; try to check local knowledge for a happy surprise.  But also realize that just because they’re there doesn’t mean you’ll be able to use them. Always have a Plan B, that’s the reason for your 20% cushion.

Day Three – Alexandria, Va. to Rocky Mount, N.C.

I put my wife on a plane to Key West, and picked up my step-son Larry as a co-pilot.  He had a friend who worked at Rivian as a techie and had a lot of inside knowledge. He was excited to be on this shakedown cruise and made a great co-pilot. Starting out in the afternoon, the plan was a half-day run of 230 miles. I charged up to 99% in the morning at a 150kw Electrify America (EA) station and could have done the run without a stop.  But we hit another EA fast charger on the way in Emporia, VA and goosed it up from 40% to 80% while taking a Subway lunch break. Ah, that’s the way things are supposed to happen.

I’ve logged thousands of miles on road trips. Once went 2500 miles from Philadelphia to New Orleans and back in two days just for the hell of it. Drove back and forth from Baltimore to St. Louis – 1650 miles — twice one summer just to court a girl, who I later married. Transcontinental a couple of times. And most of this before the slick network of Interstates made drives soporific. I’ve had breakdowns in the middle of the night in a rural Mississippi “Deliverance”-like territory, and a time where I was pleased to trade a broken down car for two plane tickets home.  So a few bumps on the road aren’t cause of alarm. I’m thinking this will be an easy trip.

My co-pilot Larry was in the process of rebuilding a small cabin on his property, so I had booked us into one of the oddest hotels on the road, a group of tiny under 200 sq. ft. houses, each different and cuter than the next. Check out River and Twine in Rocky Mount.  A nice rest to get us ready for a full day ahead.

Lesson for today: Sometimes plans work.

Day Four – Rocky Mount to Jacksonville, FL

A full day run planned, 482 miles. Up early and charged the car to 80% at another EA station. These EA’s included both 150kw and 350kw podiums.  I used a 350kw unit and was juiced up in about a half hour. I quit at 80% because I’ve learned that the last 20% goes very slowly, and I was anxious to get started.

With a smooth run of 175 miles to Florence, S.C. we cruised into an EA station in a Walmart parking lot, ready to charge up for the rest of the run. There were four podiums. Station Four, a 350kw unit, was occupied by a Walmart e-delivery van with no one in it, but it was ticking away. Tried Station One. Nope. Tried Station Two. Nope. Ditto Station Three. We looked at the display on the percolating Station Four. The delivery van was at 95%. Knowing that the last 5% takes a while, and worried that the Walmart guy might not come right back, I found an alternative station a mile away and we buzzed over there. Oh no. All four of those were down.

So back to Walmart. As we pulled in, we saw the van had gone… but a little sedan was in its place. Oh no, again. The driver of the sedan was fussing with her phone and studying the charger. Ah, it was a Tesla. She didn’t have the necessary adapter! So off she went and in we went. Forty-five minutes with a little shopping break at Walmart and we were back up to 84%, and off to Jacksonville.

I gave Larry jurisdiction over the music, and the song of the open road came to us through Silver’s array of speakers, with Larry running the EQ board and orienting the sound to please us. All done via the touch screen. I’m not sure I embraced his selections, but whatever it was, it sure sounded sweet.

We booked into a motel just south of Jacksonville, and planned to charge up at a convenient EA station and eat dinner before we checked in. Four podiums again, and this time they seemed to be working. A shiny new Lucid (525 mi range!) was humming away at one. A VW ID4 at another and a Kia at a third. Plugging into the fourth, our Rivian reported connection failure. Unplug and replug… same story. Okay, the VW was finishing up, and we moved over there. Sorry, said our Rivian, “Connection Failed.” And the same at the Lucid station when they pulled out. Why were we failing at stations where others succeeded? We called EA tech support, who rebooted the station, to no effect. “It’s your vehicle,” the EA lady said. Of course, when tech support fails, blame it on someone else. I was skeptical because things had been going so well, and of course I had a spanking new truck.

Very concerning, but since we had plenty of charge to get us through the evening, we decided to get dinner and a rest, and put off our charge until morning at a Florida Power & Light (FPL) station down the road. 

Lesson for today. Sometimes plans don’t work.

Day Five – Jacksonville to Key West

This was a make or break day. That is, we could just make the 500 miles in one long day, or break to finish up on Day Six. The real test was going to be whether we could go anywhere unless we could get a charge in the tank. The closest Rivian Service Center was in Orlando, 150 miles away and beyond our current range.

The FPL setup was promising, with four 120kw podiums and no customers. Okay, hold your breath and plug in. Oh, no. Connection failed at one and then a second one. Things were looking grim. But the problem did seem to be ours. So another tech support call, this time to Rivian. The connection was quick, and the answer just as quick. Reboot it. Press two far-apart buttons until everything goes blank, and wait a minute.

Damn if it didn’t work. When we plugged into the rebooted vehicle, things were copacetic, and we kicked ourselves up to enough from this relatively slow charger to get us to Daytona Beach where there are banks of great EVGo 350kw units. The Rivian can’t digest power at that rate, but it can hit over 200kw per hour.

What caused the problem? The Rivian tech had no idea, though the alacrity with which he proposed the reboot suggested it was not an uncommon problem.  My only speculation is that I had unplugged from the charger back at Walmart without first pressing Stop. Who knows, but it’s not hard to Stop before unplugging, which is now my mantra.

The Daytona chargers were at an awesome location, right next to the Speedway stadium, home of the Daytona 500, and surrounded with restaurants catering to thousands of patrons, but empty on this non-race day. So we settled in for a fine early lunch, and let EVGo in the shadow of the Daytona stadium, do its thing topping up the tank.

With still over 400 miles to Key West, we knew we would need another charge, which could be paired with an overnight stopover around Ft. Lauderdale, 233 miles away. However, when we got there, around 5pm, and realized we had less than 200 more miles to go, it seemed silly to bed down in the middle. So we took it from 13% to 80% on a 150kw EA unit, and hit the road for our final run.

Through it all, except for the rebooting incident, the R1T performed admirably. Cruising on the I95 for most of the way, we pretty much set Driver+ (the Rivian name for its adaptive cruise control) to run the car. It maintained our chosen speed (usually around 70mph), slowing for traffic ahead and speeding up as it dispersed, and kept us in our lane. I can’t say the Rivian was marvelous at lane-keeping, veering at lines rather than nailing the center. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable to let it do so hands-free, like I see in GM Super Cruise commercials, but the truck didn’t offer that option anyhow. If I took my hands off the wheel for more than a few seconds it began beeping and flashing warnings. Since our trip, there’s been an update in Driver+ software which is said to have improved the lane-keeping function, and I’m sure that OTA updates will continue to roll out.  With 11 cameras, 5 radars and 12 ultrasonic sensors, the data is there. Just a question of software.

Driver+ was particularly effective during the final hours of our trip, as we rolled down the mostly two lane US1 over the Florida Keys. We just kicked back and observed the beauty of the red glow from the setting sun, nicely following the car ahead of us and knowing that old man Rivian would guard us against running into him.

Lesson for today. I’m known in my family as a techie, unusual for my age, but I’m the guy everyone turns to. My daughter gave me a mug last year with the exhortation “Did you turn it off and turn it on again?” So be aware that this three and a half ton truck is essentially a giant computer system hooked to some electric motors, and act accordingly.

Let’s hit the road again soon.