Running out of battery is as easy as running out of gas. The trick here would be to run out in a safe location. We planned to keep driving until the truck stopped moving, but we didn’t know exactly where that would be. Like gas-powered cars, some EVs have a little extra emergency range left after the gauge reaches zero.
That in mind, we struck out for the Santa Clarita River Valley north of Los Angeles, an agricultural community with only a pair of slow Level 2 wall chargers available for EV drivers and no Level 3 DC Fast chargers for 25 miles in any direction. Once we’d worn out the battery, we’d call Rivian Roadside Assistance and see what happened. Where would they tow us? How much would it cost? How long would it take to charge up enough to get home? We were going to find out.
EVs are NOT the answer. Who wants that level of grief.
Apparently idiots do. Uninformed idiots want that level of grief. They are bound and determined to erase many of the advancements that were made in the 20th century. And for what?
They killed FOUR? (4) 12 volt batteries during that fiasco?
“Scotty I need warp speed in 2 minutes or we’re all dead.”
“Aye, Captain, all I’ve got is impulse power.”
If we only had some phasers!
If only we had impulse control!
Better for it to die leaving LA instead of going into LA…
Unless you’re Snake Plissken, of course.
“it was a 22-hour job that required replacing the entire front wiring harness, which involved dropping the front motors out of the truck.”
That’s all you need to know right there.
Ram 1500 10 yrs old the oil pan rusted out! Had to drop the engine out to replace it. Electric or gas, crap built is crap built.
Electric with these flaws should have had a hard cut out much earlier. As noted ample warnings, drivers were testing the ‘what if’.
/ not a fan of EVs
Did anyone else note the slew of ads attached to the vid were mostly for EV’s LOL!
Nice looking truck, if only I could figure out a way to install a Dodge Demon engine and trans…….
Part of the problem is that the manufacturers are doing things that magnify problems. Making doors, trunks, and tailgates etc., all electronic is simply dumb. Mechanical latches don’t die when the battery dies. Then the whole charging station business is a failing model. If any gasoline retailer had pumps that were inoperable as often as charging stations are, they would be out of business. If it’s going to work, roadside charging simply has to emulate the gas station model. There’s a reason it’s ubiquitous. At the same time, a model for collecting road use taxes at the pump has to be followed. Right now, half the problems with EV’s are simply unforced errors.
You can make reliable battery chargers. The battery chargers I had at the last place I worked were 40 years old before we replaced them, and worked 24/7 x 365 for all forty years, except for a few hours every year. We had to clean the dust out of them yearly.
Of course they didn’t have computer displays or idiots trying to operate them. But for some reason, gas pumps have similar idiots operating them, but rarely break down.
What a TGF…
Well, at least they haven’t killed the electric grid.
Yet
Oh! Don’t be such luddites, all you OLLLLLLLLDD fossil fuel addicts. There is a simple solution to running completely out of an electric charge. All you need to do is to never let the charge fall below 20% of capacity. Hence, your 250 mile nameplate range … which is really about 190 miles under real world driving conditions … gets cut by 20% to 152 miles. So just ensure that you find a charger within 152 miles.
And of course no charger will be exactly at the 152 mile range, so you will probably only get about a 120 mile range to the next charger. And of course nobody sits at the charger for a 100% charge, so you will leave the charger with even less than 120 miles … and so on until you finally complete your original 300 mile long trip after 2-3 charger stops. Then! Your kewl Rivian ev will never run the batteries completely dead.
Who killed the electric car? Time wasting killed the electric car
And here I thought it was the Stonecutters who killed the electric car…
Learn sumptin new every day.
Reading between the lines – invest in towing companies.
I especially liked the “replace the entire front wiring harness” bit. Because you broke the charging plug, and it is permanently connected to the wiring harness? Please. At least one of the techs figured out that they could just splice a new one onto the existing wires.
Reminds me of the repair I did for my neighbor when squirrels chewed the wires off two of her injectors on a Kia Soul. Went round and round at the KIA dealership (“no, I only want a couple of fuel injector connectors”) until they finally informed me that on that model year, you must replace the entire under-hood wiring harness for FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS (!). On subsequent years, there is a replaceable harness just for the fuel injectors (I didn’t even ask the price). They also use a proprietary connector that you can’t buy anywhere (even from them). I trimmed the old connectors back enough to carefully solder a couple of wires on and they have worked fine to this day.
You got lucky. I tried to splice a new taillight on to my subaru and the tiny bit of extra resistance caused havoc with the body control module. All sorts of electrical gremlins started popping up. Radio would not turn off even with no key in ignition.
The ol Dodge Omni would cut out wherever.
Techs tried dielectric juice on all under hood wiring harness connections.
Had to let it go.
I would never own an electric vehicle for many reasons but this article seems a bit silly. If you ignore all the warnings and signs and precautions your vehicle is sending you – you likely shouldn’t be driving any vehicle. In 1968 a neighbor ran his new pickup out of gas about a mile from home. No problem except filling the gas tank was not enough to prime the fuel pump. He came up with the idea of putting some gas into the carburetor. Wrong answer. The gas was spilled and the truck caught fire and the next day he was looking to buy a new truck. Idiots and idiotic practices do not prove anything beyond the driver is an idiot.
American Obesity Problem Solved!!!
Piece of Shit of The Year.
Mandatory by 2035.
I’m long all the bicycle manufacturers.