Charging in Extreme Cold

[SPITmadFIRE]

We do for long term storage in satellite lithium ion batteries. Granted that’s with no load on the batteries so not exactly the same as a cold EV battery but close.

I'm pretty sure the issue isn't about how cold the battery cells get, but the fact they cannot produce nominal voltage at those freezing temps. If your EV battery gets too cold to produce a usable amount of voltage, then it can't warm itself up, or activate the systems required to control charging, or do any vehicle functions really. You just have to wait for it to thaw or thaw it out yourself.

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[SPITmadFIRE]

On a level one charger it seems to error out before it can heat the battery enough to charge when the battery is below 10ish. Is that what is happening? Once it warms up some then it charges even with a level.

I'm not sure if the battery management system will be able to warm the battery from only a L1 charger. I'm assuming it may require at least L2 charging to do that, but I'll leave it to others with more experience to chime in if even L1 chargers can get the battery warm enough.

 

[Doug]

A level one would not warm it up enough to charge. I had to wait a couple hours after I pulled it in a heated warehouse before it would charge with level one. I had the same issue last night, battery was at 4 decrees and had to wait to charge until it warmed up some.

 

[Doug]

Doug, I too am in Minnesota. This weekend we took the R1S to the cabin in the Brainerd lakes area. I charged to 100% in our heated garage here in Edina, then headed out. We arrived in town with about 25% charge, and with a couple runs to dinner, and trivia, and lunch, we left Crosslake with about 28% charge on the way to the fastest charger in that range, a 50kWh ZEF in Crosby.

What I noticed was keeping it in the detached, non-heated garage at the cabin, gave us about 1.5 miles of range per hour. That wasn’t great because ever drive to lunch or dinner, even just 3 or 4 miles, sucked a ton of range out of the car, however, it was key to preconditioning the battery on our way home. It was a lifesaver, even at 50 kWh, we were able to get all 50 kWh nearly immediately because we preconditioned.

How did the ZEF charger work in Crosby? I have found ZEF to be very hit or miss and mostly miss for working chargers. I go to them as a last resort usually . I have been plugging it in and I get about 1.5 to 2 miles per hour of charging until it errors out when the battery temp falls to low. I will see how it does today it is nnot quite as cold.

 

[Redline]

How did the ZEF charger work in Crosby? I have found ZEF to be very hit or miss and mostly miss for working chargers. I go to them as a last resort usually . I have been plugging it in and I get about 1.5 to 2 miles per hour of charging until it errors out when the battery temp falls to low. I will see how it does today it is nnot quite as cold.

IT worked well….as well as a 50 kWh charger can work. It’s well reviewed in Plugshare, but if it didn’t work, we would’ve been in trouble. The Brainerd lakes area is a dead area for CCS fast charging. It’s sort of shocking to be honest. Circle K is rolling out a 180 kWh CCS system in Baxter, but it hasn’t broke ground yet. Otherwise….it’s this 50 kWh Crosby spot or nothing.

 

[COdogman]

On Tuesday morning I needed to charge at the EA station closest to my place because I had done more driving over the weekend than normal and I only have access to L1 in my condo garage. My battery was at 38 degrees when I started driving to the charger but the outside temp was -14.

This EA station is right up the street from me and is actually extremely reliable compared to other stories I read here. I have never had an issue with it. This time I had to try 3 different chargers to finally get it going and it was SO slow in the beginning… It eventually ramped up, but never got to normal speeds for those chargers.

So the cold affects your battery but it also affects the chargers. If both are super cold you can expect even more of a struggle. Luckily it doesn’t stay that cold here in CO for long, but SD is a different story.

 

[docwhiz]

I love my Canyon Red R1T. I live in MN, and bought it knowing it would sit in my balmy 50 to 60 degree garage during the winter. I of course charge mostly at home. This last week I had to travel to Brookings SD for work. It was about -45 windchill and below zero temps for several days and I had a 110 outlet to charge where I was staying. Once the battery drops in temp I get an error message and it stops charging. The battery was 8 decrees going to work and I had some error messages and did not seem to have full power. Is that normal in extreme cold? I was saved in that I could pull it in at work and after several hours to warm up it would charge without an error. My wife took it to the one "fast" charger in town one day which was horrible as it did not want to start and once it did after several attempts charged at 25 kw an hour. Brookings charging availability sucks!! I knew with the cold taking the Rivian would be an adventure but was hoping it would build confidence in it, but this experience did not. As everyone knows there needs to be a lot more reliable chargers. In our area EA and ChargePoint, Schell chargers are what I have the most confidence in. Also, a Question for those smarter than me about EV's.....Will it charge without an error at a real fast charger if the battery temp is really low? Thanks.

Precondition the battery.
This warms it up so it will accept a charge.

 

[Roger.Joys]

We just got back from Northern WA state and it got down to -13(f). We had a L2 charger at the AirBnB and I left it plugged in when not driving. Looking at the Electrify App, our R1S was drawing power almost every hour, assumedly to keep the battery etc up to certain temps. I was glad we adopted the ABC approach, and understand this is not possible for all.

Also, the Magic Dock stations in the very cold and exposed area of Quincy, WA were notably slower to charge, and I am guessing partly due to the temps on the charger side, and partly the amount of electrons being consumed to maintain certain temps in the car.

 

[defcon888]

We are blessed to never experienced those extreme temperatures where we live in NorCal. It did get down to the high 20s a couple of weeks ago.

With the new software update (50.1) and the app, you can set a "precondition" time. For example, I leave to go to work on Monday at 3 am. I set it to start my departure time for 3 am and then let it start the preconditioning when it needs to. I have only done it once and it wasn't that cold, but I think it helped a little.....again, I don't live in sub-zero temps.

 

[Dantalus]

Out of Spec has a lot of cold weather EV testing videos. Check out this one. It’s the same conditions that you are experiencing.



The key is preconditioning the battery. There are two ways I know of to do this in a Rivian.

1. Put in a dcfc as your destination in the navigation. While driving to the location the bms will heat up the battery for fast charging. Not sure how long of a trip would be required. I’d guess a half hour.

2. Use the Scheduled Drive feature in the app to precondition the battery and the cabin.

https://riviantrackr.com/2023-50-01/#scheduled-drive

Then pray to the charging gods that the charger works.

 

[Gman]

Doesn't sound like me, but glad I could help. My advice to deal with cold weather is usually to move someplace that doesn't suck in Winter time.

Good advice Don, it was a chilly 62 degrees on the North Shore of Kauai yesterday so I had to get in the ocean- 77 degrees- to warm up? I’m a Nebraska kid- I know what you guys are going through- hang in there, but I understand that doesn’t help your battery issues in cold weather.

 

[jjswan33]

On Tuesday morning I needed to charge at the EA station closest to my place because I had done more driving over the weekend than normal and I only have access to L1 in my condo garage. My battery was at 38 degrees when I started driving to the charger but the outside temp was -14.

This EA station is right up the street from me and is actually extremely reliable compared to other stories I read here. I have never had an issue with it. This time I had to try 3 different chargers to finally get it going and it was SO slow in the beginning… It eventually ramped up, but never got to normal speeds for those chargers.

So the cold affects your battery but it also affects the chargers. If both are super cold you can expect even more of a struggle. Luckily it doesn’t stay that cold here in CO for long, but SD is a different story.

Well after my experience over the weekend I am not so sure, maybe my truck is broken but the charger or pre-conditioning never heated my battery I had to drive around in icy roads gunning my truck to get it to warm up.

Just in case it was the charger I tried several with no luck, even confirmed that the lightning that pulled in after me at one was getting over 100kW and I couldn't get more than 6kW even after driving 30 min to arrive and sitting at the charger for 40 min. Driving around for 20 min I was able to get up to 20kW but after 30 minutes still no better so I went out recklessly driving on icy roads again.

Giving my R1T an F grade for it's handling of the cold weather (between this trip and the frozen suspension exhaust last trip), very unfortunate for a truck I had hoped to use as a winter adventure base station.

 

[Dark-Fx]

I'm not sure if the battery management system will be able to warm the battery from only a L1 charger. I'm assuming it may require at least L2 charging to do that, but I'll leave it to others with more experience to chime in if even L1 chargers can get the battery warm enough.

I've been able to charge my truck off L1 in the single digit temps we've had, but it did error out at one point over night when it was below zero. Rivian vehicles had issues last year where being plugged in would actually lead to a greater loss of range than if left unplugged because it'd just use too much energy to heat the battery and never get it warm enough to charge. Sounds like this could be their "solution" to it instead of further draining the battery- just error out.

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

I've been able to charge my truck off L1 in the single digit temps we've had, but it did error out at one point over night when it was below zero. Rivian vehicles had issues last year where being plugged in would actually lead to a greater loss of range than if left unplugged because it'd just use too much energy to heat the battery and never get it warm enough to charge. Sounds like this could be their "solution" to it instead of further draining the battery- just error out.

Honestly, if L1 isn't enough juice to warm and charge, then I agree with their implementation. That feels more like a hardware issue of battery chemistry and thermal packaging that they'll potentially work on in future models.

Thankfully I've got L2 at home, and live in California so I doubt I'll ever experience this at home. It does make me pretty concerned about ski trips and not having access to L2 at most accommodations, though.

 

[COdogman]

Well after my experience over the weekend I am not so sure, maybe my truck is broken but the charger or pre-conditioning never heated my battery I had to drive around in icy roads gunning my truck to get it to warm up.

Just in case it was the charger I tried several with no luck, even confirmed that the lightning that pulled in after me at one was getting over 100kW and I couldn't get more than 6kW even after driving 30 min to arrive and sitting at the charger for 40 min. Driving around for 20 min I was able to get up to 20kW but after 30 minutes still no better so I went out recklessly driving on icy roads again.

Giving my R1T an F grade for it's handling of the cold weather (between this trip and the frozen suspension exhaust last trip), very unfortunate for a truck I had hoped to use as a winter adventure base station.

I definitely understand why you would give it that grade. And you have obviously put yours through much more than mine has been through. Many more experiences.

I thought about your cold weather charging "adventure" as I was switching chargers for the second time to see if I could get it going in those temps. Mine was pre-conditioning as well, although not for long since the EA station is about 1/2 mile up the street from my place.

Once I got it charging, for the first 15-20 minutes it was charging at less than 10kW, and the highest it went during that session was 106kW. I basically had to bail after I had enough to get me through the day because I had to go to work. My battery had warmed from 38 to 48 by the time I started charging. Didn't make much difference.

I would also add the HVAC behavior to your list. This is my first full time EV but it's nearly impossible to keep your feet warm on a day like yesterday with mostly highway driving LOL. I'm going to try some of the tricks other say work, like only using auto, or always leaving the back vents on, but it seems like it shouldn't be that hard...

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