Charging in Extreme Cold

[jjswan33]

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...

Thanks for sharing that. I am glad that your truck actually tried to pre-condition, on my truck I could only get it to pre-condition to cool down the battery, not heat it up, for some reason. It also sounds like your truck did the right thing by heating up the battery while you were charging below 10kW as mine didn't warm up a more than a couple degrees in 40 min of charging (based on the battery temp before and after the charging session).

Just reinforces my thinking that there is probably something actually wrong with my truck. I submitted a ticket about my experience on Monday we shall see what they say after they get back to me.

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[COdogman]

Thanks for sharing that. I am glad that your truck actually tried to pre-condition, on my truck I could only get it to pre-condition to cool down the battery, not heat it up, for some reason. It also sounds like your truck did the right thing by heating up the battery while you were charging below 10kW as mine didn't warm up a more than a couple degrees in 40 min of charging (based on the battery temp before and after the charging session).

Just reinforces my thinking that there is probably something actually wrong with my truck. I submitted a ticket about my experience on Monday we shall see what they say after they get back to me.

It's so hard to directly compare the situations, but it doesn't sound like yours behaved the same way mine did. While I was sitting there charging yesterday morning I was wondering if I should have driven it around a little more to allow more pre-conditioning. I figured since the battery was at 38 degrees coming out of my garage it would probably be ok.. ?‍

 

[jjswan33]

It's so hard to directly compare the situations, but it doesn't sound like yours behaved the same way mine did. While I was sitting there charging yesterday morning I was wondering if I should have driven it around a little more to allow more pre-conditioning. I figured since the battery was at 38 degrees coming out of my garage it would probably be ok.. ?‍

Mine didn't speed up until I got the battery above 50F. I am using that as a benchmark for now.

 

[COdogman]

Mine didn't speed up until I got the battery above 50F. I am using that as a benchmark for now.

I have seen others use that same number so that makes sense. And if mine was under when I started my charge it probably explains my troubles yesterday as well.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Still wonder if any EV company will ever include a diesel/fuel oil heater for winter time range extending.

Ala

 

[R.I.P.]

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.

The third way is to manually turn on your HVAC 20 to 30 minutes prior to leaving.

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

Mine didn't speed up until I got the battery above 50F. I am using that as a benchmark for now.

This is just another indication that Rivian desperately need to add a "Precondition" toggle. They can bury it in the UI with "are you sure?" modals all they want, but the whole "set a DCFC destination" or "schedule your trip" mechanism is an unreliable workaround when all you really want is to warm up your battery.

 

[R.I.P.]

This is just another indication that Rivian desperately need to add a "Precondition" toggle. They can bury it in the UI with "are you sure?" modals all they want, but the whole "set a DCFC destination" or "schedule your trip" mechanism is an unreliable workaround when all you really want is to warm up your battery.

Manually turning on the HVAC does the same thing as scheduling; at least on an Enduro machine.

I suppose that since the Bosch motors don't have an oil bath, the quads might behave differently, but I literally preheat my battery every morning by simply hitting the HVAC button in the app. If any cells are <40F, The truck uses the front motor, and in very cold weather both motors to bring the battery up to around 50° f.

There is so much discussion around this, and people stating this is not happening, that I am starting to think the quad may behave differently, but this is how my DM works every single day.

 

[GhostAndSkater]

The third way is to manually turn on your HVAC 20 to 30 minutes prior to leaving.

Way earlier than that, specially with such a huge pack (thermal mass wise) as Rivian has and in really cold conditions

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

Manually turning on the HVAC does the same thing as scheduling; at least on an Enduro machine.

But this is not intuitive. It's a hard enough task to explain to regular drivers "your EV needs to be a certain temperature to charge and drive efficiently". Heating the cabin and heating the battery are separate concepts entirely. On most cold mornings heading to the slopes, I rely entirely on my seat heaters and nothing else. How do I precondition the battery without wasting energy heating the cabin as well?

 

[R.I.P.]

But this is not intuitive. It's a hard enough task to explain to regular drivers "your EV needs to be a certain temperature to charge and drive efficiently". Heating the cabin and heating the battery are separate concepts entirely. On most cold mornings heading to the slopes, I rely entirely on my seat heaters and nothing else. How do I precondition the battery without wasting energy heating the cabin as well?

Yep. You got yourself a heck of a first world problem there.
?

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

Yep. You got yourself a heck of a first world problem there.
?

This is an electric vehicle forum where the base price of the cheapest configuration is around $80,000. Every single "problem" here is a first world problem. You're just participating in bad faith for the sake of it.

 

[Budman]

Preconditioning the battery by navigating to a charger in the UI works well, if that charger is on a network Rivian has mapped out. There are many not on the map. I would like a “prepare battery for dcfc” button on the UI I could manually initiate. Cabin heating is a partial battery prep, not like the actual preconditioning that happens when you navigate to one on the map.

 

[NY_Rob]

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...

You would think that Rivian's "Alaska Testing" they were bragging about pre-launch would have exposed the HVAC inadequacies right? Well, they never did mention in which season of the year they performed their "Alaska Testing"

 

[RivAW]

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.

She should have driven as far away as SOC would allow and then navigated to the charger so the vehicle would precondition the battery for charging. EV batteries need to be conditioned to be able to charge, particularly at high speed. One of the popular OTA suggestions is a "precondition" button so you can let the vehicle know you are heading for a charger that might not be in it's (subpar IMO navigation).

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