Rivian R1T charging curve test 20-80% [by TFL]

[kylealden]

Many feel that staying out of the bottom 20% is as important for battery life as staying out of the top 20%.

Lotta weirdos out there never using 40% of their battery in the name of protecting 10% of the theoretical capacity ?‍

Definitely don’t shotgun 100-0 daily, but drive it like a car, not a faberge egg.

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[rraj2k81]

This charge curve is concerning as it was done using a real-world test case, hopefully a pessimistic one. Especially considering this is a 135kwh battery pack and Rivian is marketing these vehicles as geared for road trips and off-roading.

But, based on this curve, it looks like the charging peaked at 150KW, and the flat curve shows something is limiting/throttling the total output to 150KW. Not sure if it's the EA charger, the R1T or both.
Whatever it is, it is still a real-world data point and something Rivian needs to work on as they improve the R1 BMS and charging curve.

@TFLtommy
Thanks for doing this. We finally have a real-world charging curve data point.
Would you be able to do this on another EA charger that has proven to charge above 150KW or close to 200KW and see if the R1T gets the same results?

 

[Aardvark]

@TFLtommy , thank you for the charging curve analysis.
Given the well documented inconsistencies at Electrfy America stations, it would be interesting to see this test repeated at a different EA, 350 kW location. (Come down my way to a station in Colorado Springs, I'll buy lunch!)
I know comfort level with charge reserve is a personal choice. After 6 years and numerous 1500+ mile trips in a Model X and Model 3, our standard is 10% remaining at charging stops (15% when we drove in a polar vortex at -10 deg F!).
I would like to see a charging test starting at 5% or 10%.
Thanks.

 

[moosehead]

Hypothetically, butt hurt can be productive.

Captain Obvious would like to point out that the butt hurt here on this charging feedback has now exceeded the butt hurt from TFL back when they originally did not get a test vehicle.

Sooo, hopefully Rivian unrolls a vast charging network pronto and perhaps takes the lid off of certain software limitations, if any.

 

[ads75]

If other owners are getting better (or worse) charging results, they should feel free to post/share pics or videos. Until then, this is what we have.

 

[Scoiatael]

I'm ok with this. EA is known to throttle their 350 kw stations to 150 kw. If you are getting a car that isn't a Tesla, you need to be prepared for this reality. Rivian can potentially change the software as well to allow charging up to 250 kw at some point. Once Rivian starts deploying their charging network, charging sessions should speed up by 10 minutes or so for 20% to 80%.

 

[Craigins]

Cue everyone going back and looking at their post history. lol.

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/tfl-goes-hands-on-with-rivian-r1t.3384/page-2#post-92135

enjoy

 

[SeaGeo]

I'm ok with this. EA is known to throttle their 350 kw stations to 150 kw. If you are getting a car that isn't a Tesla, you need to be prepared for this reality. Rivian can potentially change the software as well to allow charging up to 250 kw at some point. Once Rivian starts deploying their charging network, charging sessions should speed up by 10 minutes or so for 20% to 80%.

Just a point of clarification on the phrase "EA throttles." I haven't seen evidence that EA intentionally throttles their 350kw stations as a whole in any way. More that some of their hardware throttles to 150kw for whatever reason, so our new member showed with his Tesla.

I don't think there is a way to get to 250kW for the R1T using the CCS standard unless they have a way to mimic an 800v system. At the battery's safety cutoff of 459v and the max CCS current of 500 amps that would be ~230 kw. But in reality the limit is a bit less than that, hence the 210 kW max listed in the EPA docs.

 

[KiloV]

As I have stated here and elsewhere ther is no single charging curve and so Rivian could not have supplied it. If the published the most optimistic curve they would get dinged when people didn't realize it and if they posted the worst they would be criticized for not having mastered charging.

= 1.34C. Under good conditions I am sure people will see this kind of performance.



Absolutely!

No offense to any other posters on this forum, but A.J. seems to have the best grasp of this issue that I've seen so far. If you aren't an expert on this subject, I recommend you pay attention to what A.J. is saying and view the hand-wringing and arm-waving folks with some amount of skepticism. Just my two cents.

 

[SeaGeo]

@TFLtommy , thank you for the charging curve analysis.
Given the well documented inconsistencies at Electrfy America stations, it would be interesting to see this test repeated at a different EA, 350 kW location. (Come down my way to a station in Colorado Springs, I'll buy lunch!)
I know comfort level with charge reserve is a personal choice. After 6 years and numerous 1500+ mile trips in a Model X and Model 3, our standard is 10% remaining at charging stops (15% when we drove in a polar vortex at -10 deg F!).
I would like to see a charging test starting at 5% or 10%.
Thanks.

He replied to me that they did it at a second and got 151kW at 15%. I'm really curious if it was the same charger manufacturer, which is often the case on a regional basis with EA. That mayyyyy explain it. Or Rivian could be implementing a software limit for now, which just seems like a weird situation to me at the moment.

 

[Stephe]

Charge me 5k more for a 800v arch that can get me over 300kw… I’d pay it, that’s top of my list upgrades they need to do first. Even if the station can’t deliver I know the truck is future proof

 

[FutureTruck]

That has been true historically but now if you look at EV6 and Ioniq 5 they shatter that. 10% - 80% has been tested at less than 20 minutes in those cars. I suspect that will translate to the upcoming EV9 and Ioniq 7 as well which are R1S competitors.

You're comparing a Ioniq 5 battery (77kWh) to the R1t (135kWh) battery. There's no "shattering" happening here, I would hope it would charge in half the time, it's (almost) half the size.

 

[Aardvark]

He replied to me that they did it at a second and got 151kW at 15%. I'm really curious if it was the same charger manufacturer, which is often the case on a regional basis with EA. That mayyyyy explain it. Or Rivian could be implementing a software limit for now, which just seems like a weird situation to me at the moment.

Ah, my apologies for missing that post.
I agree with your theory that the charge rate might be intentionally throttled for now. Ford did that with the Mach E, and VW did it with the ID3. Both have since ramped up the rate through software updates.
It's interesting how expectations change as EVs evolve. In 2016, my MX 75D was capped at 96 kW, and I thought that was awesome coming from a 50 kW Leaf! A software update bumped our MX max rate to 125 kW, but after getting 250 kW on our Model 3 a few years later, the older Model X now seems slow to charge. It won't be long until manufacturers will have to offer 300 kW charging with an 800 V architecture just to be competitive.

 

[McMoo]

You're comparing a Ioniq 5 battery (77kWh) to the R1t (135kWh) battery. There's no "shattering" happening here, I would hope it would charge in half the time, it's (almost) half the size.

That’s not an accurate conclusion. The smaller the battery the less average kw it should theoretically take in. The Rivian has a huge battery so it should be able to change faster for longer. C rate is what matters. The Rivian has less than 1C whereas the EV6 averages over 2C in the same window. @ajdelange can offer a way more scientific explanation.

 

[SeaGeo]

Ah, my apologies for missing that post.
I agree with your theory that the charge rate might be intentionally throttled for now. Ford did that with the Mach E, and VW did it with the ID3. Both have since ramped up the rate through software updates.
It's interesting how expectations change as EVs evolve. In 2016, my MX 75D was capped at 96 kW, and I thought that was awesome coming from a 50 kW Leaf! A software update bumped our MX max rate to 125 kW, but after getting 250 kW on our Model 3 a few years later, the older Model X now seems slow to charge. It won't be long until manufacturers will have to offer 300 kW charging with an 800 V architecture just to be competitive.

No need to apologize. These threads blow up!

It is interesting. If the Rivian is actually limited at 150kw by software right now, that would be the most aggressive throttle of a car that I can remember in the last year or two at ~1.1C. It would also be a weird decision to push a car out that can't even get close to their claimed specs upon release.

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