Rivian R1S Road Trip: 2.88 mi/kWh and 87 kWh of Charging

The trip meter on my Rivian R1S read 363.6 miles, 2.88 mi/kWh and 127 kWh when I got home from the San Gabriel Valley Rivian Club drive. That is the whole Rivian R1S road trip in three numbers: Ventura, Cachuma Lake, Los Olivos, Old Mission Santa Inés in Solvang, and back in one day. Charging cost me $0.00. At the posted rate it would have been $51.41, and that second number is the one worth planning around.

The route: Ventura to Solvang and back

We met at the Rivian Adventure Network site in Ventura, which was my first time there. Eight stalls, and one was down. They are CCS chargers, so other EVs can use them too, and that morning there was an e-tron, a Chevy Bolt and a Mach-E in the mix. The Bolt was pulling 15 kW, which is a sad number to watch when someone from your club is waiting for a stall.

I left the house at 84%, about 281 miles of range, and pulled in at 50%. The club plan was to charge to around 80% before heading north.

I packed for the day: an electric Anker SOLIX cooler, an Anker SOLIX C300 battery for the little gadgets, and my action cam mounted as a dash cam with a suction cup.

From there it was a scenic convoy up through Santa Barbara County. About 14 or 15 Rivians plus that Mach-E, whose owner turned out to be a Rivian owner who just did not bring the truck.

What the Rivian R1S road trip really cost to charge

I charged twice at the Ventura site: 46.8 kWh in 38 minutes in the morning and 40.3 kWh in 21 minutes in the evening. That is 87.1 kWh. At the posted $0.59/kWh rate that comes to $51.41, and both receipts show $0.00 paid.

Here is the honest part. The free charging comes from the referral rewards on my account, and it is not something the R1S gives you. If you are budgeting a trip like this, use the posted rate. Everything else about the trip is what an owner would see. If you want the same reward, my Rivian referral is how I got it.

One more piece of arithmetic, because the two energy numbers do not match. The trip meter counts everything the car used, 127 kWh, and I bought 87.1 kWh of it on the road. The rest came out of the battery I left home with. If you had bought all 127 kWh at the posted rate, that would be about $75, or roughly 21 cents a mile. That last figure is my math, not a receipt.

Cachuma Lake and Bradbury Dam

We stopped at Cachuma Lake for pictures near the water, and the sun finally came out. The lake was about 90% full on August 15, 2026, according to state water data. The record low was 7.3% in October 2016, so this is a very different lake than it was a decade ago. It is a drinking water reservoir, which is why swimming is banned. Details on the project are on the Bureau of Reclamation Cachuma Project page.

Los Olivos: parking, lunch and a Supercharger

Los Olivos is one street of tasting rooms, a saddlery and very nice houses, and the parking rules are strict. Signs warn you not to park in the residential driveways or block them. A few people in the group parked near one, and I parked all the way in the back and took the walk. We had a 1 o’clock lunch reservation, so I explored first. You can see how many EVs are around here. A Model Y Performance was parked right on the street.

There is also a Supercharger about a mile from Los Olivos, in Santa Ynez. It is open 24/7 with 8 stalls up to 325 kW, and non-Tesla EVs can use it with an adapter.

I ran late to lunch, as usual. I got the pastrami sandwich. It is not Katz’s, but it is not bad at all.

Old Mission Santa Inés and a Starlink fix

The mission is in Solvang, only a few minutes from lunch, and it was windy enough that my mic suffered. Old Mission Santa Inés was founded on September 17, 1804, the 19th of California’s 21 missions, and the National Park Service has a good write-up of its history.

While everyone hung around, I finally got my Starlink working. It had been failing to connect to a satellite with the dish mounted in the third row. When I set it on the ground while we ate, it started connecting, so I moved it to the second-row outlet with the outlet timer set to five hours. It connected and started downloading an update.

What I would take away from this Rivian R1S road trip

The efficiency is the honest headline: 2.88 mi/kWh over 363.6 miles in one day. The charging is the part that depends on who you are. At the posted rate, the two Ventura sessions were $51.41, and a full-day trip like this is closer to $75 if you buy every kilowatt-hour on the road.

If you want a longer road trip with the charging math laid out stop by stop, the Vegas run covers 532 miles.

Thanks to the San Gabriel Valley Rivian Club for putting this together. I do not plan well, so I am glad somebody does.