Ever wonder what it’s actually like to go from combustion to electric? TheStreet auto writer James Ochoa’s weeklong experience with this EV gave him an epiphany about the future of cars.
Transcript:
James Ochoa: For the past week, I’ve been driving this, the 2025 Rivian R1S. And while there’s a lot to love in this EV, there’s a lot to learn for someone switching from gas to electric. And honestly, from what I’ve learned, it’s quite a ride.
First thing I really have to complain about is the key. There is no key. The guys at Rivian provided me with one of these. To actually start the car, not just unlock it, to start the car, you go down here. And because the car is electric, it’s already started. When you climb in, I mean, you’re treated to an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous interior. Very, very clean. Very, very nice.
It’s dominated by this huge, huge screen right here. Because this car has no buttons, have a guess where you would actually adjust the mirrors. Display, Access, no, it’s not anywhere here. Update service here. No. It’s not here. It’s not here. You don’t know where it actually is? Here, for some reason. This is where you adjust your mirrors. This is where you adjust your steering wheel. That took me 30 minutes to figure out. That’s not OK.
Everything here just seems tailor-made to the whole EV driving experience. What’s that? You see that right there 222 miles? That’s still an ambiguous 222 miles you still have. I don’t want to find out when I need to charge. Yeah, but so far, there’s not really a lot I could really complain about in terms of the actual driving experience, except for one really, really important detail that really separates the whole EV experience from the gas experience. And that is something called regenerative braking.
Now, to put regenerative braking in very, very simple terms, the vehicle’s brakes are not just the actual brakes what you see inside of the wheels. Rather, the brakes are also a part of the engine, if you could say. So in the very 0.1 seconds that it takes for me to lift my foot off of the gas pedal to the brake pedal, the car is already, in essence, braking for me using regenerative braking.
Now, regenerative braking has its advantages, but I think the biggest disadvantage, it will dramatically change the way you actually drive. Your body is slowly starting getting to used to how the car will actually react to certain things, and I think it’s going to be more jarring if someone goes back from an electric car to a gas-powered car.
Day three. Going into this, I’m really starting to see past the fact that this is electric, and really starting to see something beyond, can we say like the gimmick? I have 149 miles left in the battery before it really needs to be plugged in. 149 miles is quite a distance. I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of stuff we can do with this thing before I need to recharge it.
Right now, I currently have 126 miles on the clock. 25 now, oh, gosh. For what I’m doing right now, I’m relatively unafraid. Right now, it’s 1 o’clock. I’m going to go to a restaurant. I’ve actually haven’t been to in a while. Man, I really do not want a street park look and feel, like, meadow soprano doing the whole thing. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’ll fit. God [BLEEP] It’s not going to fit, is it? [BLEEP]
I’m down to 16% battery left. I think today is the day we’re going to charge. OK, so I have found a EVgo station. At least for this car, it says, like, 410 miles. I mean, that’s for if you charge it up to 100% and then you go all the way down to 0%, 410 miles is what they get in a laboratory setting. This is the real world, this is not a laboratory.
There’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 stalls and all five of them, OK another EV has joined the line. EV charging battle royale over here. Finally. Oh, Nelly. Yes, absolutely. So I think the only thing we could really do right now is honestly just wait. Yeah. Yeah. Good times.
So that right there, it’s saying I had 13%. What the– wait, what? Why is it $60.67? So basically, like yesterday’s experience is not representative of all EVs. Most, if not, a lot of batteries that are installed in many of the EVs that you see on the road. They have much smaller batteries than this thing.
Knowing the size of the battery is really important because that really determines how much electricity is going to be going into the car and how much it’s going to cost, and also how fast it’s actually going to charge up. I mean, this is a big battery. It took a heck of a long time to charge. We were at a quote unquote, “quick charger.” You’re essentially paying for the service that these people provide.
I mean, at this point, I’m really starting to think that having an EV is kind of less about what an EV can do for you and more about where it can actually take you.
Subscribe |
Earn. Live. Invest. |
TheStreet Pro |
#rivian #ev #electricvehicle
source
