HiYo Silver Goes North

I documented my virgin Rivian trip from New York to Key West last fall (A Rivian Ride), made only a few days after delivery of my R1T. How little did I know then. The ins and outs of DC fast charging, the difference between Active Cruise Control (ACC) and Driver+, and the subtleties of the infotainment screen all puzzled me. I even struggled with opening the Rivian’s unique Gear Tunnel storage which had a sneaky secret that evaded me at first.

It’s now nine months and multiple iterations of the software later. I’ve been a diligent follower of Rivian forums, and an active tinkerer with this computer on wheels. I can’t say I’m an expert yet. But I can open the Gear Tunnel with aplomb and even lock-in the mostly useless Driver+. So, here’s how I fared taking HiYo Silver back north, from Key West to Portland, Maine, a five-day, 1,800-mile run.

If it gets a little nerdy, please excuse me; I’m targeting the Rivian-curious.

Riding shotgun this time was my daughter. When she heard about the first trip with my step-son as co-pilot, she made me promise she’d have her chance this time. She and I had many road adventures across America and even driving around South Africa, back in her childhood, including a trip up this same East Coast corridor fifty years ago, when she was five and I was thirty-five. More on that later.

The day before, I had brought the SOC (State of Charge) up to a full 100%, and we decided to take a big bite out of the trip, knocking off a third of the run on day one. The planning apps rate it at a 12 hour cruise, allowing for charging time at three stops, so we hit the road early at 6am, giving us plenty of daylight to finish on this midsummer day.

Day One – Key West to Savannah, Georgia – 643 miles

By the first stop, some four hours and 229 miles up the road we had emerged from the delightful ribbon of bridges and mostly two-lane highway that cover the 130 miles of islands that make up the Florida Keys Overseas Highway and were zipping along the mainland on the Florida Turnpike. It was a pleasure to pull into the Florida Power and Light setup at the turnpike’s West Palm Service Plaza. This is everyone’s dream, just pull off and up to a bank of high-speed chargers, just like the ICE guys. Plus a nice little snack bar to fuel the crew, too. The charger was only rated 150kw, but we peaked around 168.
Loaded 75.6kwh – 36 min – $22.68 – FPL app.

All was going smoothly. In prep for our initial destination, I had downloaded the quintessential Savannah book, Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil, and it was playing for us to share via Bluetooth on the speakers. It’s a fascinating history of the city, wrapped around a crime thriller with delightful and devilish characters.

There were many options for our next stop, but I wanted to show Amanda the Daytona Beach 500 stadium and remembered a great charger bank there with 350kw units, plus a lunch restaurant. Not so smooth this time. The EVgo units there seemed to be live, but we couldn’t get them to accept our payments, either with the EVgo app or credit cards. After struggling with two different towers, we lucked out when a couple of repair techs showed up. They acknowledged a problem with the payment communications servers, and somehow mainlined us for free with their magic.
Loaded 89kwh – 42 min, not counting the time fussing before our saviors arrived – slipped them sixty bucks for this but should have cost less than forty dollars – EVgo app but not not working.

We hustled out of there with 80% SOC when the charge rate had dropped below 50kw, but it seemed our ultimate target, the southernmost Rivian Adventure Network (RAN) outside of Savannah, 222 miles away, was well within range. Oh my, free juice, just plug and go, for Rivians and only Rivians. However, by the time we pulled back on the highway, it was four o’clock, and we knew we had to push it to get to Savannah in time for a good night’s sleep.

It was then that the sh__ hit the fan, or more correctly the rain engulfed the roadway. Traffic slowed to a crawl as everyone eased along with challenged visibility, and our hope to reach the RAN charger, slurp up electrons, and make it into town for dinner and beds before dark grew increasingly slim. By the time we got near Savannah the sun had set, and it was still pouring rain. With our SOC nudging into the teens, we decided to put off the charge until morning rather than get ourselves soaked and possibly arrive too late for a dinner.

Big mistake. We were at the Savannah exit from I95, but the town was miles off the highway. And once we got there and checked into our hotel and drove a bit more to dinner and got back to bed, the remaining mileage had dropped to about 24 miles, barely enough to get back out to the RAN site near the highway.

Day Two – Savannah to Richmond – 467 miles with half day exploring Savannah.

We wanted to explore Savannah, but feared using up the slim charge we needed to get back to the highway. ChargePoint to the rescue. We were in a city, and numerous Level Two chargers popped up in the apps. Even better, the local Mercedes dealer had a public 64kwh DC fast charger, just a few blocks from our hotel. In a half hour, we had a healthy range to explore town a bit and get back out to the RAN charger on the highway.
Loaded 32kWh – 34 minutes – $11 – ChargePoint app

And then off to explore Savannah for the morning. We were tipped off to have breakfast at Collins Quarter, which has taken bacon and eggs to a new level.

And toured the Mercer-Williams House, home of the principal character in the book that was guiding us.

The last time Amanda and I were in Savannah, in 1972, was not so happy. It was actually the end of our road trip, a thousand miles short of our goal. The vehicle then was a spectacular car, a British Rover 2000, that I had fallen for on a whim and was now in financial thrall to. Though luxurious, it was totally unreliable.

When we stopped for gas there, the car died. It was not the first breakdown. I had been pouring money into this beast ever since I had gotten it as a used “bargain” two years earlier, and was now at the end of my tether. Towed to a dealer specializing in such things and facing an unknown delay and cost, I traded it on the spot for two plane tickets to New York.

But now, in a much more reliable vehicle, with so many fewer parts to fail, by noon we were back on the highway with the first stop at charger heaven, the RAN station outside town. Six 200kw chargers, ready and waiting.
Loaded 93kWh in 43min for $0. Just free plug and pour from RAN. It knows me!

Back on the road again, with an aspirational goal of Richmond, Virginia, 467 miles away. Because it was already after 1 pm, we knew it was going to be a stretch, but we had a family reunion of sorts in Baltimore for lunch the next day, so we had to get within striking distance. The distance could have been a charging one stopper, but we added juice at a bathroom break using a Shell Recharge 100kw unit at the very funky South of the Border I95 truck stop.
Loaded 56kWh in 41 min for $23 – Shell Recharge app.

And we topped up at a dinner stop in Rocky Mount, N.C. at an Electrify America 350kw charger.
Loaded 99kWh in 51 min for $37 – Electrify America app.

We were cruising for a decent night’s sleep in Richmond when the weather struck again. Torrential rains backed up traffic, and lightning ripped horizontally across the sky. With night falling, it was clearly no time to push further. So, we ducked off at Petersburg, just 30 miles shy of Richmond.

I had spent a couple of years in the area when I was in the Army in 1961-62, stationed at the nearby Ft. Lee base, and remembered it with mixed feelings. I had just graduated from law school and had a great learning experience working in court martial proceedings. But my wife and I were booted out of a Petersburg apartment we rented, probably because we attended a civil rights rally (out of uniform).

Day Three – Petersburg, VA to New York, NY – 375 miles with a stopover at a family lunch reunion in Baltimore

Up early the next morning, I decided to show Amanda a little of the town, and maybe find the place of our aborted tenancy. In my mind, I remembered a charming little town. But the years have not been kind to Petersburg. The downtown is a desolation of boarded up stores. The residential area still has a stock of formerly elegant homes, but in stark comparison to Savannah, where we had spent the night before, relatively little seems to have been done to rescue it from the ravages of time.

Petersburg should have a lot going for it — the site of a famed Civil War battle, barely a stone’s throw from Richmond, and only two hours from Washington, making it very appealing for remote work. For someone young and investment minded, it could have a brilliant future.

[Just a footnote about that Civil War event, known as the Battle of the Crater. It was late in the war, and Grant’s Union forces were moving on Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Lee’s defenders had built a trench line of defenses that stalled the attack. Some Union soldiers with mining experience convinced Grant to dig a tunnel under the trenches and set off a giant explosion to blow a hole in the line. It didn’t work, but maybe next time … Ukraine?]

Anyhow, we topped off the truck at an Electrify America 350kw charger outside the Spotsylvania Town Centre mall. We took the opportunity to go shopping for a new pair of sneakers that Amanda needed. Great success at a Dick’s Sporting Goods with an expert salesman who knew just why her current pair was giving her trouble.
Loaded 75kWh in 41 min fir $27 – Electrify America app.

Back on the road, we pulled up to our family lunch right on schedule at noon. This is going to be special. I regularly see my brother and his family on trips up and down the coast, but he hadn’t seen Amanda, who lives outside Albuquerque, since her wedding twenty-three years ago. And as an unexpected pleasure, my first cousin Sheila was there, too. She is one of eight cousins who gathered every Sunday at our grandmother’s house for many years, back in the 1940s and 1950s. I hadn’t seen her in decades. With Amanda and Sheila leading the bonhomie, it was a wonderful reunion.

Nothing notable for the rest of the trip. Of course, with an EV it’s not “pull off whenever you want and gas up” travel, not yet. But there was no trouble keeping charged with reasonable planning and the help of the apps. Any trip requires some planning. There are those who book every hotel in advance. But Amanda and I wing it, not knowing where we’re going to lay our heads until we have to. And choosing where and when to charge fit this style well. Rivian’s integration of ABRP planning software into its onscreen navigation was smooth. At least on this busy northeast corridor, it’s come down tactical decisions, like — do I want to charge up late in the day, so I can leave in the morning with a full tank, or wait until the need arises later. I never had a sense of traversing an electron desert.

Some people have complained about an absence of chargers between DC and New York. The 225 miles can be done without recharge, but we topped up at a 100kw EVgo near Wilmington.
Loaded 61kWh in 47 min for $15.75 – EVgo app charging by the minute, not kWh.

By dinner time we were tucked in at a motel outside New York, plugged in overnight to a Level Two charger.
Overnight loaded 65kWh in 11 hours for $33 – EV Connect app

Day Four – New York to Cambridge, MA – 204 miles

Cambridge was where we rendezvoused with my wife. We were staying overnight at my step-daughter’s house, and then heading up to Portland, Maine for a summer holiday. We needed no charge to get there, but hit an EVgo 350kw charger near our destination, so we’d have a full tank for the next day.
Loaded 76kWh in 39 min for $43 – EVgo app

Day Five – Cambridge to Portland, ME – 121 miles

An easy cruise up to our final destination at a hotel in Cape Elizabeth, outside Portland. For convenience, we topped off just before getting there at another EA fast charger.
Loaded 58kWh in 27min for $22 – EA app

Guess what; our hotel here has free Level Two chargers. It’s all gravy now.

This is what road trips are about, the journey as much as the destination. As my writer-friend Susan Conley put it, “road trips absolve you, force you to give up control, … free you of most responsibilities except procuring decent snack food.” Some troubles, some discoveries, some enlightenment, some time out of your ordinary. And hey, a chance to get baby some new shoes.

I’ve now got 5,000+ miles on HiYo Silver, with nary a problem, not even the tonneau. It has one of the original powered covers. I do keep the tracks lubed, and haven’t had any problem with it. There’s no question this is the finest vehicle I’ve ever owned, the road feel of it and the comfort. But the most extraordinary thing is the quiet sense of power. I love it.