OK, have some interesting insights on road tripping. Well interesting for me anyway, and being a public forum you guys get to read my thoughts for a minute
Drove to Louisville on Easter Weekend in the Rivian. We're down here again this weekend for Derby, but drove the wifes '18 Nissan Rogue this time. Pretty interesting contrast between the two. I'm trying to remove things like road noise, and interior quality from my observations. The Rivian is an $80k luxury vehicle, the Rogue is a $30k commuter car. The "class" difference between them is blatantly obvious, so I'm trying to ignore that part.
We left the kids at home so it was just her and I on this trip. We took the Rogue to keep miles off the Rivian lease, and because we had a LOT of running around planned while down here, and she would be doing the lions share of that driving. So she didn't want to mess with charging, and we're gonna keep 1.2k miles off the Rivian this way. So here's some thoughts I've had.
Energy Replenishment (Fuel up vs charging)
You will never convince me that adding fuel to a vehicle isn't the most awful way to add energy. Compared to plug and charge, it's slightly more cumbersome, smells terrible, and has lots of opportunity for making a mess (spilled gas on my shoes and stank up the car due to a faulty pump). I had forgotten what a gas station was like since I hadn't been to one since Thanksgiving. It's awful. It's also holy shitballs fast. Like 4min for 300mi of range. More on the stops and times in a minute, but in general nothing new here, just my changed perspective on how bad gas pumps are.
Stops and Timing.
I've done the trip in as short at 7.5hrs in the Q7. One stop, hauled arse by myself. A "normal" trip took 8.5hrs with 2-3 stops in the Q7. One for fuel, a couple more for restroom/snacks. Rivian took me just over 9.5hrs by myself, but sticking with the speed limit. I could likely push it a bit harder, as I still haven't found the "aggressive" edge of timing/charging, but I doubt there's more than .5hrs in there to be saved. With the Rogue this trip, we did it in 9hrs. 3 stops. One for fuel and lunch, two for restrooms. Had some bad traffic in Columbus, so it would have been closer to 8.5hrs without that. Those are "door to door" times. Like, sat down in Buffalo at 9am, got out in the driveway in Louisville at 6pm.
What's really interesting on this front is that the stops were "planned on the fly" instead of being part of the route. We stopped when and where we felt like, and the trip was largely the same. The Rivian I have a more detailed list of places to stop, you know, because chargers. This trip felt very "loose" by comparison. We stopped at a Steak and Shake for lunch, and while she ordered food I drove over, fueled up, got waters/snacks for later, and by the time I was back food was ready. This was a very "ev similar" stop, where we would have just been charging the whole time while waiting on food. The other stops were at rest areas with no charging or fuel, but still took 10-15min as we didn't rush ourselves through. So, the same number of stops with slightly less time at each.
I prefer the EV method here. The multiple, forced, longer stops made the trip less of a literal pain in my ass. Some of this might be the Nissan seats not being as good as the Rivian/Audi seats, but I'm pretty confident that I liked the forced 20min stops every 200-ish miles. My legs and lower back were noticeably sore and tight on arrival, where I didn't have that in the Rivian, and I think the premise of getting out and moving helped there. It's not quite "back to back" between two luxury vehicles, but it's close enough for me to call it in favor of the EV here. The extra hour at the destination saved from not charging would have just vanished away and been no big deal.
Tech and Screens
I used to HATE and absolutely rant about how having too many screens in a vehicle was bad, and it sucked and I didn't understand why it was important. I was wrong. The screens in the Rivian are well executed, but laggy at times, and are easy to read and do, in-fact, enhance the experience. The Rogue has a TINY little screen, that is low resolution, and uses Android Auto. I missed the Rivian in a big way here. AA navigation was clunky, slow, and hard to use. The phone kept disconnecting (I think it's a cable issue). It just wasn't great. Same with the instrument panel. It's traditional gauges and a center display that is OK, but not great. Didn't give me a ton of information, but it worked. Hadn't realized how much I had grown accustomed to the new setup.
Drivers aides was a mixed bag. No lane keep assist in the Rogue, combined with some alignment issues I didn't know about made for an exhausting portion of the trip. Car is getting aligned and a wheel/tire balance this morning before we head back tomorrow. The adaptive cruise though, Nissan does it better. It's smoother on deccel/accel, has the appropriate amount of "aggression" in regaining speed when passing, and was generally a pleasure to use. I think Rivian's total package is a little better here, but with an alignment on the Rogue I suspect the gap will narrow. From what I remember, the Audi's adaptive cruise was the best of the 3, but it's been awhile. I might have rose colored glasses there.
Driveline
The Rogue has a 4cyl with a CVT, Rivian is part time dual motor EV. HOLY BALLS the 4cyl/CVT combo sucks. I think this CVT is on the verge of failure, it slips BADLY. Full power application is just absurdly slow, and honestly a little terrifying for me. She seems to think "It's just fine". We're going to have it looked at, assuming it gets us home. That said, it's closer to the EV feel (aside from being down on power) than the Audi was. Zero jerking/clunking/shifting/etc. The CVT is very smooth overall. The 4cyl though, has a big NVH problem. It's buzzy and rattly and loud. I had forgotten how loud engines were. The Rivian isn't a slam dunk here though, as the clutch in the rear drive unit that disengages it on the highway, is well, not smooth. I've got a ticket in to Rivian to have it inspected/checked, however it blows my mind that they designed this great smooth well calibrated driveline, and then put a literal dog style clutch to disengage the motors. Like, who the hell made that decision?
I've also come to the conclusion that the gap between a manual and an automatic, when driving in traffic, is the same as the gap between an automatic and an EV. I missed one pedal driving SOOO BADLY when we were stuck in Columbus traffic. The constant foot waggling between gas and brake pedal just seems, well, silly. The EV driveline wins hands down here, even with the smoothness of a (slipping) CVT, the EV just made life so easy to deal with traffic and speed control.
Interior/storage
This is hard, as most of it's subjective. Total storage volume is VERY LOW in the Rogue compared to the Rivian. Different size/class, but the Frunk/Gear tunnel really are a big deal. Had golf clubs in the hatch of the Rogue and the rattled the whole way down. Those would have been in the gear tunnel in the Rivian, making a more pleasant ride. Not really fair for the Rogue, but it's a thing.
HVAC in the Rogue beats the pants off the Rivian. Vents aim easily, and the A/C is more powerful and cooler. This was a big win for the Rogue IMO, and a HUGE miss for the Rivian. Same with Keyless entry, Rogue just worked, and I have to carry spare crap with my wallet to ensure entry with the Rivian. This is just easier/better in the Rogue.
Center console in the Rogue SUCKS. WTF is a shifter doing in the console on a CVT equipped mini-SUV. Such a waste of space, and I'm still firmly on the "column shifters are better" team here. Rivian console is SOOO much better for road tripped. So many better places to store "stuff" and it doesn't feel cramped at all. Part of that is due to the platform, some is just size, the rest is design choices.
Conclusion
Overall, I'll take the Rivian as the overall winner here. The EV downsides of charging time and logistics aren't big enough to keep it from being the preferred road trip machine. I think something like the Sierra EV with a GIANT battery and much faster charging would really take like 90% of those pain points away. Stretching legs to 300mi, and dropping charging times into the 25-30min range for those legs would be pretty ideal and really close to parity with most gas vehicles I think.
Thanks for coming to my TedTalk
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