Navigation and range... suddenly at zero

[comtns]

I used the navigation for a trip, specifying the first fast charger because it was cheapest (by a lot), but letting the navigation pick the second. At the first charger, I stayed several minutes beyond "ready to continue trip" for comfort. I drove the speed limit, using adaptive cruise or highway assist (hands free).

As I got close to the second charger, the nav showed me getting there with 37 miles range...less than initially forecast, but enough (I thought). But as I turned off the exit, the range showed 0, and without telling me, the nav rerouted me to a level 2 charger slightly closer (in a different direction). I got there, then later to the fast charger. But a bit of an ordeal, and lots of extra time.

Although there's a way to specify desired state of charge at the destination, there doesn't seem a way to specify desired SOC on arrival at fast chargers along the way.

Have others had such problems? Is there a way to avoid this other than manually specifying all fast charge locations? I didn't trust the nav to pick them on the way back. Is it an issue with the nav not accounting for the energy for preconditioning the battery?

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[Dark-Fx]

Standard battery? How low do you usually let it get before charging? I suspect Rivian has an issue with being able to identify the range on standard batteries where people don't regularly run them fairly low.

Maybe it's Rivian's fault, but it's a definite problem with LFP. You can't know how much energy is left in an LFP battery by voltage, unlike NMC. You have to actually let the BMS measure it. I've experienced this problem with other LFP systems that don't get a chance to run low at all.

 

[Time2Roll]

Was it the actual range went to zero or the navigation estimate of range at arrival?
I find my range at arrival does not display when low on battery.
Although I don't have a ton of experience on this yet.

 

[comtns]

Was it the actual range went to zero or the navigation estimate of range at arrival?
I find my range at arrival does not display when low on battery.
Although I don't have a ton of experience on this yet.

Actual range went to 0.

 

[comtns]

Standard battery? How low do you usually let it get before charging? I suspect Rivian has an issue with being able to identify the range on standard batteries where people don't regularly run them fairly low.

Maybe it's Rivian's fault, but it's a definite problem with LFP. You can't know how much energy is left in an LFP battery by voltage, unlike NMC. You have to actually let the BMS measure it. I've experienced this problem with other LFP systems that don't get a chance to run low at all.

Usually, I don't like letting my EV battery get too low, but, as I mentioned, I let the nav pick the second charger, and the nav doesn't seem to give an option for target state of charge at a charger. (At home, I always plug in, and always charge to 100%. The battery rarely gets low at all. The lowest was an August road trip where I picked all the chargers (to use my six months of free charging on RAN), not arriving below 20%.)

Yes, I have the LFP battery (R1S Dual Standard).

 

[Time2Roll]

I would be running those LFP cells down more often and charge to 100%.

 

[SANZC02]

Lots of trips on my R1S, probably 30k of the 41k miles I have has been long trips. I’ve never had that as an issue but I plan my trips using ABRP (A Better Route Planner) then plug in the next fast charger each time I stop, that makes my destination the next charger.

Not saying that is necessarily the right way to do it but has worked very well for me since I found this app back in 2018 road tripping in a Tesla and a Rivian.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Usually, I don't like letting my EV battery get too low, but, as I mentioned, I let the nav pick the second charger, and the nav doesn't seem to give an option for target state of charge at a charger. (At home, I always plug in, and always charge to 100%. The battery rarely gets low at all. The lowest was an August road trip where I picked all the chargers (to use my six months of free charging on RAN), not arriving below 20%.)

Yes, I have the LFP battery (R1S Dual Standard).

I've heard rumors that Amazon doesn't like using the EDVs (with LFP) in places where they might need to run them low, especially in low temperatures.

I'd really suggest only recharging them on days where there's even a minor chance you might need more than what's already in the pack. If you're running from 70 to 100% every day, it's not sufficient for the BMS to learn the real capacity/voltage profile.

 

[MountainBikeDude]

Usually, I don't like letting my EV battery get too low, but, as I mentioned, I let the nav pick the second charger, and the nav doesn't seem to give an option for target state of charge at a charger. (At home, I always plug in, and always charge to 100%. The battery rarely gets low at all. The lowest was an August road trip where I picked all the chargers (to use my six months of free charging on RAN), not arriving below 20%.)

Yes, I have the LFP battery (R1S Dual Standard).

Navigation gives you the option to set desired state of arrival charge in the trip settings both in the app, and in vehicle when setting a destination. You can adjust it to either be a one time arrival SOC, or a default that will always aim to get you to a charger within that desired level.

But, as stated above, LFP has a very minimal voltage difference from empty to full, so it's difficult for most BMS systems to fully calibrate to those minute changes and differentiate say 50% from 40% capacity, hence the need to fully charge it periodically. I'm going to rely on gemini to summarize this up again, but it makes sense to me

 

[comtns]

Navigation gives you the option to set desired state of arrival charge in the trip settings both in the app, and in vehicle when setting a destination. You can adjust it to either be a one time arrival SOC, or a default that will always aim to get you to a charger within that desired level.

As I said in my original post (but didn't repeat in my later reply to Dark FX), the nav lets you set the desired SOC at the destination, but that doesn't affect the target SOC at the chargers along the way, as I just verified again. (I set an arrival SOC of 50% just for testing, and the nav had the vehicle arriving at that, but arriving at an intermediate charger with just 15%.)

 

[akc5247]

It could have been an intermittent issue with the display itself, potentially? Soft reset may have helped. Just speculating, of course

I have seen occasionally navigation show nothing for charge % at destination. Sometimes a simple retry of same address works, sometimes it's a soft reset.

 

[comtns]

It could have been an intermittent issue with the display itself, potentially? Soft reset may have helped. Just speculating, of course

I have seen occasionally navigation show nothing for charge % at destination. Sometimes a simple retry of same address works, sometimes it's a soft reset.

Thanks. It was actively giving me messages though about being at zero range (already).

 

[Hoski]

I just completed a trip from Denver to LA to Northern CA and back. I experienced very close to this same issue, and wrote Rivian about it. In my opinion something changed recently with one of the latest SW updates where the NAV SW seems to be planning the charging stops way too close to zero in an attempt to keep the trip as short as possible. I have made this trip or long distance trips like this many times and haven't run into this issue before. When I would plan a trip this time it was constantly planning the arrival SOC for a charging stop around 10% or less. This may be fine if everything goes fine with the trip, but it isn't if you run into a construction delay, an accident, weather, etc. In our case it pushed us farther down the road with a planned arrival SOC at 9% (far too low for my comfort). The warnings to find charging start going off around less than 15%. The winds picked up on the drive and we arrived at the Tesla Charging station the RIV SW sent us to with ~8%. The first two chargers I tried did not start and I kept getting an error. I called Rivian CS and they had me do a hard reset which now took the battery to 5%. I tried a third charger and got the same error. Rivian CS was then going to have me do a Soft reset which I pushed back on given the low SOC. The Customer rep went to check with someone else (more Sr?), and they were then going to recommend that I drive 4 miles to a separate Tesla Charging station and try that. At that point I saw a separate bank of Tesla chargers on the other side of the building with two rivians charging there. I drove over there and it started charging. From that point on I started direct routing us to the next charging location to ensure we never dropped below 50miles of range. There is no way to change the arrival SOC at a charging stop unless you make that the destination. I really this needs to be added to the NAV planning SW(i.e. ability to set desired SOC at a charging stop). As I have said, I have written to Rivian on it. Yes I also use ABRP at times to find chargers not listed by Rivian, but that's not the point.

 

[MountainBikeDude]

As I said in my original post (but didn't repeat in my later reply to Dark FX), the nav lets you set the desired SOC at the destination, but that doesn't affect the target SOC at the chargers along the way, as I just verified again. (I set an arrival SOC of 50% just for testing, and the nav had the vehicle arriving at that, but arriving at an intermediate charger with just 15%.)

There is no way to change the arrival SOC at a charging stop unless you make that the destination. I really this needs to be added to the NAV planning SW(i.e. ability to set desired SOC at a charging stop). As I have said, I have written to Rivian on it. Yes I also use ABRP at times to find chargers not listed by Rivian, but that's not the point.

This is where I fucked up in my comment. You're both correct, it only affects the arrival soc, not each charging stop along the way.

As you point out a workaround would be to enter each one manually as a destination, or add charging stops along more lengthy stints between to further add a buffer.

 

[comtns]

I just completed a trip from Denver to LA to Northern CA and back. I experienced very close to this same issue, and wrote Rivian about it. ...

Thanks for the experiences. I'm definitely going to do more manual planning, or using a separate app, or a strategy such as you suggest. Hopefully they take the feedback and improve this.

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