Does anyone park outside in the cold?

[Rural1T]

We only park outside - though doesn't get as cold here (STL) typically as it does for you. In the time we have had our Rivian's have not seen anything like you describe, though a bunch of other things to watch out for:

• The frunk becomes a no-go zone in winter, without using a credit card to cut between the rubber seal and plastic tub surround - it ices up, and prevents the funk opening - our R1T actually put visible divots in the hood last year trying to open when iced up.
• Need to set the mirrors to not auto retract when locking - they will freeze closed otherwise.
• Cant pull the windscreen wipers off the screen due to where they are positioned when 'retracted' - so sometimes some water is required to help free them.
• On the R1T the tonneau cover seal will freeze to the tailgate trim, so care is required when opening.
• Brake blending to support regen is really useful - otherwise the drive will be super inconsistent until the motors and battery are up to heat.

We are seeing some charging issues with our Gen2 Max pack battery (super slow charging) - that i think is cold related, but too early to tell.

Hack to get the wipers out from under the hood so they don't freeze and it's easier to clean out snow from the hole: Service menu > Wiper change mode. Parks the wipers on the glass and you can lift the blades. Note the frunk will not open in this mode.

This has been so useful this winter that I sent Rivian a suggestion to have a user selectable "Winter Mode" for the wipers that parks them in the up position by default. If anyone else thinks this would be useful, please suggest it to Rivian as well.

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[MountainBikeDude]

Thanks for the responses. Sounds like it wasn't caused by parking outside and it was just a coincidence.

I'm not sure that makes me feel any better about it though. Motor failure due to cold weather is not great, but It is easier to avoid parking outside(since I have a garage) than it is to avoid random temporary failures with no cause.

The cold seems coincidental, not that causal factor. My quad is always outside, cold soaking not plugged in, but rarely does the outside temp (even in winter here) get below -5c or 20f?

I know of a fellow Rivian friend that lives in northern Alberta with both a quad T and S and both live outside. Efficiency initially blows for him, but eventually levels off a bit as things come up to temp. He periodically plugs in at home to a 6.6kW charger with no cold failures or otherwise to speak of.

 

[Taz355]

Mines been parked outside 5 days a week for 8 hrs a day at -15 to -25C for a month
works fine and battery is consistently at - 10C temps and motors at - 20C temps.
motors sound a bit funny if accelerating hard when below -15C until they warm up now I don’t do that again

Did a test at -30 C for 48 hrs and took a drive and like our ice vehicle you know not to floor it until it’s warm because it sounds cold.
returned to garage and charger would not charge, motors heated up to over 90C to warm pack and after about 1.5 hrs battery went from -20C to 5C and it started charging and gave an unusually long charge time and 1 hr later was charging normally.

most of my issues were because I did not know how to operate the vehicle and did not read the book of a manual.
likely would not have charged for a very long time if shore power I have was only 110 but I have 60 amp 240

 

[afsalehimd]

We only park outside - though doesn't get as cold here (STL) typically as it does for you. In the time we have had our Rivian's have not seen anything like you describe, though a bunch of other things to watch out for:

• The frunk becomes a no-go zone in winter, without using a credit card to cut between the rubber seal and plastic tub surround - it ices up, and prevents the funk opening - our R1T actually put visible divots in the hood last year trying to open when iced up.
• Need to set the mirrors to not auto retract when locking - they will freeze closed otherwise.
• Cant pull the windscreen wipers off the screen due to where they are positioned when 'retracted' - so sometimes some water is required to help free them.
• On the R1T the tonneau cover seal will freeze to the tailgate trim, so care is required when opening.
• Brake blending to support regen is really useful - otherwise the drive will be super inconsistent until the motors and battery are up to heat.

We are seeing some charging issues with our Gen2 Max pack battery (super slow charging) - that i think is cold related, but too early to tell.

This is very helpful, thank you!
I live in Omaha and gets decently cold here. I usually park outside. Last week I noticed my tail gate would not open R1T. The right side opens but the left side latch does not release the gate. One day it got a little warmer (40F ish) and the tail gate opened without problem. This week it’s cold again and it’s not opening up again! Is this related to cold you think or just coincidental? Do I need to make a service appointment? We only have mobile service in Omaha.

 

[bfilippo]

This is very helpful, thank you!
I live in Omaha and gets decently cold here. I usually park outside. Last week I noticed my tail gate would not open R1T. The right side opens but the left side latch does not release the gate. One day it got a little warmer (40F ish) and the tail gate opened without problem. This week it’s cold again and it’s not opening up again! Is this related to cold you think or just coincidental? Do I need to make a service appointment? We only have mobile service in Omaha.

That seems odd. I don’t have trouble with tailgate opening even when very cold unless there’s literally ice built up along where tonneau meets as people have mentioned. Could be a latch issue that some others have had on here. I would put in a ticket to make sure it’s not the latch.

 

[Chumsticker]

Does anyone regularly park outside in cold climates? I don't mean California Cold, I mean weather ~0F or colder. If so, have you experienced any problems that you attribute to the cold?

...

My truck is always parked in the driveway uncovered. Normal night time lows are in the teens, though last year we had a stretch between -10 to -20 F at night for about a week. Didn't experience any issues other than cold batteries and motors which appreciated a little bit of conditioning prior to driving, but didn't complain when I forgot to do so. Don't know what's normal, but that's our experience with winter temps.

 

[GoBlueR1T]

Does anyone regularly park outside in cold climates? I don't mean California Cold, I mean weather ~0F or colder. If so, have you experienced any problems that you attribute to the cold?

I normally park in my garage which isn't heated but rarely gets below 20F. But I parked outside for the first time last week and 5 minutes into the first (and only) post cold-soaked drive the vehicle complained about a motor failure and went into turtle mode limiting me to 42MPH.

After crawling back home, I parked in the garage and the next day the error message was gone and the vehicle seems to be driving fine now. Rivian says they analyzed the logs and were unable(or unwilling) to explain why the vehicle freaked out, but claim that nothing is wrong with it. I don't really want to deal with the hassle of taking it in for service so I should be happy with the easy fix. But I am also somewhat afraid to drive it now. It was scary crawling home on the interstate at 1/2 the speed of the surrounding traffic.

Did the cold cause it? Unrelated random freak-out? Also, why does a motor failure limit you to 42MPH? With 4x 200 HP motors, 1 motor failing should still leave me with 600HP. Surely that is more than enough to maintain regular highway speeds. Even with 3 of the 4 motors down it should be able to do better than 42.

• I had been parked outside for a week, and during that time the highs were around 5F each day and the lows around -5F at night
• I had pre-conditioned the cabin for a long time before starting the drive.
• All 4 motors were around 50F. The battery was 35F.
• Battery was around 50%
• I was in "snow" mode, which I have been using 90% of the time this winter.
• After the failure it would not let me change modes.
• After the failure, only the front 2 motors were being used.

Yes, I'm having this issue as well (southeast MI; has been 0-10 F the past few days). Both Monday and Tuesday, I got hit with this error driving home from work (not plugged in at work).

I posted more details of my experience so far in a separate thread: https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/motor-failure-message.38637/page-2#post-709262

Seems very unlikely to me that this isn't weather related. They are towing my truck to the service center tomorrow. I really hope they identify the cause and fix it. Very frustrating to deal with this. I can't have a vehicle that doesn't work in cold weather in Michigan.

 

[mpshizzle]

Also, why does a motor failure limit you to 42MPH? With 4x 200 HP motors, 1 motor failing should still leave me with 600HP. Surely that is more than enough to maintain regular highway speeds. Even with 3 of the 4 motors down it should be able to do better than 42.

This is likely to do with safety/stability. With one motor out on a quad motor system that means one side of the vehicle has twice the horsepower of the other. That is SUPER dangerous and very easy to get into a dangerous handling situation. Imagine being on a freeway on-ramp and suddenly you're doing an unsolicited donut.

So I'm assuming this is just their very conservative way of making sure the vehicle can still drive in a straight line

 

[sub]

This is likely to do with safety/stability. With one motor out on a quad motor system that means one side of the vehicle has twice the horsepower of the other. That is SUPER dangerous and very easy to get into a dangerous handling situation. Imagine being on a freeway on-ramp and suddenly you're doing an unsolicited donut.

So I'm assuming this is just their very conservative way of making sure the vehicle can still drive in a straight line

If that was their goal the implementation is pretty terrible. Below 42 it was allowing full power to all of the non-disabled motors. If you were going to spin out due to asymmetrical power delivery it would be at the low end.

Also, most traditional ICE vehicles without 4WD/AWD only have power going to 1 wheel. The fact that 100% of the pushing is coming from 1 wheel is annoying when you are stuck in the snow and is why tire rotations are so important, but I have never heard of it being a highway speed spinout risk. Granted they also don't have 800HP, but they can all safely exceed 42mph.

 

[mpshizzle]

If that was their goal the implementation is pretty terrible. Below 42 it was allowing full power to all of the non-disabled motors. If you were going to spin out due to asymmetrical power delivery it would be at the low end.

Also, most traditional ICE vehicles without 4WD/AWD only have power going to 1 wheel. The fact that 100% of the pushing is coming from 1 wheel is annoying when you are stuck in the snow and is why tire rotations are so important, but I have never heard of it being a highway speed spinout risk. Granted they also don't have 800HP, but they can all safely exceed 42mph.

Also, most traditional ICE vehicles without 4WD/AWD only have power going to 1 wheel. The fact that 100% of the pushing is coming from 1 wheel is annoying when you are stuck in the snow

This is how an open differential works IF you have one wheel with more traction/resistance than the other wheel. And that is VERY annoying if you're stuck in the snow. If you're on dry pavement with similar traction on both sides of the differential it will push with both wheels.

I have never heard of it being a highway speed spinout risk.

This does become an issue if you ARE pushing more on one wheel than the other while you give a burst of power (think of people spinning out when they're trying to pass during a snow storm and hit a slick spot). Granted, if you're in a quad on dry ground that will be somewhat less of an issue than an open diff on slick ground. But anything more than a light burst of power can easily push your vehicle to one side

but they can all safely exceed 42mph.

Not saying you're wrong that 42 is overly mph. But my point is that they are cutting a lot of power for a very good reason. If you allow the driver to punch it with too much force, it WILL make the vehicle move to the side, in a way that's unpredictable to the driver. So... overly conservative? Perhaps.. Probably so. Unwarranted? No

 

[mpshizzle]

Also, most traditional ICE vehicles without 4WD/AWD only have power going to 1 wheel. The fact that 100% of the pushing is coming from 1 wheel is annoying when you are stuck in the snow

This is how an open differential works IF you have one wheel with more traction/resistance than the other wheel. And that is VERY annoying if you're stuck in the snow. If you're on dry pavement with similar traction on both sides of the differential it will push with both wheels.

I have never heard of it being a highway speed spinout risk.

This does become an issue if you ARE pushing more on one wheel than the other while you give a burst of power (think of people spinning out when they're trying to pass during a snow storm and hit a slick spot). Granted, if you're in a quad on dry ground that will be somewhat less of an issue than an open diff on slick ground. But anything more than a light burst of power can easily push your vehicle to one side

but they can all safely exceed 42mph.

Not saying you're wrong that 42 is overly conservative. I would think limiting power output, rather than top speed would make more sense. But the limit while overly conservative isn't entirely unwarranted either.

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