How Tesla Will Fix Public Charging

If you own or have ever owned a Tesla you know that the Supercharger network makes road trips easy in an Electric Vehicle.  When Tesla began designing its EVs, it was clear that the charging experience would make or break the success of their product.  So, Tesla designed its supercharger network of public fast chargers to allow its vehicles to take long road trips with minimal (if any) range anxiety.  Tesla also integrated charging stops into its navigation making it super simple to jump in the car, type in your destination, and take a road trip similar to what you would do a an ICE vehicle.  With the Tesla navigation software telling you where and for how long to stop and charge.

If you own an EV that is not made by Tesla, and you have taken a few road trips, you know just how much the charging experience can affect the Overall EV ownership experience.  The other charging network operators, for one reason or another, have not been able to match the reliability and availability of Tesla's supercharger network.  Other charging operators typically have slow or inoperable chargers.  To further complicate matters, some of them offered free charging through OEM partnerships which encourage public charging vs charging at your home or office.  Further, they encourage folks to charge 100% as well.  This is a huge problem as the combination of these factors causes lines at these chargers or the inability to use them at all.  It makes for a frustrating and anxiety filled road tripping experience.

Rivian R1T Charging at a v4 Tesla Supercharger in Yonkers, NY

It shouldn't be this way!  There are many changes these other charging station operators could make to improve the experience at their chargers.  To date however, they simply haven't been able to do so.  

Here are the list of things I think would help other charging station operators improve the user experience:

• Limit free charging offerings! OEMs could offer a free membership instead!  The membership would offer reduced rate charging and other perks while not encouraging over use of public charging stations when level 2 home or office charging is available.
• Make reporting charger problems easy.  User reporting, telemetry data from the chargers themselves, etc.
• Timely repair of broken or slow charging equipment.
• Preventative maintenance schedules to ensure charger reliability and uptime.
• high idle fees to discourage folks from leaving their cars parked there while not charging.  $1 per minute for the first 15 minutes and then much higher fees after.
• Limit charging to 80% for congested chargers and/or charge an extra fee for charging above 80% at busy chargers to encourage users to stop at the next charger instead.
• For slow charging EVs, implement per minute charging or limit them to only 1 or 2 stations to prevent charger congestion.  Could implement this only when chargers are busy too.
• At very busy charging locations, charge an extra fee for vehicles who remain for more than 30 minutes to encourage them to stop at the next charger instead.

These are just some of the ideas I came up with and I am sure the community of EV owners will come up with more.

Rivian R1T Plugged in at a Tesla Supercharger in Yonkers, NY

Now, how is Tesla going to fix this you ask?  In a couple of ways!

For one, opening up the supercharger network to other electric vehicles gives EV owners more options.  Some routes, especially in the southeast US had very few charging options for non-Tesla EVs.  It also allows consumers to avoid stations that are frequently slow or out of order.

Second, it will force the other charging operators to improve their offerings.  They will be forced to improve the experience at their chargers and offer competitive pricing.  If they don't then owners will avoid their chargers and they will eventually be out of business.

Yes, Tesla does need to redesign many of its chargers to accommodate other EVs.  Currently most Tesla chargers are configured for Tesla vehicles which all have their charge ports on the driver side rear of the vehicle.  Other EVs have different locations for their charging ports and in many cases they need to take up two spots at a Tesla charger to get a charge.  Tesla's new V4 Superchargers solve this issue by offering longer cables and better placement.

Rivian R1T Plugged in using the Lectron Vortex Tesla to CCS1 Adatper

Currently Tesla superchargers are only open to Ford and Rivian.  They also require an adapter which has been very slow to ship out to Ford and Rivian owners.  The A2Z & Lectron supercharger adapters are available as well though Rivian and Ford advise against using 3rd party adapters.  Both the A2Z Typhoon and the Lectron Vortex adapters are built to comply with the upcoming UL2252 standard which which provide a standard for EV charging adapters moving forward.  Having this standard will allow consumers to purchase 3rd party adapters with confidence that they meet the highest possible standards for safety and quality.

What we are seeing now is the start of a transition to a more pleasurable public charging experience down the road!

Are you using the Tesla Supercharger network with your Non Tesla EV?  Let us know about your experience by leaving a comment below.

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Summer Tips: My Rivian Charing Is slower due to a warm plug! HELP!!

 It's that time of year again where we get out our beach chairs, put on our swimsuits, put shrimp/burgers on the grill, or just crank up the A/C to keep cool.

Unfortunately with the heat come some challenges for many rivian owners. I have seen a large number of owners struggle with messages that they're charging has been slowed down due to high temperatures at the “plug” or charge handle.  I have some tips to help and will also explain why this happens.

First, let's discuss why this happens. With level 2 charging, (this would be charging at your home or office on AC power) there is usually a temperature sensor in the charging handle. The vehicle can also sense if things are getting too hot as well.  EV chargers like the Tesla wall connector, for example, have a sensor in the charging plug which will trigger the charge rate to slow if it detects the temperature is too high. Your Rivian vehicle can also sense the temperature when level 2 charging and will also trigger charging to slow.  This is an important safety function as heat can be the result of arcing which is a dangerous electrical condition that can result in the melting/burning of equipment or worse case a fire.  

So the charger or vehicle will continue to slow down the rate of charge to keep the temperature within a safe range. If the temperature cannot be kept within the safe range. The charger or vehicle will terminate the charging altogether.

Now while this protects vehicles and chargers against damage it can also be very annoying for many owners because instead of charging at 48 amps their vehicle will slow down to 32 amps or maybe even much slower.  This results in the charge taking much longer than it would normally if it were charging at the maximum.  It probably goes without saying that in some cases this could cause you to not have enough electrons to make a needed trip.

When you see a message like this on your charger or on your vehicle, it's important to rule out any potential safety issues. For example, above I talk about the charge handle being hot, but in some cases if there's a wiring problem, the charger itself can get hot and that should be investigated immediately. If the charger itself is overheating that can be caused by loose or damaged electrical wiring and is a serious safety issue.  If that’s the case you should stop using the charger until a licensed electrician is able to check it out and deem it safe. 

The Tesla universal wall connector is the charger I highly recommend. Tesla chargers have a sensor that will prevent the charge handle from overheating and display a blinking red flash code which, depending on the number of blinks, will tell you exactly what is happening.  See page 38 of the Tesla wall connector manual for a full list of fault codes.

If you see the problem with the charge handle overheating only in the hot summer months, the problem is usually the hot temps and not a safety condition, but it's always good to verify anyway.  In many cases the problem will be caused by the charge handle being above the safe temperature. 

This actually happened to me a number of times last summer. And there are some things you can do to help prevent this in the hot summer months. Rivian Vehicles seem to be more susceptible to this condition and I think one of the reasons why is that the charge port is located on the front driver side of the vehicle. The front of the Rivian is where a lot of the heat from the cooling system and HVAC is dissipated. If you go into the frunk in the hot summer months you will notice that it can get pretty warm in there and I think this contributes to some of the higher temps at the charging port and charging handle.  The cooling fan pulls the heat from the front of the vehicle and appears to push the hot air out through the front wheel wells.  All the hot air appears to be flowing right near the charge port location making it more susceptible to overheating in high temperature conditions.

Here are some things that you can do to reduce the likelihood that the charge handle will overheat and slow down the charging.

• Avoid parking the vehicle in direct sunlight.

• If you park your vehicle in a non-climate controlled garage, make sure there is plenty of ventilation around the front and sides of the vehicle for heat to escape. 

• If you back your rivian into the garage and the front of your vehicle is fairly close to the garage door, try pulling straight into the garage instead as a lot of heat typically will collect at the garage door in the hot summer months making that the hottest part of your garage.

• try charging your vehicle only in the evenings or at night when the Sun is down and ambient temperatures are lower.

• If your garage is not climate controlled try to ventilate the area to prevent too much heat from accumulating inside your garage.  Remember your Rivian will run its cooling system while charging and when it does this inside of a closed garage with no ventilation it will cause temperatures to rise significantly.

• The last thing you can try to do is reduce the maximum charge rate on your charger or on your rivian to 40 amps or lower from the start. This will usually be sufficient to prevent the charger handle from getting too hot in the first place.  This should only be a last resort though if all the other solutions fail to help resolve the issue.

With that said, it's also worth investigating if you use an adapter that the adapter is working properly and not the source of the overheating condition. In my case, our Tesla gen 3 wall connector is a J-1772 wall connector that doesn't have any adapter and it was still getting too hot and slowing down the charge rate. My wife's Rivian R1S uses the standard J-3400 gen 3 Tesla wall connector with the Tesla tap mini adapter. Her car is parked in the opposite direction and does not have this issue. In my case, at least the overheating I believe was a result of the front of the truck being too close to the very hot garage door and charging at 48 amps was just too much and so it would typically slow down to 32 amps. This only happened a handful of times last summer but We live in Maryland. Those living in the south or out west in places like Southern California or Arizona will likely find this a much more frequent and annoying issue.  The best solution of course is to park the truck in a climate-controlled garage, but not everyone has that option including us as our garage is not climate controlled.

Hopefully this has helped explain a little bit why this happens and provides some solutions that will help you charge at the maximum speed possible when the hot summer sun is beating down.

Have you had this issue? If yes, what did you do to resolve it? Be sure to post a comment below and let us know what you think.

Be sure to visit our website ElectrifiedOutdoors.com for all the best Rivian tips, info, and accessories. You can also check out Our YouTube channel as well. Thanks for stopping by 😎

Rivian Gen1 vs Gen2 Driver+

 I wanted to post about the differences between Gen 1 and Gen 2 Rivian Driver+ or what is know known as the Rivian Autonomy Platform starting with Generation 2 R1 vehicles.  Much of this info is from publicly available info from Rivian and also the AMA with Wassym Bensaid as well.

The 1st generation R1 vehicles: will continue to get updates to Driver+ but the hardware is limited and so it will never be capable of the more advanced stuff that Gen 2 vehicles will be able to achieve.  While they do have 10 cameras, 5 radar, and ultrasonic sensors they are not long enough range or high enough resolution to support the more advanced features.  Rivian also disabled and then removed the driver facing camera on these vehicles because it wasn't oriented correctly according to Rivian.  While Rivian has committed to providing updates to Driver+ for the 1st gen vehicles the hardware limits what they can do in terms of adding new features.

With all that said I still think 1st Gen vehicles do more than enough for most folks.  Its certainly better than the standard auto pilot that comes with Tesla vehicles which only includes lane centering and adaptive cruise.  Though the standard Tesla system is not geofenced and does perform better with lane centering at the time of this writing.

The 2nd Gen Vehicles: Have 11 cameras, updated driver facing camera in rear view mirror, more advanced USS and Radar units.  The new hardware can see 3x further than the previous system and Rivian claims the vehicle can see up to 1000 ft ahead of it with a new HD Imaging Radar unit.  The cameras are 4K HDR cameras which Rivian also claims are the highest megapixel cameras available on any EV currently.  The compute power has also been upgraded which I am sure was necessary to process all the additional data the car can now see.  Rivian claims compute is 10x more powerful than previous gen.

While the 2nd gen vehicles are clearly a much more powerful system keep in mind that Rivian will be moving this to a subscription based system while all the current Gen 1 vehicles will continue to receive their feature set without a subscription.  Also, the 2nd gen system doesn't have any additional features currently vs the Gen 1 system.  The auto lane change feature is not coming until this fall and other additional capabilities will certainly be later than that.

Lastly, per the Reddit AMA Wassym Bensaid has indicated Rivian has no plans to offer a retrofit of Gen 2 hardware for Gen 1 vehicles.

I have seen many folks ask about the differences so I wanted to create this post to hopefully provide some clarity on it.  I also attached the video showing the new system capabilities.

The Rivian R1 Refresh: My Thoughts

I am going to be totally honest here, as the owner of two gen 1 R1 vehicles, at first I felt negative feelings as I read through all the specs of the refresh vs what we have now in Gen 1.  

However, as I have reflected on this I actually feel like Gen 1 is a better deal.  Our T Quad MSRP was 88,500 and S Quad was MSRP 94,500.  To get comparable performance in refresh we start at six figures when you include destination.  The max pack and other options like dynamic glass are included and power tonneau is included on R1T...so the value is definitely there...but the admission price is significantly higher.

The Driver+ is a disappointment for existing R1 owners, however I am sure the current system on the R1T and R1S will get updates it just will not get new features.  The hardware is the limiting factor here.  The assisted lane change is good enough for me and I suspect most owners.  Also, remember that the more advanced features will also come as a subscription you will have to pay for after a 2 month free trial.  So I see no reason to be upset about this.  

Anything that is not hardware dependent should be back ported via software to 1st Gen R1 vehicles according to Rivian.  Its the right thing to do by the current owners and those who went all in on Rivian.  I know Rivian will take care of their current owners.

Lastly, we know the max pack does not get its advertised range except for under optimal conditions.  The EPA documents also show that the max pack on refresh has similar usable capacity to the gen 1 max pack (about 142 kwh).  To get similar performance to the Gen 1 quad motor max pack is the only pack available.  You also have to opt for other premium options like dynamic glass roof.  2.9 vs 3.0 for existing quad are super fast speeds.  I think the dual motor or dual motor with performance is going to be more than enough for most and those models lost a lot of standard features such a gear guard, air compressor, and camp speaker which are now optional on the refresh.  

I am not really seeing a whole lot to be upset about for existing owners.  As we move past the hype and into the real world we will need to see how the changes Rivian has made translate into the real world.  I still think the existing vehicles are a tremendous value vs. the refresh especially when you compare the range/performance vs. cost.  

Also, if you thought the 21" road/range tires were expensive at $460 each wait until you check the price on the 22" Aero tires...$555 each!

I may lease a refreshed model down the road (depending on how the leases for the refresh are structured), but I don't see any really compelling reason to go out and reserve one now.

I also don't think as 1st gen owners we should feel negative about this refresh.  The refresh will be good for Rivian and allow them to survive which I think is the most important thing here.  The bigger reason I am disappointed with the driver + is that they will not be able to fully utilize the existing fleet of R1 vehicles nor will they be able to sell the subscription to 1st gen.  That to me is more concerning than the lack of new feature add.  This last part will become less an issue once we get to R2 as they will significantly grow their fleet.  

I think Rivian made some meaningful changes to help them turn a gross profit and also maintain the lower price point models which make their vehicles accessible to as many buyers as possible.

The big concern I still have is with service.  I love the folks at the Rivian service centers...they are awesome....but Rivian NEEDS MORE SERVICE CENTERS!  I know easier said than done but many owners cannot afford to drive long distances or wait months for service on their vehicles.  Please Rivian make opening new service centers a priority.