12 volt system totally died, bricked truck... Still waiting for Rivian to review logs and tell me why!

[electruck]

I didn't know that. Never heard about Rivian having a battery assembly plant. Very interesting.

Battery packs are assembled at the factory in Normal.

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[mini2nut]

You can jump the 12v batteries via two jumper wires stowed near the trailer hitch. Refer to the manual if you need to do this... but you'd better find out why the 12v batteries went dead. This should not happen.

Exactly. The dual 12v batteries are kept charged by the high voltage 135 kWh battery pack.

The 12v batteries power the wipers, lighting, etc. The way I understand it is that the low voltage 12v batteries each power the left and right side of the vehicle separately. Rivian's are very unique in that aspect.

 

[Hugh IV]

This is long but technical, if it does happen to you and your stranded you may be able to get going with a 12 volt power supply of some sort with these details.

Happened on October 29th. Went out to check out the Halloween Easter egg and the truck would not unlock, rear brake lights were dimly flashing and that was it! Could not unlock the truck, nothing! Truck was charged to 70% overnight, not cold here in San Diego, maybe got into the 60s at night. I know I checked the charge earlier in the morning and it showed online and charged up as normal. I tried to crack the windows from the app and it never responded and I did not think anything of it at the time. Had the latest update when it died as it had the Halloween surprise in it that I wanted to see.

So I called Rivian service and of course they could not see it online. They were not going to be able to help m on the phone and I decided to pull the 12v jump cords out from the rear bumper and hook up a 12v power supply. According the manual up to 30amp, I just happen to have a 12v 30amp power supply so I connected it up. First I read the power with a meter and 0 volts. Either there is a diode or something to prevent power from flowing back or it was that dead. Here is my hookup.

After hooking up the power lights activated and with the remote I was able to "very slowly" unlock the doors and get in. Driver window would only go down about 1 inch at a time, obviously the 12v was very dead. Computer tried to boot up but just never quite made it all the way, tried for about 30 minutes then gave up. Here is a video of what it looks/sounds like.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mHBuLCeG3ic4sSVV6

Another strange observation was that the truck was in the high suspension mode, did not leave it that way.

Disconnected everything, pulled out as much as I could get access to, did not feel like taking apart fender to get to fronk manual release. Called Rivian again and they were going to have it towed... Not sure how you drag a 7,200 plus pound truck up while it is stuck in park. Apparently there is a manual release for the parking brake but I don't know if the tow truck driver would know how to do that.

Monday comes and no word yet from Rivian, I called them and they decided it would be better to have a mobile tech come out. That is what I was hoping for!

Tech shows up before 9am and got into the fronk through the manual pull and then starts getting access to the batteries, real nice guy, believe his name is Greg. Very knowledgeable and I asked a lot of questions so hopefully I did not bug him too much. Batteries were very dead and I learned that the 12v jump in the back only connects to the main 12v battery.

So yes there are 2 AGM 12 volt batteries, they are NOT connected in any way to each other outside of a common ground. there is a shut on the negative terminals and they are "smart" shunts and actually have a processor on them of some sort. There are roughly 6 or 7 positive terminals on top with integrated fuses, so a massive pain to get to if you had a blown fuse! He connected up both new batteries and charged them up together. Then he held the negative wires over their terminals and it looks like he was praying for a few seconds. He said both batteries need to be connected at the exact same time. He held them there then listened for a relay to click after about 10 or 15 seconds. Then he let go of the left one, tightened up the right negative terminal, then tightened up the left negative terminal.

Both batteries were replaced with new ones but he seemed to think the old ones were not damaged.

Now the truck came to life! He connected his laptop up to the ODB2 port with a network version of an ODB2 reader. Had Rivian proprietary software on his laptop then he started a calibration on everything. Windows, seats, mirrors, etc. Next he pulled logs and did see that the voltage got low, around 9 volts. Saw that one of the shunts on the batteries was not responding, he sent a reset to it and it came online.

I am still trying to get a service advisor to contact me on any root cause. I don't want this to happen to me in the middle of nowhere. The benefit of watching everything is that if it does happen and I am in the middle of nowhere I at least can get it going on my own assuming I have 12 volts of some sort.

Will update if I hear anything back from Rivian.

I had the exact same thing happen to me. Unfortunately I work at a car dealership. We jumped it, opened the hood and tried to charge the 12 volt batteries. They were dead. After 3 days of trying Rivian still can not tell me when they can come out and replace the batteries. And if I change them myself, it will void the warranty. So I am stuck.

 

[Hugh IV]

You can jump the 12v batteries via two jumper wires stowed near the trailer hitch. Refer to the manual if you need to do this... but you'd better find out why the 12v batteries went dead. This should not happen.

That does not work. You can jump the batteries, but if they are dead, it will not actually let you put it in drive and go anywhere. This is not like an ICE car.

 

[Rivinator]

This is long but technical, if it does happen to you and your stranded you may be able to get going with a 12 volt power supply of some sort with these details.

Happened on October 29th. Went out to check out the Halloween Easter egg and the truck would not unlock, rear brake lights were dimly flashing and that was it! Could not unlock the truck, nothing! Truck was charged to 70% overnight, not cold here in San Diego, maybe got into the 60s at night. I know I checked the charge earlier in the morning and it showed online and charged up as normal. I tried to crack the windows from the app and it never responded and I did not think anything of it at the time. Had the latest update when it died as it had the Halloween surprise in it that I wanted to see.

So I called Rivian service and of course they could not see it online. They were not going to be able to help m on the phone and I decided to pull the 12v jump cords out from the rear bumper and hook up a 12v power supply. According the manual up to 30amp, I just happen to have a 12v 30amp power supply so I connected it up. First I read the power with a meter and 0 volts. Either there is a diode or something to prevent power from flowing back or it was that dead. Here is my hookup.

After hooking up the power lights activated and with the remote I was able to "very slowly" unlock the doors and get in. Driver window would only go down about 1 inch at a time, obviously the 12v was very dead. Computer tried to boot up but just never quite made it all the way, tried for about 30 minutes then gave up. Here is a video of what it looks/sounds like.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mHBuLCeG3ic4sSVV6

Another strange observation was that the truck was in the high suspension mode, did not leave it that way.

Disconnected everything, pulled out as much as I could get access to, did not feel like taking apart fender to get to fronk manual release. Called Rivian again and they were going to have it towed... Not sure how you drag a 7,200 plus pound truck up while it is stuck in park. Apparently there is a manual release for the parking brake but I don't know if the tow truck driver would know how to do that.

Monday comes and no word yet from Rivian, I called them and they decided it would be better to have a mobile tech come out. That is what I was hoping for!

Tech shows up before 9am and got into the fronk through the manual pull and then starts getting access to the batteries, real nice guy, believe his name is Greg. Very knowledgeable and I asked a lot of questions so hopefully I did not bug him too much. Batteries were very dead and I learned that the 12v jump in the back only connects to the main 12v battery.

So yes there are 2 AGM 12 volt batteries, they are NOT connected in any way to each other outside of a common ground. there is a shut on the negative terminals and they are "smart" shunts and actually have a processor on them of some sort. There are roughly 6 or 7 positive terminals on top with integrated fuses, so a massive pain to get to if you had a blown fuse! He connected up both new batteries and charged them up together. Then he held the negative wires over their terminals and it looks like he was praying for a few seconds. He said both batteries need to be connected at the exact same time. He held them there then listened for a relay to click after about 10 or 15 seconds. Then he let go of the left one, tightened up the right negative terminal, then tightened up the left negative terminal.

Both batteries were replaced with new ones but he seemed to think the old ones were not damaged.

Now the truck came to life! He connected his laptop up to the ODB2 port with a network version of an ODB2 reader. Had Rivian proprietary software on his laptop then he started a calibration on everything. Windows, seats, mirrors, etc. Next he pulled logs and did see that the voltage got low, around 9 volts. Saw that one of the shunts on the batteries was not responding, he sent a reset to it and it came online.

I am still trying to get a service advisor to contact me on any root cause. I don't want this to happen to me in the middle of nowhere. The benefit of watching everything is that if it does happen and I am in the middle of nowhere I at least can get it going on my own assuming I have 12 volts of some sort.

Will update if I hear anything back from Rivian.

Excellent write-up, thanks so much for posting.

When we first stating hearing about 12v battery issues month ago, it was concerning enough that I decided to research ways to monitor the 12v level. Like you, I discovered that hooking up a meter to the charging leads at the back of the truck gave me no reading at all, 0v. I called my Rivian service advisor to ask if this was as designed, and got a convoluted non-answer. NO help there, and of course nothing like a service manual is available from Rivian.

I found a cigarette lighter plug in device that's meant to monitor the charging system on ICE cars, but works fine as a 12v monitor, and it's visible from the under the dash 12v location. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EVWDU0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

With this, I could see that the battery charging system is on a roughly 2 hour cycle. When charging, the voltage reads 13.7v, then drops to just over 12v until the next charging cycle. If it drops below 12v, you know trouble is coming. Of course, you have to be looking at it, but at least it's something. Another forum mentions using a bluetooth monitoring device such as this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MT4583U?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share, which lets you see the data on your phone, and a lot more of it. The downside being that the sending unit has to be attached directly to the battery terminals.

Rivian could very easily provide this information on one of the displays. Better yet, give us a warning if any part of the charging system is not doing it's job. I think we all share a common concern about being stranded in the boonies by something like this, it need not be so mysterious.

 

[DannyC]

The logs did show my voltage dropped to 9 something volts. That's pretty low! Question is why are these batteries dying? There are too many examples. Still nothing from Rivian, I am going to have to call them again when I have some time. I will also add that when this happened I had almost 19,000 miles on my truck, have 19,737 now.

I want to get a reader that plugs into the ODB2 port and see what info that shows me. Have not researched this yet so not sure what to get.

 

[SoCal Rob]

The logs did show my voltage dropped to 9 something volts. That's pretty low! Question is why are these batteries dying? There are too many examples. Still nothing from Rivian, I am going to have to call them again when I have some time. I will also add that when this happened I had almost 19,000 miles on my truck, have 19,737 now.

I want to get a reader that plugs into the ODB2 port and see what info that shows me. Have not researched this yet so not sure what to get.

Maybe an Ultragauge. http://www.ultra-gauge.com/ultragauge/

User-selectable gauges and low/high configurable audio alarms. Hopefully the Rivian’s OBDII port will play nicely with it.

 

[Budman]

There are many posts about 12v battery problems on the Tesla and Ford Mache forums (and probably other EV forums too). Just like ICE cars 12v batteries can and do die and need to be replaced from time to time. Regular monitoring of the voltage might give you advance warning.

 

[R1Tom]

I would love to see a "systems" screen. Include a thermal system diagram, with thermal devices, temps, and pumps. All showing current status. Also then an "electrical" systems scree. Showing each battery voltage. Main pack voltage. Etc...

 

[Goose]

I had the exact same thing happen to me. Unfortunately I work at a car dealership. We jumped it, opened the hood and tried to charge the 12 volt batteries. They were dead. After 3 days of trying Rivian still can not tell me when they can come out and replace the batteries. And if I change them myself, it will void the warranty. So I am stuck.

Wait...You can't change the 12v batteries out yourself or it voids the warranty? So you can't go to the nearest NAPA or AA and get a new AGM battery and just drop it in?

 

[Olsonsolar]

Wait...You can't change the 12v batteries out yourself or it voids the warranty? So you can't go to the nearest NAPA or AA and get a new AGM battery and just drop it in?

Where is that stated anyplace????

 

[Olsonsolar]

That is a reasonable fear. Not being able to jump it does not inspire confidence.

Adventure vehicle? - Wrong kind of adventure!

The last time I had a 12v battery go out in a vehicle there was no warning. When it went dead it was dead. Could not charge it could not jump it.

 

[Hugh IV]

Wait...You can't change the 12v batteries out yourself or it voids the warranty? So you can't go to the nearest NAPA or AA and get a new AGM battery and just drop it in?

Evidently not. Or trust me we would have already done it.

 

[Hugh IV]

Where is that stated anyplace????

Customer Service told me that. If I put in an a battery on my own, and anything happened after that and they traced back to the battery, it would not be covered. As you can tell there is a huge flaw in how the batteries work. So next time something happens, what do you think they will say?

 

[domoplaytime]

I would love to see a "systems" screen. Include a thermal system diagram, with thermal devices, temps, and pumps. All showing current status. Also then an "electrical" systems scree. Showing each battery voltage. Main pack voltage. Etc...

Bonus if it can report that the camp speaker or flashlight isn't charging correctly. But the thermal part is especially interesting to me, since my truck is at the SC for this: https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/cabin-temperature-much-higher-overnight.9687/

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