Charging Speed. Not disappointed.

[kurtlikevonnegut]

I'm not sure I buy that it would make that big of a difference, but I'm no expert.

Since when has that prevented anyone from speaking with authority on a subject on the internet?

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[manitou202]

Looks like battery temperature might be the big factor. Most of the previous tests have been in colder temperatures which slow down the charging speeds. If Rivian can work on the pre-conditioning of the battery for fast charging, then times will dramatically drop.

 

[Davethadog]

I'm not sure I buy that it would make that big of a difference, but I'm no expert.

I’m just a paint engineer so I don’t know shit about anything but I figured it’s worth keeping a mental note of, especially since there’s been hints of lack of adequate preconditioning.

 

[rhuber]

Pasting what I wrote about this from a similar thread....


I don't know how many times to repeat this, but I've charged my 400-ish volt Tesla at 500 amps at a number of EA chargers, including ABB ones. Rivians not charging at 500A at some stations isn't a simple EA only issue. There is some interaction between the trucks and some stations that leads to them capping at 350A.

In a practical sense I understand that it basically doesn't matter "why", but I'm trying to point out that this is probably a combination of factors involving both rivian and the station hardware in some cases not doing the right thing. Blaming it solely on EA ignores the fact that I've literally used these stations at 500 amps, so there is something more complicated at play here.

 

[rhuber]

There is no EA 350A limit. There are a lot of cases where a station will be limited to 350A or a car may be limited, or may ask for the wrong thing, but this is not a hard-and-fast rule that EA has a 350A limit at their 350kw stations. I have tons of data to prove this recorded in Teslamate.

 

[Autolycus]

Out of curiosity, do you have the underbody shield or no? Curious how this might affect rates.

All information from Rivian suggests that all R1s will have exactly the same protection for the battery pack. The "off-road" option has been said to only add extra protection for components other than the batteries.

 

[Joints4Sale]

That looks better than many others reported. Can you share your software version? Curious if they tweaked something or it is more related to the charger.

2022.7.0

 

[Joints4Sale]

Care to share the exact address? As someone who frequently goes Raleigh to DC anything north of Richmond is going to be my friend.

Wallmart Supercenter
7901 Brook Rd
Richmond VA 23227

 

[SeaGeo]

Woah. Is this the closest any real world observed transfer rates have been to the 200kwh that Rivian claims?

That sounds like a vastly different curve from other experiences, so I'm wondering if it was part of a recent update.

No. We've seen several instances, including Kyle's charging curve, of up to 196kw. Which is Basically Rivian limiting it to 450A instead of 500. I suspect that's where they are being conservative so far.

That looks better than many others reported. Can you share your software version? Curious if they tweaked something or it is more related to the charger.

It's consistent with the backbone curve we've seen. It just looks like @Joints4Sale just didn't run into a thermal issue. Which makes sense with it being 64 degrees outside.



@Joints4Sale I'd be really curious to see if you are able to maintain Kyle's backbone curve if/when you try charging starting at a low SOC like 10 to 20%. I'm just curious if it's able to mange thermals for to maintain the max theoretical curve from 10 to 60 or 70% when the ambient temperature is moderate like it was for this test. I expect that it can, I just haven't seen it yet.

 

[SANZC02]

No. We've seen several instances, including Kyle's charging curve, of up to 196kw. Which is Basically Rivian limiting it to 450A instead of 500. I suspect that's where they are being conservative so far.


It's consistent with the backbone curve we've seen. It just looks like @Joints4Sale just didn't run into a thermal issue. Which makes sense with it being 64 degrees outside.



@Joints4Sale I'd be really curious to see if you are able to maintain Kyle's backbone curve if/when you try charging starting at a low SOC like 10 to 20%. I'm just curious if it's able to mange thermals for to maintain the max theoretical curve from 10 to 60 or 70% when the ambient temperature is moderate like it was for this test. I expect that it can, I just haven't seen it yet.

So are you guessing they are doing a good job at heat management so in warmer climates it is preventing an overheat but cooler climates not controlling the cooler battery temps?

Seems odd because the temps Kyle was in did not seem that cold.

Need more data from additional cycles to get a better overall picture.

 

[SeaGeo]

Pasting what I wrote about this from a similar thread....


I don't know how many times to repeat this, but I've charged my 400-ish volt Tesla at 500 amps at a number of EA chargers, including ABB ones. Rivians not charging at 500A at some stations isn't a simple EA only issue. There is some interaction between the trucks and some stations that leads to them capping at 350A.

In a practical sense I understand that it basically doesn't matter "why", but I'm trying to point out that this is probably a combination of factors involving both rivian and the station hardware in some cases not doing the right thing. Blaming it solely on EA ignores the fact that I've literally used these stations at 500 amps, so there is something more complicated at play here.

small sample size, but the other thing is that it seems to be regional... which knowing EA's build-out suggests to me it may be related to a specific manufacturer and either what EA has done with that model, or how the truck is communicating with specific models.

 

[SeaGeo]

So are you guessing they are doing a good job at heat management so in warmer climates it is preventing an overheat but cooler climates not controlling the cooler battery temps?

Seems odd because the temps Kyle was in did not seem that cold.

Need more data from additional cycles to get a better overall picture.

Kyle was running into issues where the batter was too cold. Or that's at least as close as he could find. Where he was running into the battery conditioning issues, it was generally in the 30s. Earlier in the day on his road trip when he was closed to Phoenix, it was less of an issue.

To be honest, at the moment I don't think Rivian is doing much well with regards to thermal management and DCFC. It seems to be very reactive. Kyle said he thinks he heated it up too much on one of his final DCFC charges, and too cold on others. In general, it seems very picky.

 

[rhuber]

small sample size, but the other thing is that it seems to be regional... which knowing EA's build-out suggests to me it may be related to a specific manufacturer and either what EA has done with that model, or how the truck is communicating with specific models.

Yeah, I'm sure it has to do with interactions. I had some stops in the tesla that wouldn't go over 350A, but the vast majority did 500A just fine across at least two different manufacturers.

 

[electrictaco]

This actually maps pretty closely to what @OutofSpecKyle tested in his video.

Here's the data he collected:




The data points from this charge map almost identically to the "theoretical" curve from Kyle.

SOC	@Joints4Sale	@OutofSpecKyle
42%	190 kW	193 kW
49%	197 kW	196 kW
60%	162 kW	165 kW (59% SOC)
80%	81 kW	81 kW (79% SOC)

One thing to note is that Kyle's data shows a drop to lower charging speeds at 60% and 80%, but I just took the number before that for comparison because it's clearly a SW plateau.

 

[SANZC02]

Kyle was running into issues where the batter was too cold. Or that's at least as close as he could find. Where he was running into the battery conditioning issues, it was generally in the 30s. Earlier in the day on his road trip when he was closed to Phoenix, it was less of an issue.

To be honest, at the moment I don't think Rivian is doing much well with regards to thermal management and DCFC. It seems to be very reactive. Kyle said he thinks he heated it up too much on one of his final DCFC charges, and too cold on others. In general, it seems very picky.

I know it appeared to be getting to cold because the fans were not running so the assumption is it was not getting hot so because of the battery conditioning message it must have been too cold. Just to me temps in the 30s do not seem that cold. I also saw them driving around to heat up the battery that seemed to get the higher levels again which on the surface lends credibility to that theory. Wish we could have visibility to the battery temp.

I’ve actually had the fans kick on charging my Tesla in the low 30s, it is a much smaller battery (75 kWh) but also does not charge anywhere close to the Rivian peaks.

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