Battery freeze up

[bfilippo]

Two days in a row here in Maine, overnight temps around -12F, have left unplugged truck outside (it's always outside), without charging it, turned heat on maybe 15min before leaving, no problems driving 30mi+ round trip first thing in the morning when temp is still around -5F. Gen2 R1T Dual Standard.

I do think this might be vehicle to vehicle, or there really is a tipping point at say -15F+ where the truck cannot function properly, but that seems unlikely to me.

Sponsored

 

[GoBlueR1T]

Two days in a row here in Maine, overnight temps around -12F, have left unplugged truck outside (it's always outside), without charging it, turned heat on maybe 15min before leaving, no problems driving 30mi+ round trip first thing in the morning when temp is still around -5F. Gen2 R1T Dual Standard.

I do think this might be vehicle to vehicle, or there really is a tipping point at say -15F+ where the truck cannot function properly, but that seems unlikely to me.

I hope it's vehicle to vehicle, because I really hope it's an easy fix.

 

[Enjen]

The last three days in my neck of the woods in Canada have been very cold getting down to -33 c (-27 f) overnight and into the morning hours. Daytime temps have stayed low as well around -20 c (-5 f). My truck lives outdoors, was plugged in two of the last three nights but I happened to forget to plug it in one of the nights. No warnings or issues, other than reduced efficiency during my short drives. Gen 1 R1T.

 

[HyperionMark]

I too had the motor issue where it limited me to 42. A hard vehicle reset took care of it. Temps were cold, but not below like 10 or something.

 

[Alanparkcity]

I don’t agree. I drove my Gen 2 this week at -13 deg F and I got full heat in less than 1 minute. I set the cabin temp at 66 deg and was very comfortable.

If a heat pump had to extract heat from cold air they do struggle. But the Rivian gets excess heat from the warm motors so they work well even in extreme cold.

I also had a Gen 1 prior to this. While the Gen 2 system is noisier, it puts out more heat and does so quickly.

Motors take time to heat up. Just today when it was 10 degrees outside, my motors took at least 10 minutes to hit 100 degrees, by that time my cabin was toasty from my heater. I had put in a local Tesla charger to get the battery to preheat for fast charging.

 

[Newtonrj]

Working from home this week in the cold weather I've noticed that the Amazon delivery teams are driving ICE vans instead of our usual Rivian/Amazon EDVs. Wonder if Amazon has curtailed them due to range loss/cold soaking?

 

[MTBLeibo’s R1T]

I just had issues myself with charging failures in extreme cold.

TLDR version - many failed attempts to fast charge in -17F temps. Cause unknown.

Long version: Arrived back to Minneapolis St. Paul airport after a 5 day trip. There were no EV parking spots available when I left so my Gen1 RiT was sitting at about 60% SOC. When I landed I warmed the truck up while awaiting my bags. Arrived to a 68 degree cabin. Decided since it was -17F I would stop at a Tesla supercharger on the way home. Failed to charge, got the red ring and message to disconnect and try again. This happened 3 times, then I did a hard reset and it happened again. This was with a Rivian supplied NACS adapter. Went to an EvGo, an Electrify America, another Tesla SC. All failed multiple times in same manner including multiple hard resets along the way. All of this driving to different fast chargers had then depleted my battery to the point that I clearly did not have range to get the 90 miles home.

Rivian was on the phone with me for a lot of this and ultimately sent me to a hotel nearby that had a level 2 charger at 2 am. Charged as expected on the level 2 charger. After 10 hours on a level 2 charger, drove home. Charged fine at home level 2. That same next day in temps around 5 degrees It charged fine at a local new DC fast charger at Circle K ramping quickly to 125 - 130 kW just to test the truck out.

Still no word from Rivian who have told me they are still analyzing my data to try to determine what happened. Needless to say, since I don’t plan to move from MN, I am worried about the possibility of this occurring again, especially if the cause is unknown.

 

[Budman]

I just had issues myself with charging failures in extreme cold.

TLR version - many failed attempts to fast charge in -17F temps. Cause unknown.

Long version: Arrived back to Minneapolis St. Paul airport after a 5 day trip. There were no EV parking spots available when I left so my Gen1 RiT was sitting at about 60% SOC. When I landed I warmed the truck up while awaiting my bags. Arrived to a 68 degree cabin. Decided since it was -17F I would stop at a Tesla supercharger on the way home. Failed to charge, got the red ring and message to disconnect and try again. This happened 3 times, then I did a hard reset and it happened again. This was with a Rivian supplied NACS adapter. Went to an EvGo, an Electrify America, another Tesla SC. All failed multiple times in same manner including multiple hard resets along the way. All of this driving to different fast chargers had then depleted my battery to the point that I clearly did not have range to get the 90 miles home.

Rivian was on the phone with me for a lot of this and ultimately sent me to a hotel nearby that had a level 2 charger at 2 am. Charged as expected on the level 2 charger. After 10 hours on a level 2 charger, drove home. Charged fine at home level 2. That same next day in temps around 5 degrees It charged fine at a local new DC fast charger at Circle K ramping quickly to 125 - 130 kW just to test the truck out.

Still no word from Rivian who have told me they are still analyzing my data to try to determine what happened. Needless to say, since I don’t plan to move from MN, I am worried about the possibility of this occurring again, especially if the cause is unknown.

What was the battery temperature? Did you was preconditioning occurring while you were driving to the chargers?

 

[NY_Rob]

-33F

EV woes stranded in Crane Lake Minnesota -33F

The battery temperature is -14F. It is not accepting any charge at this time until the battery warms up…

First thing to do once your truck is up and running again.. get the F out of Frostbite Falls!!

 

[NY_Rob]

Working from home this week in the cold weather I've noticed that the Amazon delivery teams are driving ICE vans instead of our usual Rivian/Amazon EDVs. Wonder if Amazon has curtailed them due to range loss/cold soaking?

You might be on to something there... I recently spoke to an Amazon driver who was driving the EDV.. she told me "they're cold inside" as she has to keep the heat dialed down on cold days because it really cuts down the van range. I guess them stopping every few houses and opening the doors and cargo area doors isn't helping either. I think she was seeing the very real loss of range from the battery chemistry reaction to cold plus the double whammy of also needing to supply cabin heat at the time when the battery can least afford it. The regular ICE vans generate tons of wasted heat as a normal byproduct of the engine running so there's almost no range loss in cold weather.

 

[MTBLeibo’s R1T]

What was the battery temperature? Did you was preconditioning occurring while you were driving to the chargers?

Yes it was preconditioning and battery temps were 40s and 50s. Not sure if it was a temperature thing but that was the only difference between the days.

 

[mkhuffman]

-33F


EV woes stranded in Crane Lake Minnesota -33F


When I parked the Rivian on Friday I had 63% charge yesterday when I plugged it in it was 43%


The battery temperature is -14F. It is not accepting any charge at this time until the battery warms up… the battery warmer has it up to -12 now. Could be a few days!

Why didn't you plug in at 63%?

 

[COMtnEV]

2025 R1T Performance Max, running studded 20" snow tires. I've been tracking various cold weather metrics since having my battery drop from 65% to 53% parked overnight when temperature dropped to -16F over Thanksgiving (truck came in from 200 mile drive with a L3 charge that ended ~1 hr before it was parked). Several stretches with low temps -12 to +10F since. I turn off everything (heating/cooling, radio, etc) before parking the truck, and shut down the phone app as soon as I leave the truck.

Generalized observations:
1 - Fortunately, I haven't gotten any errors while driving (other than cold battery/reduced regen when first starting).

2 - When parked, the truck seems to be keeping the battery pack about 10-15F warmer than ambient air temp when the temperature is dropping. However, as air temps warm during the day (even if temps are well below freezing), that temp difference is not maintained. Often times the battery pack will be 10F colder than air temp in the afternoon when ambient is in the 20s or so.

3 - Using a 40A L2 charger, it takes about 20 minutes to warm the pack to 36F from 10F. 36F seems to be the set baseline L2 charging temp for my particular truck. If below that temp it warms to that point, and if I'm charging with a battery temp higher than that but air temperatures dropping, the battery pack cools to 36F and then holds.

4 - Charge loss is unpredictable. The -16F night was the worst (12% total, almost 20% of available charge). -9F 2% loss overnight. Over a 72 hour period with temps 0 to 34F, dropped from 41% to 29% (almost 30% of available power). In the previous 72 hour period, air temps 4 to 38F, battery only dropped from 43% to 41%. -12F the truck claimed to have gained !% charge overnight! Not seeing predictable behavior is really frustrating.

5 - I'm in the mountains of Colorado so almost always going up or down, but averaging around 2.0-2.2 mi/kW in temps 0-30F on studded snow tires. Average speed is about 50-55 mph (much of it on interstate 60-75). On a trip I commonly make (net elevation gain ~5000 ft, total elevation gain about 7000ft) average is about 1.5 mi/kW going up, and 2.7 mi/kW coming down.

Sponsored