LFP Battery in Cold Climate

[Jedimaster109]

Wondering how everyone’s LFP batteries are doing in the deep freeze? LFP battery chemistry prefers warm climates lol.
Mainly curious on the Dual Standard that has the LFP chemistry.
Any issues? Curious as I’m considering getting a Dual Standard R1S at some point for my wife’s daily driver.
Thanks for the info community!

Sponsored

 

[cthelan]

Preheated in garage. 40 miles of running around town, no highways. 20 degrees outside. Lost 40%. This plus all the calibration issues and we are seriously regretting going with LFP. It barely works on paper and it really doesn’t work in real life.

 

[Jedimaster109]

Yea we live in SE Wisconsin and we had -10 temperatures this past week. 20s are cold but looking for some data from the colder areas.

 

[carsly]

In NJ, was single digits again overnight and my R1S is parked outside. Averaging 1.5-1.7 mi/kwh - glad I went with the Dual Large , wish I had gotten the Max pack but no doubt you want NMC over LFP in the cold.

 

[Budman]

As a Minnesota resident it would take a ton of evidence to convince me to go with LFP.

I’m glad this thread was started. Eager to hear responses.

 

[cthelan]

Yea we live in SE Wisconsin and we had -10 temperatures this past week. 20s are cold but looking for some data from the colder areas.

Expect worse the colder it gets. 10 degrees warmer here today on a similar drive profile and we did 10% better on battery drain

 

[evthree]

Yea we live in SE Wisconsin and we had -10 temperatures this past week. 20s are cold but looking for some data from the colder areas.

I am in your area and own a Gen 2 LFP R1S that I bought last summer. Recent cold has been a challenge, though the longest we really need to go is 40 miles or so.

Based on the 92 kWh theoretically available capacity (had that regularly in warmer weather; have not been above ~87 in this cold), need ~2.8 miles/kWh to hit the rated range (259 miles on my OEM 20" All- Seasons). I can get that in warmer weather, but am seeing about half of that (+/-20% based on how cold the battery is going into the drive and how long the drive is) in these temps.

I typically L2 charge at home or at work. There was an issue with that broadly that Rivian fixed with a software update in November, and L2 charging has since worked great. There is a charging rate hit initially while the battery is warmed to 50 degrees, which has taken 30-45 minutes from cold soak recently.

I have only L3 charged once in the cold (at a Tesla Supercharger north of Chicago), and charging was pretty slow despite navigation-based preconditioning for 15-20 minutes before the charge. Max speed was ~60 kWh. Would expect at least twice that in warmer weather based on the incoming charge state (~20% if I recall correctly). Did not need a ton of range so did not stick around long enough to see if the charge speed would improve with more time on the Supercharger and a warmer battery (battery was warming into the high 70s while it charged, which also seemed to take a while). That charging experience would definitely give me pause about a winter road trip in this R1S, which we used to do occasionally (to CO to ski, mostly) in our Model 3 and Y with enthusiasm.

Did one road trip (to PA) last summer and had a great charging experience on the Supercharger network. Peak speeds at ~225 kW, more charging time during the drive than our Teslas but I expected that based on the heavier/less efficient vehicle. Learned that keeping climate off (temps were in the high 80s/low 90s w/ humidity) during charging was a must to maintain charge speed, and even with that we occasionally experienced cable derate (Supercharger issue) that limited charging speed to ~125 kW or so.

Fantastic vehicle overall. I deliberated forever about whether to spend an additional $25K for a Max pack. All of this will depreciate fast based on continued hardware improvements, so decided to minimize that as well as I can with the lower cost LFP. To each their own, obviously.

 

[Jedimaster109]

Thanks for the write up. Good info!

 

[hmw]

Wondering how everyone’s LFP batteries are doing in the deep freeze? LFP battery chemistry prefers warm climates lol.
Mainly curious on the Dual Standard that has the LFP chemistry.
Any issues? Curious as I’m considering getting a Dual Standard R1S at some point for my wife’s daily driver.
Thanks for the info community!

LFP in the NJ cold has been a disaster. I have a thread here: https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...apacity-drop-due-to-cold-what’s-normal.55305/

I am seeing efficiencies of between 1.4 mi/kWh and 1.6 mi/kWh. That means in the cold, the car can do 130 miles and 150 miles - that's with a zero SOC on arrival.

This is plain crazy !

 

[carsly]

LFP in the NJ cold has been a disaster. I have a thread here: https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/2026-gen-2-r1s-battery-capacity-drop-due-to-cold-what’s-normal.55305/

I am seeing efficiencies of between 1.4 mi/kWh and 1.6 mi/kWh. That means in the cold, the car can do 130 miles and 150 miles - that's with a zero SOC on arrival.

This is plain crazy !

Same here with the Gen 2 Large pack (which is really a medium) in Central NJ. Averaging 1.2 - 1.7 mi/kwh.

Might be able to do slightly more with heavy duty preconditioning, but then you're burning extra energy just to increase a number consuming more total power which makes no sense to me outside of a road trip scenario where your one-way distance is 200 miles or so which you can make without stopping with pre-conditioning before departure.

In winter, the Gen 2 Large (109 kwh) is safely good for ~120-140 miles of travel distance full until dead. Definitely didn't expect that. Doesn't Rivian build these in Normal, IL? Winter is a thing there too.

My Cybertruck is also down on efficiency from 3 mi/kwh on all-terrains (Rivian is on 22" all-seasons) in temperate conditions to closer to 1.8-2.2 mi/kwhi. With a 123kwh pack that's still over 200 miles of winter range in sub-freezing temps which I can readily live with and honestly not even think about.

 

[hmw]

I love the R1S but I have to wonder about the efficiency. It's not like Rivian originally had a 3 mi/kWh efficiency with a streamlined body and suddenly switched to a boxy body. They have had this damn car for some time. Not achieving 2.7 ~ 2.9 on a regular basis like Tesla is not justifiable at this stage. My colleagues had Teslas model 3s and Ys and were shocked that I had to supercharge TWICE to achieve > 150 miles. Like you said, if the efficiency is down then increase the pack size to ensure a 200mi range on the Standard but don't make it so the car only serves a very niche market.

 

[Budman]

I've shared this data many times on this forum but will do so again on this thread as it is an important topic of high interest.

I've tracked my efficiency for 3 years now. I see around a ~30% drop in efficiency at 0 Degrees F relative to 70 deg. I currently have a Gen 2 R1T with the Max Pack NMC and prior to that I had the Gen 1 Quad large pack with NMC.

From the data posted on this thread by others it looks like LFP packs have about the same % reduction vs temp (it might be a bit more or a bit less, can't really say for sure given the different circumstances of how the data was acquired).

The big problem I see with LFP is the smaller range to begin with coupled with the 30% loss at cold and the state of charge calibration issue and it's apparent unfriendlyness to charging in the cold.

My view, at the risk of stating the obvious, is vehicles with LFP batteries are not well suited to cold weather climates.

Regarding the stated range by Rivian based on the EPA testing cycle. In the summer I do achieve the advertised range (420 miles, I've done it!) on this particular route which mimics the EPA combined city/hwy test cycle.

My winter driving usually entails starting the drive after recently completing a L2 charge in my garage where the battery temp is about 50F. I've done a couple experiments with colder batteries (in the 20s) and the impact is small over this 165 mile drive. At first the efficiency is worse with a 25 deg battery but after 15 minutes or so it about the same as starting with a 50 deg battery.

 

[hmw]

My view, at the risk of stating the obvious, is vehicles with LFP batteries are not well suited to cold weather climates.

Perfectly said. The obvious thing for Rivian to do would have been to increase the pack size and restrict it by software if they were so concerned with product differentiation. But at least then it would have been able to handle winters as well as the NMC outfitted models

 

[carsly]

Perfectly said. The obvious thing for Rivian to do would have been to increase the pack size and restrict it by software if they were so concerned with product differentiation. But at least then it would have been able to handle winters as well as the NMC outfitted models

with 92kwh in the Standard pack but running the risk of a sudden drop to 0% with the LFP you can't really trip below 20% in freezing/sub-freezing conditions meaning available battery capacity is really 74kwh BUT you can't access all the capacity in cold weather so shave some more off, at least 5% of the 92kwh. So now you're down to 69kwh if you start at 100% charge. If your battery is at ambient temps of low single digits like it is now in NJ you'd be very, very lucky to make 100 miles, more like 80-85 miles on a full charge before needing to stop and charge or 40 miles out and 40 miles back on a trip. What's that? maybe an hour of driving time each way?

Something short of ideal methinks for a $80K SUV/truck.

Sponsored