Why doesn't Rivian do preconditioning at home (cold climate customers)?

[Smeek]

I am coming from an Audi and i'm finding the lack of preconditioning from home a little confusing. Hoping someone can explain to me why this is missing. Is this just a "made in california" thing"

With the Audi, you could set charging schedules from the otherwise pretty useless app. So if i had a shift on Wednesday, i'd have the car set to finish its charging by 7 AM on wednesday. That way, the battery would be warm and the climate control would start running a few minutes before it. Now you have a nice warm battery to leave on your drive in the middle of the winter. Essentially using wall power to warm the car up, both battery and cabin.

There really doesn't seem to be an easy way to match this functionality. Does Rivian discount the utility of preconditioning from home in colder climates? Where i live it is not uncommon for it to be single digits Fahrenheit in the winter, and the range hit with a cold battery is not insignificant.

The only way to do it that i can see for the rivian seems to be charging to 5-10% less than you actually want to charge the car until about an hour or two before you are set to leave. This seems cumbersome to have to remember to do each day, though.

I have tested running the HVAC for 20 minutes from the app. this doesn't seem to draw any wall power. My R1S also doesn't seem to keep itself topped off. So if it is done charging to 70% at 11 pm, the following morning at 8 AM it is down to 69% and hasn't recharged itself, even though it's still plugged in.

What are you cold climate people doing for this?

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[Elitewillie]

Wow seems like a weird oversight. My Mach allows for this as well. Really hoping to see an update on this. Pick up my R1S next Thursday and didn’t know this functionality wasn’t available.

 

[WorldComposting]

I haven't hit winter yet but I know my 2013 Ford Focus Electric I could set leave times so it would use the wall power to precondition the cabin. I did this when leaving work so the car would be 78 degrees even when 5 outside. This would also make it easier on my kids who I would pick up from daycare. The car was already warm and I still had full range of 50 miles at those temps.

Seems like something they will need to look into so the vehicle has the percentage charge you want and a warm or cool cabin before leaving.

I have noticed that if I leave it plugged in for a few days the % battery will creep upward. I set it for 80% but after a few days it will be up to 81 or 82%. I now set it to 78% that way it can range up to 80%.

 

[Craigins]

You could also manually calculate how long charging will take and then start charging at the appropriate time. I typically do this for road trips to hit 100% right before departure.

You could always charge to your desired % and then up the % higher before leaving to warm up the battery.

It would be nice to say finish charging at X time.

 

[WSea]

Last winter charging 30-60 minutes prior to departure reduced eff drops from cold battery. Unfortunately, this is a manual process for now. Just got in the habit of always plug in when at home and use the app to start charging. Precondition cab at same time

 

[Rivifan]

I have tested running the HVAC for 20 minutes from the app. this doesn't seem to draw any wall power. My R1S also doesn't seem to keep itself topped off. So if it is done charging to 70% at 11 pm, the following morning at 8 AM it is down to 69% and hasn't recharged itself, even though it's still plugged in.

What are you cold climate people doing for this?

Watching this thread as this will be my first winter in an EV and I just started noticing the drop in temps has provided a ~20% drop in range so far when i park outside. +1 on hoping for an automated fix

Bur regarding the 69% charge, ive noticed mine will sometimes stop 1% short as well in normal home charging. Can you test again, get it to drop down to 68 or below?

 

[diehlryan]

Watching this thread as this will be my first winter in an EV and I just started noticing the drop in temps has provided a ~20% drop in range so far when i park outside. +1 on hoping for an automated fix

Bur regarding the 69% charge, ive noticed mine will sometimes stop 1% short as well in normal home charging. Can you test again, get it to drop down to 68 or below?

I dont think you're actually losing the range when parking outside. You're seeing the SoC change based on battery temp. Warm battery up and SoC goes up. The driving range impact I saw this past winter looked to be more from cabin and seat heating than anywhere else.

 

[Redline]

Just remember...a lot of stuff is being worked on for OTA updates. Wassym said they have tons of headroom and many things in the works.

 

[zefram47]

They definitely need to implement both charging for departure time as well as preconditioning for departure time. My MINI Cooper SE had that and it was very convenient. I was able to set up to maybe 3 or 4 departure schedules and could choose what days of the week each applied to. I do notice that my battery is warmer in the morning when it adds more kWh vs a normal day now that we have the battery temps showing in the UI. Come sub-freezing temps it would be nice for that charge to finish closer to departure time without me having to tweak my charging schedule manually to try and game the system.

That said, the cabin conditioning from the app doesn't seem to use the wall-power when it's connected and I don't understand why. The whole point of preconditioning while plugged in is to NOT drain the battery while warming the cabin for better efficiency. By using the battery to do that it totally defeats the purpose. Both my MINI and my Spark EV used wall power while preconditioning.

 

[EhrenT]

I complained about this to Rivian last winter. Bummed it still hasn’t been addressed!

 

[DTown3011]

I am pretty sure preconditioning is on the roadmap, but surprised we don't have it yet!

 

[Dark-Fx]

I expect to see this capability introduced sometime this winter season. Was a pretty consistant complaint about it being a missing feature. Especially now that we have the temperature gauges and can tell what the vehicle is doing behind the scenes with respect to energy usage a little better.

 

[Riviot]

I am pretty sure preconditioning is on the roadmap, but surprised we don't have it yet!

 

[Elitewillie]

Just remember...a lot of stuff is being worked on for OTA updates. Wassym said they have tons of headroom and many things in the works.

Found the instagram story where he discussed it coming in Winter. Let’s hope we get it soon.

https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGx...d=3089777510681818130&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

 

[Redline]

Found the instagram story where he discussed it coming in Winter. Let’s hope we get it soon.

https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGx...d=3089777510681818130&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Great find!

The state of charge interview with him is wonderful as well. Wassym needs to continue to have a bigger role with Rivian.

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