Following an amazing race of all the EV trucks you can buy today, I offered to drive the Rivian R1T back to Florida from San Diego. Along the way, I stopped in Phoenix for a day and a half to spend time with Greg and his Cybertruck and Gjeebs and his R1T.

I have gone coast to coast many times in my Tesla Model Y, Model 3 and even halfway across the country in our Tesla Model X. I am well versed in how to make this trip, and deal with charging along the way. The thing I wasn't as familiar with and ultimately hated about this trip was the public DC fast charging network.

Utilizing Electrify America, EVGo, Mercedes Chargpoint Shell Recharge and Rivians Adventure Network, I was able to experience the good and bad of all the major charging networks in the country. On just one stop, I was fortunate enough to be able to utilize a Tesla Supercharger with a Magic Doc. Days after this trip, Tesla officially opened up the network to Rivian owners with an adapter, meaning you are not limited to just superchargers with the magic doc.

The Rivian R1T I am driving is a 2022 Quad Motor with the Large battery pack. It is rated for 352 miles of range and is able to charge at speeds up to 220 kW. With an onboard battery of about 135 kWh, the Rivian moves all 7,000 lbs + with reasonable efficiency, and where the weight reduces range, Rivian put a large battery pack underneath to still deliver good real world range.

By the time I reached my home in Florida, I had traveled 2,550 miles, consumed nearly 1,400 kWh of energy, paid over $450 in charging and saw the Rivian pass over the magical 50,000 mile mark. Even after 50,000 miles, this truck is still holding up tough, with no noticeable signs of wear, certainly not 50k miles worth. The half shafts were starting to make some noise and are likely going to need to be rebuilt as is a known issue with the R1T.

Although I sincerely enjoyed the comfort, and ease of driving the R1T, I seriously disliked the charging experience. Whether it was broken chargers, over priced chargers, or slow performing chargers, there were very few charging stops that were at least at expectation.

When we started road tripping in our Teslas, we used to make this trip, just in reverse, several times a year. In the beginning, there was only 1 V3 Supercharger on this route, and that was in Nashville. Since then, V3 superchargers have been deployed so fast that you can make the trip only using V3 superchargers now.

Now that Rivian has access to the Tesla supercharging network, i can say now that I wouldn't think twice about owning a Rivian, which is something I would not have said before. The Tesla Supercharging network is seriously that good and that important to the ownership experience that if your EV does not have access, I wouldn't not even consider owning it.

Thanks to Tesla continuing to open up their charging network, we are finally in the age of wide spread EV adoption. This is a game changer and makes what used to be deal breaker EV's now enticing to many people.

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