2022 Rivian R1T's Fast-Charging Performance Is behind the Best

[ads75]

I don't understand why RIvian would hand out these pre-production trucks that they must know have a few quirks to the press. It just makes it obvious to me that their communication and marketing department are in their infancy.

At some point, if they want sales, they have to put their product out there, flaws and all. I am no interested in videos that just gush over the R1T, I want to see good and bad. I want to see a realistic range of 220 miles on the highway in the winter, which much of the country drives. I want to see videos where Rivian didn't wake the trucks to recharge at night while the journalists slept at hotels and resorts that Rivian paid for.

Sponsored

 

[Atlrivian]

I understand the road warrior’s concern but that’s not most of us. Much as I love BEV I am forced to admit that they aren’t for everyone and the road warriors are in the excluded group. There are BEV advertising 500 mi range meaning working range that will handle 350 mi trips but they are expensive. And they have bigger batteries which take time to charge. At a 2C rate it takes 15 minutes to get half a charge. Is that really so much better than half an hour? I don’t expect to see average rates of 2C for quite a while. It seems a Large R1T isn’t the vehicle for you.

My solution to is I'm looking to buy 2 EVs that can each hold my five person family (2 car seats and a booster) comfortably. One can be short range for city only driving and the other will be a max pack R1T (assuming it ever comes). If the early portion of the charging curve looks better in days to come then I'm hoping my longer range driving won't be too much worse than ICE trips.

 

[nfrank]

Rivian is being very sinister with their message on charging. The R1T/S can charge "140 miles in 20 minutes". The RAN DCFC can output "over 200 kW initially and 300 kW+ in the future". The vehicle and the charging network are two different products with two different sets of capabilities. Read the Rivian website carefully and you'll see that nowhere does it ever claim an R1T shipping today can ever charge at 300kW.

 

[ajdelange]

My solution to is I'm looking to buy 2 EVs that can each hold my five person family (2 car seats and a booster) comfortably. One can be short range for city only driving and the other will be a max pack R1T (assuming it ever comes). If the early portion of the charging curve looks better in days to come then I'm hoping my longer range driving won't be too much worse than ICE trips.

I don’t think the Max R1T is going to scratch your itch because it isn’t going to charge much faster than 1C either. That said I’ll note that I do long (600 mi) trips in a car that has 350 mi EPA range and charges at about 1C. 600 mi is about 2 batteries and I’m comfortable with 20% reserve at destination so I only have to replace 1.5 batteries on the road which means an hour and a half at charging which I find is very acceptable in breaking up a 12 hr trip. I tell people the trip in the BEV is about the same as with petrol.

 

[Dark-Fx]

As @Taycanfrank mentioned, it seems like a bit of an.... atypical curve for a Taycan (at least if warm). I would have guessed it's a cold battery or a communication issue with the charger too, but it seems odd to me that a company would run a battery down to zero, let it get cold, and then charge it.

My Bolt EV would let the battery get cold as I drove. There's no way to force battery heating in it on the way to a charger. Winter time trips were a pain in the ass.

 

[SeaGeo]

My Bolt EV would let the battery get cold as I drove. There's no way to force battery heating in it on the way to a charger. Winter time trips were a pain in the ass.

I have that issue with the ID.4 too. It's rather annoying. I don't think that's generally an issue with the Taycan though.

 

[jtshaw]

Can’t help but wonder about temperature. I consistently hit 125kW in my ID4 in the summer, but haven’t seen more than 55kW this winter, charging at similar SOC below freezing. I feel like we are not going to see faster charging until the weather warms up. I don’t know if teslas are impacted this severely as well but even after driving up and down mountain passes (same route as that Ike gauntlet) I haven’t seen fast charging in the cold.

I agree, this is likely a big part of it. I would hope they can tune the charging overtime for cold weather scenarios though. I hit 250kW for a period of time on my Model 3 in Tumwater, WA on 12/26 when it was snowing and like 25F... Tesla supposedly preconditons for supercharging.

 

[Trandall]

Rivian is being very sinister with their message on charging. The R1T/S can charge "140 miles in 20 minutes". The RAN DCFC can output "over 200 kW initially and 300 kW+ in the future". The vehicle and the charging network are two different products with two different sets of capabilities. Read the Rivian website carefully and you'll see that nowhere does it ever claim an R1T shipping today can ever charge at 300kW.

Bingo. I mentioned this on another thread. Doesn't mean it won't happen but does mean we can't cry foul if it doesn't.
As I recall @ajdelange has pointed out that if you do 100 DC fast charges you will have 100 different charge curves. (Paraphrasing) This curve seems to be within the bell curve of what is to be expected, no?
C&D points out there was a Hummer EV parked at an adjacent charger. Hopefully they were not charging it at the same time. If they were could we be seeing some type of peak demand buffering by EA. I know that wouldn't explain the rapid drop from the 180KW peak, just spitballing ideas.

 

[SeaGeo]

Rivian is being very sinister with their message on charging. The R1T/S can charge "140 miles in 20 minutes". The RAN DCFC can output "over 200 kW initially and 300 kW+ in the future". The vehicle and the charging network are two different products with two different sets of capabilities. Read the Rivian website carefully and you'll see that nowhere does it ever claim an R1T shipping today can ever charge at 300kW.

A bunch of us have noted that. I think it's unintentionally bad marketing and website design. I don't think it's "sinister."

That being said, I'm assuming Car and Driver had discussions with Rivian about the hardware capabilities and didn't just read the website. MotorTrend says they also verified this with Rivian more than once. I've pointed out the inconsistencies to CS and asked for it to be escalated specifically out of concern thst people may or may not buy the truck on the wrong info (for example, you may not buy because the Rivian website doesn't say the R1T itself can do 300kw). At some point, if they truck can't deliver that via OTA, and Rivian didn't correct the MT ToTY award articles or CarandDriver but they fixed a photoshop mistake, I'm sure someone will open a class action lawsuit. Hopefully they can and the website is just unclear.

 

[Trandall]

@SeaGeo, good info. I also didn't think it was sinister just poor messaging. I assumed 210KW would be it but now I have hope. I do have about a 9-10 instances a year where I know I will need to fast charge.

 

[Friscorays]

Bummer about March 1, 2022.

 

[ajdelange]

As several have suggested they are apparently starting off conservative and inching their way up.

 

[Taycanfrank]

As several have suggested they are apparently starting off conservative and inching their way up.

Yes and no. They're starting off with a system that is worse than what their competition started off with, and inching up just as other cars are as well.

All EVs start conservatively and allow more charging/capacity use as they monitor long term battery health.

This isn't unusual, new, or special; it's a standard process. It also doesn't change that Rivian's will charge slower than most other new EVs.

 

[ajdelange]

They're starting off with a system that is worse than what their competition started off with, and inching up just as other cars are as well.

Does that mean they are smarter than the competition or dumber?

 

[AllInev]

Rivian is being very sinister with their message on charging. The R1T/S can charge "140 miles in 20 minutes". The RAN DCFC can output "over 200 kW initially and 300 kW+ in the future". The vehicle and the charging network are two different products with two different sets of capabilities. Read the Rivian website carefully and you'll see that nowhere does it ever claim an R1T shipping today can ever charge at 300kW.

The RAN DCFC can output "over 200 kW initially and 300 kW+ in the future"

I've been assuming the RAN is being designed to stick around for a while. It's probably a safe bet to assume Rivian will have (or is planning to have) future vehicles capable of using the RAN's higher output.

Sponsored