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Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

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Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#72

Cool feature: The Rivian R1T and R1S are equipped with a "Tank Turn" feature, allowing the vehicle to rotate 360 degrees in place by spinning the left and right wheels in opposite directions.

That’s hell on the tires if they are fixed axle isn’t it?

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#73

Cool feature: The Rivian R1T and R1S are equipped with a "Tank Turn" feature, allowing the vehicle to rotate 360 degrees in place by spinning the left and right wheels in opposite directions.

Very neat! I bet it isn't good for the tires though haha.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill up I think charging stations have an asset that you have neglected to consider: a captive audience. Yeah, there will always be people who plug in their car and then scroll for half an hour. But there are also people who would be interested in grabbing a bite to eat, walking around, spending money on something dumb, etc. Having a charging station be a place t…

> But instead our charging stations are like, three plugs in the back of a hotel parking lot. It's almost as if there's an economic reason for that.

Maybe it's a chicken-and-egg situation that needs a tipping point. If there's enough EVs on the road it becomes profitable.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#75

Cool feature: The Rivian R1T and R1S are equipped with a "Tank Turn" feature, allowing the vehicle to rotate 360 degrees in place by spinning the left and right wheels in opposite directions.

This was a demo they did in a video but it's not available to anyone who actually owns one of these. I believe the EV Mercedes G Wagon does have it as a feature though.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#77

TIL Rivian has a charging network

Rivian's R&D center is in Palo Alto, but their charger map doesn't show a public charger anywhere near there. They have zero chargers of their own in Silicon Valley.

There's a standards group at SAE working on making US charger payment compatibility work.[1] BP Pulse, General Motors, Ford, ChargePoint, Electrify America, Tesla, Toyota, and Rivian are on board.

It's good to see more higher-powered chargers. When and if solid state batteries with 9 minute charge times ship in volume, they'll need big chargers. QuantumState and ProLogium announced "breakthroughs" again this week. They do that a lot.

Samples of solid state batteries do exist. It's quantity production that's hard. Ehang, the flying car company, demonstrated a 48 minute flight using prototype solid state batteries recently.[2]

As I've said before, I think the future is one for one replacement of gasoline pumps with fast chargers. Once charge times drop below 10 minutes, a charging station doesn't have to look like a parking lot.

[1] https://www.sae.org/news/2024/12/sae-itc-plug-and-charge-fra...

[2] https://www.ehang.com/article/

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#78
post #18

How did we get from a situation where you could just pay with cash/card for fuel to having monopolized single-brand car fueling stations?

Because you can't DRM a liquid but you can DRM a charger. Vertical monopolies are always a good business plan when there's no regulations to prevent you from forcing people to buy your overpriced "premium certified" garbage instead of paying market rate for the same thing from a generic brand.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#79
post #68
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DCFCs are much more than a “fancy switch”. It’s a circuit capable of converting 3-phase high voltage AC into variable high voltage DC at 150-350kW. The power electronics are very, very expensive. As far as I’m aware, the large transformer you see usually hidden somewhere nearby is not the primary cost (although it is expensive, especially for very high wattage ones). And yes, it’s 200k per dispenser including the inf…

The expensive power electronics you speak of are not part of the dispenser. The dispenser is really just a very fancy switch. It performs some payment authorization and then switches on those expensive power electronics. If you look at a modern Electrify America unit, the dispenser is an extremely slim panel with a screen. It clearly isn't big enough to contain these power electronics. Now transformer isn't a great n…

I’m not confused here, to be clear. There is a giant transformer that converts from mid voltage AC to low voltage AC at most installations. Because they draw so much power they need their own dedicated transformers. There’s sometimes (depending on the installation) a separate cabinet to convert the AC to DC and then transfers it to dispensers, though, as you say. The more modern high power ones tend to use separate cabinets, I’d agree. Older ones could take 3-phase AC directly since they’re much lower power overall.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#80
post #3

I applaud the effort to expand charging across the nation as this will inevitably increase the comfort level of the average joe on the fence with range anxiety. The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about is the connector. There are SEVEN different competing charging connector types in North America. if i dont have an adapter, im either screwed into spending 3 hours at a charging station or im calling a tow…

Seven? No, there's really just CCS/J1772 and NACS. And those are protocol-compatible, just the pins are different. Some stations now conveniently have adapters right there too. Your portrayal of charging in NA is not accurate.
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