First real winter weather with R1S

[sub]

FYI having our R1S plugged in every night seems to have the battery nice and warm to maintain an acceptable/good mi/kWh rating for short trips.

We have 85% as our max charge and might only be going from 82%. No charge schedule set
It is usually done by 10pm and not driven until 8am yet the battery is in the high 70's to mid 80's vs not plugging in and being low 50's.

Edit: A bit more information
- Garage is kept at 50 degrees
- Only have the last 3 mornings of using this method but it has been consistent.
- This morning was 12F degrees (felt like 5F) and I was right at 2mi/kWh for the 5ish miles with seat and steering wheel heater and defrost on part of the trip.
- When not plugging in with similar conditions, vehicle is easily below 1mi/kWh for short trips coming from a 50F degree garage
- Seems like it preconditions even though it isn't actively charging ?‍

The difference is that you have a heated/warm garage. It may be cold(ish) outside but it isn't cold in your garage.

Your battery was 20 degrees above ambient. So was mine. My garage was 15 degrees and yours was 50. Starting off with a battery that is 35 degrees warmer makes a big difference in your efficiency.

Leave your garage door open on a night when The lows are below 20 and you'll probably see that your battery is colder and your efficiency is worse.

Sponsored

 

[RexRemus]

Ah, got it. Looks like they are releasing some fixes to charging in the .46 release - perhaps that will address the situation?

i saw that and I am hopeful... we shall see!

 

[RexRemus]

The difference is that you have a heated/warm garage. It may be cold(ish) outside but it isn't cold in your garage.

Your battery was 20 degrees above ambient. So was mine. My garage was 15 degrees and yours was 50. Starting off with a battery that is 35 degrees warmer makes a big difference in your efficiency.

Battery was 40 when I left. it's not heated or anything, just... not "outside" and because of the nature of the condos I am in it's "insulated" on all sides but the door so it tends to stay a bit above ambient. I know that helps, but it was cold enough when I left to have the "snowflake" regen is limited warning on for the entire first half of the drive pretty much.

If efficiency is going to get worse than 0.55mi/kWh with a colder battery I am for sure not looking forward to it I will definitely work out some way to get the battery charging to put some heat in before leaving. That's fine, but since it's clearly a known thing it would be nice (as many others have suggested) for there to be "departure scheduling" and have the vehicle take care of that for me in most cases. That would be a nice add to the mapping features they've done as well - not only set destination and waypoints, but expected departure time as well, and then send it over and have the vehicle get itself to the exact set state of charge and pre-condition the battery and heat/cool the cabin as required. I am all for this and the capability is there to do it.

 

[RexRemus]

One of my complaints from last year and I don't think Rivian has addressed it. However, they have made the charger faster to react to a reduced state of charge in the battery. It will start to recharge pretty quickly. If I actually need the full range for a trip, I will charge to 98% and bump it to 100% after turning cabin preconditioning on. Couldn't do that last year.

As per my reddit post - I can't seem to get mine to charge unless I bump it significantly up, like I tend to leave it around 60% since I make mostly pretty short trips - but ti get it to charge to 60% I need to set the actual value to like 63-64%, but then it'll vampire drain itself down to 57% in a day or two, and if I want it to charge up again I might need to bump to 68% - and it'll stop at 65% or something... it's random and frustrating. Rarely does that extra 2-3% either way meaningfully "matter" to the trip, but really, if I set 60, I should be able to expect it to be within 1-2% of that at all times and not have to think about how to fudge the settings just to make it work. And it's not just me, others have the same issues (again per the post) so yeah, hopeful for a fix in coming releases.

 

[sherold]

Ah, got it. Looks like they are releasing some fixes to charging in the .46 release - perhaps that will address the situation?

This makes me think so...

Charging

• Fixed an issue with the vehicle restarting scheduled charging after it was manually stopped.
• Fixed an issue in which a charge session shows as completed before reaching the user-defined charge limit.

 

[sub]

Battery was 40 when I left. it's not heated or anything, just... not "outside" and because of the nature of the condos I am in it's "insulated" on all sides but the door so it tends to stay a bit above ambient. I know that helps, but it was cold enough when I left to have the "snowflake" regen is limited warning on for the entire first half of the drive pretty much.

If efficiency is going to get worse than 0.55mi/kWh with a colder battery I am for sure not looking forward to it I will definitely work out some way to get the battery charging to put some heat in before leaving. That's fine, but since it's clearly a known thing it would be nice (as many others have suggested) for there to be "departure scheduling" and have the vehicle take care of that for me in most cases. That would be a nice add to the mapping features they've done as well - not only set destination and waypoints, but expected departure time as well, and then send it over and have the vehicle get itself to the exact set state of charge and pre-condition the battery and heat/cool the cabin as required. I am all for this and the capability is there to do it.

My comment was directed to all the people with warm garages claiming their battery is 60 or 70° in the morning and that their vehicle isn't getting terrible range.

I'm also worried about what will happen when it gets even colder. I suspect that there is a minimum temperature that the vehicle will permit so there is a lower limit to how bad the cold weather efficiency can get.

I did test with my Tesla once to see what happens if I leave it outside unplugged on a cold ( < -10 F ) night. I lost 40% to the vampire in 12 hours. It was clearly not allowing the battery to freeze and was burning through power keeping it at a safe temperature.

 

[SlaterGS]

The difference is that you have a heated/warm garage. It may be cold(ish) outside but it isn't cold in your garage.

Your battery was 20 degrees above ambient. So was mine. My garage was 15 degrees and yours was 50. Starting off with a battery that is 35 degrees warmer makes a big difference in your efficiency.

Leave your garage door open on a night when The lows are below 20 and you'll probably see that your battery is colder and your efficiency is worse.

May be worth re-reading what I posted.
My scenario was a comparison with my same "warm" garage.
I'm not comparing with OP's or your situation. Clearly there is a huge difference in my situation of being plugged in vs not. Charging 3% and being done for 8hrs should not account for that battery temp difference alone.

 

[COdogman]

You should just start a small fire in the center console for warmth and keep everything else turned off. ?

 

[RexRemus]

You should just start a small fire in the center console for warmth and keep everything else turned off. ?

 

[sac602]

is there a way to have the car warm its batteries before you leave it (while still plugged in)? maybe crank up heater, seat heaters, etc 20 min before leaving? just or set navigation? just wondering as I'm also new to evs

 

[BrentInCO]

For daily driving / charging, I manually reduce the amps in the vehicle to the lowest (8), which results in around 2 mph, adjust the scheduled charge start time based on the # of hours it will take to charge to my setpoint (70%), and manually turn on the climate control (heat to 74 degrees) a few minutes before I leave my house. Vehicle is garaged. This seems to result in higher efficiency than if the vehicle started out from cold when I need to drive it. I also do this based on something I read years ago about “a happy battery being a charging battery”, to do what I can to maximize the lifespan and capacity of lithium batteries.

 

[Jared2]

I've recently had the snowflake icon on my screen and it telling me "accelleration and regenerative braking will be limited while until the battery is warmed up".

I've heart that Tesla and other vehicles allow you to tell the vehicle to warm up the battery via the app (ahead of time). Is there any way to do this with the Rivian??

Loving my R1S!

 

[Jared2]

For daily driving / charging, I manually reduce the amps in the vehicle to the lowest (8), which results in around 2 mph, adjust the scheduled charge start time based on the # of hours it will take to charge to my setpoint (70%), and manually turn on the climate control (heat to 74 degrees) a few minutes before I leave my house. Vehicle is garaged. This seems to result in higher efficiency than if the vehicle started out from cold when I need to drive it. I also do this based on something I read years ago about “a happy battery being a charging battery”, to do what I can to maximize the lifespan and capacity of lithium batteries.

Recent long term studies on high amp/voltage DC charging have proven that speed/rate of charge has ilttle to zero effect on longevity of the battery. I was skeptical at first as well, but study after study has been done all showing that vehicles charged only on DC have the same lifespan as those charged almost excludively on home Level 1/2 chargers.

 

[R.I.P.]

I've recently had the snowflake icon on my screen and it telling me "accelleration and regenerative braking will be limited while until the battery is warmed up".

I've heart that Tesla and other vehicles allow you to tell the vehicle to warm up the battery via the app (ahead of time). Is there any way to do this with the Rivian??

Loving my R1S!

Turn on the climate control from the app, it will not only warm the cabin but it will get the other processes warming as well.

 

[Jared2]

Turn on the climate control from the app, it will not only warm the cabin but it will get the other processes warming as well.

Are you sure?? I tried that the other day, but the battery didn't seem any warmer...?

Sponsored