Question: L2 and battery preconditioning.

[Rade]

Good Morning! Here in Southern New England, winter making its presence known. Yesterday, temps (for the day) barely made it out of the teens. Now that we are an all-EV household, we have adopted the A-B-C practice (Always Be Charging) that folks on this forum have advised (our first ABC electric bill arrives early next week - we have gone one month without using a DCFC). We're making good use of our L2 home charging units. We have the Tesla MY preconditioning schedule set to begin about 30 minutes before my husband arrives at home from work. He is routinely replacing 25-30% capacity by the time he gets home.

On the Rivian, as it is my daily driver and I have no clue what, where or how long my chores will run on a day to day (I'm retired; schedule vary if there is one). When I was using the regional DCFC, I'd let the pack get down into the 20% remaining before going for a charge, then plug that location into the map, the preconditioning would begin about 10 minutes out from the charging station. But charging at home, on a 32amp L2 charger - is it necessary for me to precondition the battery prior to pulling into the garage after errands? Usually, it's having to bring the battery back up no more than 10%.

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[Mellowyellow]

You should not need to pre condition for L2 charging. There was a software bug last winter when Gen2 L2 charge rates would drop but to the best of my knowledge that had been fixed.

 

[Weck]

I just had this issue with my Gen2 R1T this week. After letting it sit at the airport for 4 days with lows in the single digits and highs in the teens, when I got in to drive home I got a warning that range was reduced due to cold battery.

Even after a 80 mile drive home, the battery was not warmed up. The truck would not initiate a L2 charge, just gave me a unplug and retry error. After preconditioning, it would charge. I confirmed the issue with Rivian support.

So, in extreme cold, you may have too.

 

[portdirect]

I just had this issue with my Gen2 R1T this week. After letting it sit at the airport for 4 days with lows in the single digits and highs in the teens, when I got in to drive home I got a warning that range was reduced due to cold battery.

Even after a 80 mile drive home, the battery was not warmed up. The truck would not initiate a L2 charge, just gave me a unplug and retry error. After preconditioning, it would charge. I confirmed the issue with Rivian support.

So, in extreme cold, you may have too.

Yeah - though much better than last year, I’m starting to experience a reduction in L2 charging performance on our gen2. Gen1 is still the honey badger of cold weather charging - no impact at all.

 

[Budman]

I've been experiencing Level 2 charging issues as well in cold weather. Yesterday and overnight I ran an experiment to try and determine if there is a certain battery temperature that is needed to allow level 2 charging.

I used three different level 2 chargers to rule out charger hardware issues. I gradually let the battery cool from the initial 48 deg battery temp with the SOC at 70% and periodically tried level 2 charging as I recorded battery temps. All was good down to about 40 deg battery. By then it was bed time so the truck sat outside overnight. In the morning the battery was 30 deg and would not charge. I used preconditioning to warm the battery gradually while periodically trying to charge. Went all the way back to 48 deg with no luck charging. Did a soft reset, still not luck. Let sit 5 more minutes without preconditioning, battery want to 50 deg then I was able to charge.

So, just doing a soft reset did not fix it, it took sitting time/temperature increasing to enable charging.

Maybe Jose @Kryptonlogic can elevate this to his engineering contacts within Rivian. I will also open a ticket and provide this info to Rivian that way.

I have a 15 month old R1T Gen 2 Dual Motor with MaxPack battery.

Ultimately I was able to do a level 2 charge but the exact procedure to do so is it a bit of a mystery. I consumed 6% of the battery while doing this testing.

 

[portdirect]

I've been experiencing Level 2 charging issues as well in cold weather. Yesterday and overnight I ran an experiment to try and determine if there is a certain battery temperature that is needed to allow level 2 charging.

I used three different level 2 chargers to rule out charger hardware issues. I gradually let the battery cool from the initial 48 deg battery temp with the SOC at 70% and periodically tried level 2 charging as I recorded battery temps. All was good down to about 40 deg battery. By then it was bed time so the truck sat outside overnight. In the morning the battery was 30 deg and would not charge. I used preconditioning to warm the battery gradually while periodically trying to charge. Went all the way back to 48 deg with no luck charging. Did a soft reset, still not luck. Let sit 5 more minutes without preconditioning, battery want to 50 deg then I was able to charge.

So, just doing a soft reset did not fix it, it took sitting time/temperature increasing to enable charging.

Maybe Jose @Kryptonlogic can elevate this to his engineering contacts within Rivian. I will also open a ticket and provide this info to Rivian that way.

Ultimately I was able to do a level 2 charge but the exact procedure to do so is it a bit of a mystery. I consumed 6% of the battery while doing this testing.

Urg: https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...n-to-2-7kwh-at-24f-should-i-be-worried.37845/

@RivianRoamer was a massive help on this last year, and able to get Wassym to look into it. It seems the battery thermal system in gen2 is just not what it was in gen1. You can ignore my capacity theory in that thread - luckily it turned out to be a red herring, and Rivian provided the same overhead between gross capacity and addressable capacity in both generations.

Edit: on a personal note - this will impact me less than last year, as now we have a garage where we charge… so though it’s in the low 30’s it’s not hitting 20 and bellow this time around.

 

[Budman]

Urg: https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...n-to-2-7kwh-at-24f-should-i-be-worried.37845/

@RivianRoamer was a massive help on this last year, and able to get Wassym to look into it.

I sent direct messages to Jose at RivianTrackr and RivianRoamer to ask them to elevate to their contacts.

 

[Rade]

Thanks for the advice! I have a tentative road trip planned down to New York for a long weekend where the the truck will be parked in an unheated garage for a few nights. I'll keep this in mind before we go; perhaps find a DCFC prior to arrival at the destination and get a full charge in before leaving the truck sit for two nights.

 

[RivianTrackr]

I have an email out to them!

 

[Budman]

Linking in another thread with reports of this issue. Just trying to pull them together for folks.

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/charging-error-unplug-and-retry-again.52778/

 

[Weck]

I've been experiencing Level 2 charging issues as well in cold weather. Yesterday and overnight I ran an experiment to try and determine if there is a certain battery temperature that is needed to allow level 2 charging.

I used three different level 2 chargers to rule out charger hardware issues. I gradually let the battery cool from the initial 48 deg battery temp with the SOC at 70% and periodically tried level 2 charging as I recorded battery temps. All was good down to about 40 deg battery. By then it was bed time so the truck sat outside overnight. In the morning the battery was 30 deg and would not charge. I used preconditioning to warm the battery gradually while periodically trying to charge. Went all the way back to 48 deg with no luck charging. Did a soft reset, still not luck. Let sit 5 more minutes without preconditioning, battery want to 50 deg then I was able to charge.

So, just doing a soft reset did not fix it, it took sitting time/temperature increasing to enable charging.

Maybe Jose @Kryptonlogic can elevate this to his engineering contacts within Rivian. I will also open a ticket and provide this info to Rivian that way.

I have a 15 month old R1T Gen 2 Dual Motor with MaxPack battery.

Ultimately I was able to do a level 2 charge but the exact procedure to do so is it a bit of a mystery. I consumed 6% of the battery while doing this testing.

Thank you for this testing.

I just had to do this to get my gen2 to start charging. Battery was at an indicated 29 degrees with the snowflake. Warmed it up to 60 degrees/50kw fast charge. Tried to plug in, still got the error.

Let the truck go to sleep (less than 5 minutes, it has serious narcolepsy...), after that, I'm charging. Seeing as I'm a hour and a half from a fast charger at the moment this is a good thing...

 

[good2go]

I just had this issue with my Gen2 R1T this week. After letting it sit at the airport for 4 days with lows in the single digits and highs in the teens, when I got in to drive home I got a warning that range was reduced due to cold battery.

Even after a 80 mile drive home, the battery was not warmed up. The truck would not initiate a L2 charge, just gave me a unplug and retry error. After preconditioning, it would charge. I confirmed the issue with Rivian support.

So, in extreme cold, you may have too.

I just ran into this issue. I was told it’s a bug in the software that will not allow the charging. They are working on a fix.

how do you force preconditioning? Do I have to map to a DC and turn on preconditioning? My pre conditioning is disabled.

stupid question but I have never turned it on. When on road trips it turns it on while driving.

 

[Weck]

I just ran into this issue. I was told it’s a bug in the software that will not allow the charging. They are working on a fix.

how do you force preconditioning? Do I have to map to a DC and turn on preconditioning? My pre conditioning is disabled.

stupid question but I have never turned it on. When on road trips it turns it on while driving.

On the energy page in the central display, you will see a button for preconditioning on the left side.

 

[good2go]

Ok, preconditioning is on. Waiting for battery to get to 50 degrees. Failed over 30.

I was told (was in service center) once the AC charging is on it stays on. The temp is just stopping it for turning on.

It seems you lose a lot of power heating so I hope once it plugs
In it stays charging.

 

[good2go]

Over 50. Still not charging

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