Max Pack Battery Capacity Confirmed - 149kWh

[Donald Stanfield]

I agree with you Donald. Not only for the money but also for the years of waiting since 2020 in my case. I have refuse the LE in order to get a Max pack of 180 KWhr. Consequently, I have remove the max pack and I will use it while waiting for a significant Sylverado RST with 229 KWH for towing. 149 KWhr is not enough for towing a travel trailer in my view. I am… disapointed...

Yeah its unfortunate that Rivian went this way for people who tow a lot and if you do I don't blame you for going Silverado. It's a shame all around because personally for every other aspect I far prefer the rivian to the Sliverado. I'm glad I don't have the long range towing needs but if I did truthfully I'd be driving a diesel

I personally believe in buying the best tool for the job and for me the Rivian is the best truck with supercar performance and is also tech heavy and stylish. All the criteria important to me. I didn't buy it because it was an EV or a new truck or American made simply because it was the best vehicle on the market for my needs. If my needs were long range towing then the choice would be simple for me and I'd be getting a diesel.

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[DuoRivians]

I don’t think the max pack has 180 kWh, but I also don’t think it’s 149kwh. This pack wouldn’t make sense to match the sticker EPA performance.

Until we get further confirmation, I think we need to ignore this C&D piece

 

[mkhuffman]

I don’t think the max pack has 180 kWh, but I also don’t think it’s 149kwh. This pack wouldn’t make sense to match the sticker EPA performance.

Until we get further confirmation, I think we need to ignore this C&D piece

The EPA math works if the usable capacity is 149 kWh.

I am very disappointed the battery isn't bigger. Very. I was going to replace my MME with a max pack R, but now I am not sure. Oh well, I wasn't going to do it for another year anyway, so I guess I will just wait and see how things shake out. But it is disappointing.

 

[vandy1981]

I agree with you Donald. Not only for the money but also for the years of waiting since 2020 in my case. I have refuse the LE in order to get a Max pack of 180 KWhr. Consequently, I have remove the max pack and I will use it while waiting for a significant Sylverado RST with 229 KWH for towing. 149 KWhr is not enough for towing a travel trailer in my view. I am… disapointed...

I need someone who knows physics to explain to me why the impact on efficiency isn't proportional to the trailer load. Shouldn't a trailer that decreases the of the Large Pack efficiency by 40% also cause a 40% drop with the Max pack? I saw a 50% drop in fuel economy when towing our travel trailer with our 18 mpg Ram 1500 and the same 50% drop in fuel economy with our 60 mpge Lightning.

 

[Epicloop]

I agree with you Donald. Not only for the money but also for the years of waiting since 2020 in my case. I have refuse the LE in order to get a Max pack of 180 KWhr. Consequently, I have remove the max pack and I will use it while waiting for a significant Sylverado RST with 229 KWH for towing. 149 KWhr is not enough for towing a travel trailer in my view. I am… disapointed...

This is fairly disappointing considering how long some if us have waited however a lot has changed since 2018. They simply should not have claimed the pack size in the first place.
It might be a CT for me at least it has the infrastructure. Going to have wait & see for its specs now.

MME

Pardon my ignorance but what is MME?

Shouldn't a trailer that decreases the of the Large Pack efficiency by 40% also cause a 40% drop with the Max pack?

That seems like a rational conclusion.

 

[Guy]

This is fairly disappointing considering how long some if us have waited however a lot has changed since 2018. They simply should not have claimed the pack size in the first place.
It might be a CT for me at least it has the infrastructure. Going to have wait & see for its specs now.

Pardon my ignorance but what is MME?

That seems like a rational conclusion.

Maybe I am missing something but does it matter if it was 180kW and got 400 mile range or 150kW and got a 400 mile range. The range is the important thing and the charging time will be less with a smaller battery.

 

[mkhuffman]

Maybe I am missing something but does it matter if it was 180kW and got 400 mile range or 159kW and got a 400 mile range. The range is the important thing and the charging time will be less with a smaller battery.

Yes because 180 kWh would deliver much more than 400 miles of range, instead of barely making it. 2.75 mi/kWh x 170 kWh usable = 468 miles. Now THAT is worth $10k for sure, right?

 

[mkhuffman]

Pardon my ignorance but what is MME?

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[zefram47]

Maybe I am missing something but does it matter if it was 180kW and got 400 mile range or 159kW and got a 400 mile range. The range is the important thing and the charging time will be less with a smaller battery.

Yes, it matters a lot. You can't beat physics and anyone towing will need more capacity to be happy. Rivian clearly knew they weren't going to add additional cells in the pack and that max pack was going to be a very minor increase in capacity, which is why they made it dual-motor only. The majority of the range increase is from being dual-motor with its AP mode basically being auto Conserve mode. Tow mode always has both motors engaged, so automatically you'll lose some of that additional range. Throw a load on it and you'll still only be seeing ~1 mi/kWh, which will translate to around 15 miles of additional range over Large pack....on a *full* charge.

 

[Supratachophobia]

Yes, it matters a lot. You can't beat physics and anyone towing will need more capacity to be happy. Rivian clearly knew they weren't going to add additional cells in the pack and that max pack was going to be a very minor increase in capacity, which is why they made it dual-motor only. The majority of the range increase is from being dual-motor with its AP mode basically being auto Conserve mode. Tow mode always has both motors engaged, so automatically you'll lose some of that additional range. Throw a load on it and you'll still only be seeing ~1 mi/kWh, which will translate to around 15 miles of additional range over Large pack....on a *full* charge.

I think you actually finally cracked it. I couldnt figure out for the life of me why the max pack was dual motor only. And it's because the pack size increase is so small, they needed to add the paltry dual motor efficiency gain to it as well to get a larger differentiating number.

That being said, it's probably a rounding error between quad conserve and dual FWD. I wonder if there must be some limitation to the RWD disconnect in quad which is why they can't echo that feature of the dual. Like, using it repeatedly isn't good for it.

Do they offer a dual/large build right now?

I'm also going to surmise that large and max are going to get merged once the pre price hike list is gone through.

 

[vandy1981]

Yes because 180 kWh would deliver much more than 400 miles of range, instead of barely making it. 2.75 mi/kWh x 170 kWh usable = 468 miles. Now THAT is worth $10k for sure, right?

Your goalposts have moved a bit. 400 was promised and 410 was delivered. The disappointment is that the Large Pack efficiency was better than expected making Max Pack look relatively less appealing.

 

[Supratachophobia]

So ever since I heard someone mention that LG makes a 5800mah battery and that's what could be in the max pack, I've been wondering what the downsides of that would be. It's actually a bit of a unicorn when you go search for 5800mah 21700 cells. But here is the highest one I found, the INR21700-M58T. Apparently there is some theoretical max in cylindrical cells, 800 Wh/l. Not sure what that means, but no cylindrical batteries are able to overcome that. With the INR21700-M58T being the largest 21700 I can find right now, it has an energy density of 768 Wh/l. And they kinda cheat to get there: This particular battery is actually 71mm tall instead of 70. Some sites list it at 5800mah, but it's actually 5570mah according to LG.

Here are some bad things that happen with batteries that try to squeeze in higher capacities:
1. faster degradation
2. increased heat when discharging
3. lower cycle life

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if the max pack is using these cells that have super-high mah, then not only would the cost not be worth it, you could risk having a less reliable battery on your hands after a few years. The only other anecdotal evidence I can offer to this is the 90kwh batteries vs. the 85kwh batteries that were options on early Model S. The 90's degredad faster and greater than their 85kwh counter-parts.

 

[Epicloop]

Maybe I am missing something but does it matter if it was 180kW and got 400 mile range or 150kW and got a 400 mile range. The range is the important thing and the charging time will be less with a smaller battery.

Definitely some advantages to a smaller/lighter battery but for heavy/large loads towing @ 1m/kw more is better.

 

[mkhuffman]

Your goalposts have moved a bit. 400 was promised and 410 was delivered. The disappointment is that the Large Pack efficiency was better than expected making Max Pack look relatively less appealing.

Actually I am not blaming Rivian for their approach. I am just very disappointed. 180 kWh would be so awesome, and I have been excited about it for almost three years. Now it is not happening.

Rivian did the smart thing by meeting their "400+" range claim by improving efficiency rather than putting a bigger battery in the vehicle. Not only that, they are able to do it with the S and retain the third row seats.

Two years ago in this forum, people were complaining about losing the third row because of the max pack. I think so many people complained that Rivian realized they needed another approach. Which they found.

So I do understand why they did it. A quad truck with a 180 kWh pack would be well north of $120k for Rivian to have any chance of breaking even. Even now they have not gotten there. So this is financially smart and necessary.

I am still very disappointed.

BTW - 410 miles EPA is likely to be 328 miles at highway speeds. Likely less. While that is good, it is not industry leading. The 180 pack would have meant 400 miles of range on the the highway. That is game changing, IMO.

 

[Guy]

Yes, it matters a lot. You can't beat physics and anyone towing will need more capacity to be happy. Rivian clearly knew they weren't going to add additional cells in the pack and that max pack was going to be a very minor increase in capacity, which is why they made it dual-motor only. The majority of the range increase is from being dual-motor with its AP mode basically being auto Conserve mode. Tow mode always has both motors engaged, so automatically you'll lose some of that additional range. Throw a load on it and you'll still only be seeing ~1 mi/kWh, which will translate to around 15 miles of additional range over Large pack....on a *full* charge.

The increase is over 50 miles when comparing like for like - dual motor large battery and dual motor max pack. So efficiency plays a part but battery chemistry does too since you get 50 miles from an additional 15kWh.

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