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Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

thedrive.com

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Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#101

Post by mikeryan »

fredsmith219 wrote: post #93

The have a charger very near to where I go in Michigan, and 30 miles from the nearest supercharger. They announced earlier this year that they would open up the RAN “near the end of the year” so I’ve been waiting for this announcement. The fact that they will only gradually modify existing chargers to work with other vehicles is a disappointment. It’s all CCS so it should just be a software update. I am really lookin…

I've only used the RAN chargers once, but IIRC, they don't really have an interface for allowing third-party transactions (i.e., paying with a credit card).

You have to register your vehicle through their app, which may also make this a bit more difficult.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#102

Post by vel0city »

Suppafly wrote: post #41
xnx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They take up 2 spots: https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comments/1f0wt4v/okay_is_the...

Apparently that's the recommended way from Tesla to do it, per that thread. Do they not make extension cords you can use with the charger cables so you charge from other angles?

To add to the understanding of why there aren't just extension cords for these, those cables are liquid cooled. You pretty much need the right sized cable the first time to handle this much power.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#103

Post by mikeryan »

bdcravens wrote: post #42
pbreit wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~90 locations?

Yeah I've just never seen one, and don't have a Rivian, so it never came across the media I consume. I'm in the Houston area, and they only have 3 in Texas, none of which are near me. Only one is on a freeway that I may likely encounter.

I've got a Rivian and have only used their chargers on a road trip to Whistler from the Bay Area. One was in Shasta behind a little hotel—you'd not see it if you weren't looking for it. The other was at a Homewood Suites lot somewhere in Southern Oregon. Unsurprisingly, these were back-to-back stops. So, I think they were specifically put there to help bridge a gap between Northern CA and Southern OR.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#104

Post by m463 »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #32

Their strategy was to build them where there weren't other dcfc chargers, opening up new areas especially around outdoors places. Their chargers are much better maintained in general than the infamous Electrify America (they really struggle to fix EA chargers when they have problems, and they have problems) - there's a long story behind this. Rivian started before the plan to use superchargers was even envisioned, so…

I've come to notice that there is no incentive for 3rd party ev-chargers to be dependable.

Telsa and rivian have a vested interest in keeping the chargers working. Their sales depend on the chargers working. Even a little bad press is a multiplier against sales.

They also have significant engineering effort throughout the charging ecosystem, from the batteries, on-board infrastructure, standards, mapping, strategic coverage for sales and more. Lots of engineering support and problems solved quickyly

Meanwhile I kind of suspect 3rd party charging systems are probably like 3rd-party public telephones or atms -- a rent-seeking opportunity from someone who will not shell out for quick detection and fixing of broken chargers.

I noticed this years ago - chaging a non-tesla EV was a crapshoot. evgo was expensive and pretty reliable, but only ever had two fast chargers. blink was always broken - completely undependable ev chargers. chargepoint seemed ok, but only had l2/slower chargers.

There is basically no downside to these folks letting chargers be offline for a while.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#105

Post by MrHamburger »

cogman10 wrote: post #98
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it started taking 30 minutes to "fill up" your car. High speed chargers can cost >$200k installed. A gas pump costs about $25k installed. If the average person spends 4 minutes at a pump, that comes out to: The time value of a slot at a super charger can be >$5 for each charge. The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill up. The economics of a charging business are awful. High CapEx, few cars, not…

> The economics of a charging business are awful. Ish. I mean one thing the charging business has going for it is that after the initial investment the ongoing investment is basically 0. You don't have weekly fuel shipments or any real ongoing maintenance costs. You also don't see immigrants all over charging stations because they are mostly unmanned. Usually placed in parking lots of retail stores.

> I mean one thing the charging business has going for it is that after the initial investment the ongoing investment is basically 0

That's not actually correct. You need to pay for reserved power in the grid, which can be significant amount regardless if you are using that power or not. So installing big DCFC charger where nobody is going to use it will eat you up on fees for reserved power.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#106

Post by SoftTalker »

titaniumtown wrote: post #76
78adad2323 wrote: post #63

Has anyone does a trade-in value for these EVs? The depreciation of these EV vehicles are crazy...

Speaking from the other side, I got an EV (Ioniq 5) ~$10,000 off with ~15k miles on it.

$10k off what? Original list price? Or advertised used price?

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#107

Post by PaulWaldman »

m463 wrote: post #104
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #32

Their strategy was to build them where there weren't other dcfc chargers, opening up new areas especially around outdoors places. Their chargers are much better maintained in general than the infamous Electrify America (they really struggle to fix EA chargers when they have problems, and they have problems) - there's a long story behind this. Rivian started before the plan to use superchargers was even envisioned, so…

I've come to notice that there is no incentive for 3rd party ev-chargers to be dependable. Telsa and rivian have a vested interest in keeping the chargers working. Their sales depend on the chargers working. Even a little bad press is a multiplier against sales. They also have significant engineering effort throughout the charging ecosystem, from the batteries, on-board infrastructure, standards, mapping, strategic c…

> I've come to notice that there is no incentive for 3rd party ev-chargers to be dependable.

I don't know, how often would you stop at a gas station if their pumps weren't reliable? Many 3rd party chargers are selling electricity at a mark-up.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#108

Post by ipdashc »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #19
izacus wrote: 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?

When it started taking 30 minutes to "fill up" your car. High speed chargers can cost >$200k installed. A gas pump costs about $25k installed. If the average person spends 4 minutes at a pump, that comes out to: The time value of a slot at a super charger can be >$5 for each charge. The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill up. The economics of a charging business are awful. High CapEx, few cars, not…

> There's a reason you don't see immigrants from all over the world coming to the US to open charging stations the way you saw them opening gas stations.

As the other commenter said, AFAIK, the majority of a gas station's income comes from the convenience store, no? Profit margins on gas are really low - Google says it's around 2%.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#109

Post by MrHamburger »

ggreer wrote: post #62
MrHamburger wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging via application brings unnecessary friction and severely degrades UX. Another UX offenders are QR codes on charging stalls and locking charging cables unless you will find that correct QR code so you can unlock your charging cable. Not that one, that will unlock charging cable in the stall next to you. For FFS why do I need to search for QR codes at a first place... I can imagine a simple solution - take a c…

You don't even need the contactless credit card reader. ISO 15118 is the standard for plug and charge.[1] Tesla implements it, as do most other EV manufacturers. The problem is that charging networks and manufacturers haven't settled on a way to exchange and update certificates.[2] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118 2. https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/4/24312002/ev-plug-and-char...

After my fair share of car being incompatible with basic CCS (Connector fits, car tells me it does not like the electricity here) I just want the charging to be working without some fancy features which charger manufacturers are going to implement wrong anyway.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#110

Post by cogman10 »

MrHamburger wrote: post #105
cogman10 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The economics of a charging business are awful. Ish. I mean one thing the charging business has going for it is that after the initial investment the ongoing investment is basically 0. You don't have weekly fuel shipments or any real ongoing maintenance costs. You also don't see immigrants all over charging stations because they are mostly unmanned. Usually placed in parking lots of retail stores.

> I mean one thing the charging business has going for it is that after the initial investment the ongoing investment is basically 0 That's not actually correct. You need to pay for reserved power in the grid, which can be significant amount regardless if you are using that power or not. So installing big DCFC charger where nobody is going to use it will eat you up on fees for reserved power.

Any insights to what the reserved rates are? Nothing really came up on google. I could find some commercial power rates which tended to be lower than residential rates, but I assumed that's not accurate since these things will eat a lot more power than most businesses would.
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