Unacceptable Heater Performance

[NY_Rob]

Yesterday it was -5
While driving, I had gauge view up, and the battery was 27 degrees. Motors were in the 90s. They never got over 100, even when going 60 on the highway, and stop and go traffic around town.

It takes huge amounts of BTU's to heat up the massive 135kWh battery pack in our vehicles, especially at -5 temps. In these sub-zero temps, don't expect tons of heat fast, it will come over time.. but not in 20min.

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[Pacblue22]

What is the deal with recirculate? It seems to change the HVAC behavior a whole lot more than any recirc I have used in previous cars.

When it was 107, I could not keep the R1S cold enough without recirc. That has been the case with 0 cars I have used before.

The HVAC is a major low point for Rivian, way below baseline functionality of any car I have driven or driven in in the last 20-ish years. Maybe their 2.0 Rivians will have it more refined.

 

[NY_Rob]

What is the deal with recirculate? It seems to change the HVAC behavior a whole lot more than any recirc I have used in previous cars.

When it was 107, I could not keep the R1S cold enough without recirc. That has been the case with 0 cars I have used before.

The HVAC is a major low point for Rivian, way below baseline functionality of any car I have driven or driven in in the last 20-ish years. Maybe their 2.0 Rivians will have it more refined.

Most agree the Rivian HVAC is a bit wonky, but keep in mind that in an ICE vehicle the A/C compressor is only cooling the cabin where in the Rivian that same A/C compressor is also keeping the battery and motors cool, so it's a shared unit which sometimes results in less than great performance.

As far as heat, Rivian is using it's motors (run in an inefficient manner) and a resistive electric heat exchanger to produce heat. Again, shared devices that are used to heat the battery and heat the cabin. Like the A/C system... less than great results because the components are performing double duty.

 

[Zoidz]

What is the deal with recirculate? It seems to change the HVAC behavior a whole lot more than any recirc I have used in previous cars.

When it was 107, I could not keep the R1S cold enough without recirc. That has been the case with 0 cars I have used before.

The HVAC is a major low point for Rivian, way below baseline functionality of any car I have driven or driven in in the last 20-ish years. Maybe their 2.0 Rivians will have it more refined.

It's our nature to compare to other vehicles we owned. But we also have to keep in mind that Rivian is trying to conserve battery power as much as possible. So I'm guessing that the HVAC system might have been designed to need recirc at the extremes, different from an ICE where we have "unlimited" energy available for heating and cooling. No doubt that Rivian will be re-evaluating the HVAC capacity for future vehicles. We know that they will be transitioning to a heat pump, which will solve some problems and also probably introduce some new problems.

 

[zefram47]

Something definitely sounds wrong. I wore a long sleeve shirt on a recent road trip with the temp set on Auto from 66-68F and was totally comfortable even with temps in the teens. Today the temp was probably -5F on my commute and Auto on 68F was totally comfortable after preconditioning using the schedule. Battery was warmed up to 51F too.

 

[AJacobs]

For what it's worth, I discovered a weird "glitch" in my R1T that I've heard a few others have:

As long as the rear seat has air turned on (top, bottom, or both), the whole system works fine and air blows HOT. If I completely turn off the back, ya know... to direct all the hot air to the driver and windshield when I'm driving alone.... then suddenly the heat doesn't work and blows luke warm at best, even when set to HI. I just leave the back on all the time. I was parked at a ski lodge all day at ‐5F, got in at the end of the day and it warmed up pretty quick, was down to a tshirt in about 15 minutes. So I know the physical system works fine, just a software issue of some sort.

 

[Spaceball1]

20 min is not enough to get it comfortable. EVs don't produce much waste heat like an ICE. If you want to be comfortable you have to either use scheduled departure or pre condition the cabin ahead of time.

But these trucks have a resistive heating element, which is basically an electric space heater, to give you instant heat. I didn't think the HVAC in these used any waste heat from the cooling system, like say a car with a heat pump (like Tesla or my Kia)

 

[Rudylake]

2023 R1S with 5,000 miles, running 2023.50. This cold snap going through the country has exposed either an issue with my SUV, or a problem with the design in general.

Yesterday it was -5, and a 20 minute procondition (via the app) got the cabin from 12 degrees, to 42 degrees indicated on the app. A 20 minute drive after preconditioning, the air coming out of the vents was at best (I would guess) 50ish degrees. Warmer than outside, but not comfortable. Feels cold on your skin if you hold your hand in front of the vent. In prior drives, when the temps were around 30ish, it at least feels warm, but it is by no means hot like a typical ICE car would get after being all the way warmed up.

While driving, I had gauge view up, and the battery was 27 degrees. Motors were in the 90s. They never got over 100, even when going 60 on the highway, and stop and go traffic around town. I expected temps in the 200s given the car would be trying to heat the battery, but it did not appear to be attempting to.

Steering wheel and seat heat were enough to at least tolerate the drive, but if I had to drive anything over 20 minutes or so, this would not be acceptable performance. I don't think it's really acceptable performance at all. With my wife and two kids, I would not want to drive more than 40 miles or so with this level of heater performance.

I had heat on HI, auto off, max fan, and it never got anywhere close to a comfortable temp in the cabin. Turning recirculate on brings the cabin temp up marginally, but the windows fog almost instantly. I tried HI on auto, and it performed worse. The second row was even colder than the front.

How has everyone else's heater performance been, in significant cold? I am wondering if I need to submit a ticket, or if this is the typical performance of the heat in an R1. If so, I may need to reconsider keeping it if it can't keep the cabin hot in the winter.

Heated steering wheel is not a thing in the r1s. It is barely even warm.

 

[shimps1]

Heated steering wheel is not a thing in the r1s. It is barely even warm.

Mine works great.

 

[SlaterGS]

I did. I was on "HI" the entire time. I did try lowering it to 77 and then 80 to see if something would change, but it remained the same lukewarm temperature.

I've had my equal share of frustrations with lukewarm temperatures and actually had a service visit scheduled for the 17th which I cancelled after this last update.

For me, just a few minutes with it set to Auto at 74 and it seems to finally act like it should. I was setting to HI before and never could get hot air and Auto did not work either.

Now it seems to get to temp quickly and then drops fan to 1, whereas pre update the fan would never go below 4 when on auto no matter the temp in winter or summer. I'd suggest giving auto a try and see what it does. Otherwise get a service visit scheduled.

We were at 2 this morning and -16 with windchill. Battery was 41.

 

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Mid 20's and snowing here in Northern VA. Had to leave the truck outside last night, when I tapped the "fan" button + Defrost button this morning in the app it warmed up from 30-something to 75 degrees in about 20 minutes. App said "Hi". Think it used about 12 miles of "range" to heat up.

Not debating what other folks are posting, just an additional data point. ?

I will say I kind of miss having an "engine" in the front to melt all the snow off the hood. Since the frunk isn't heated, what're folks doing about the pile of snow on the hood? LOL.

 

[NY_Rob]

But these trucks have a resistive heating element, which is basically an electric space heater, to give you instant heat. I didn't think the HVAC in these used any waste heat from the cooling system, like say a car with a heat pump (like Tesla or my Kia)

It's a liquid heat exchanger, the electric resistive heating coils heat water that circulates through the motors and battery pack and the cabin heater radiator. It takes a lot of electrical energy to heat water that is constantly being cooled back down by massive hunks of cold metal (the motors) and the huge battery pack.

Compare it to the old cast iron baseboard radiators that were very heavy and even heavier when filled with water.. it took a lot of energy and forever to heat them up.

 

[shimps1]

Both of mine produce decent heat... The coldest I've seen here is around 20F but I have seen this complaint from others that it's not producing enough heat for them to be comfortable.

I drove VW TDI for years and there were a lot of complaints from owners about them not producing enough heat in stop/go traffic.

In your case I would recommend trying out the new schedule departure feature. Also, is the vehicle plugged in to a charger overnight?

Scheduled departure doesn't work for me as I don't have a regular schedule. I do keep it plugged in at home, and if I know I'm going to leave, I pre-warm the cabin with the app.

Yesterday (the trip that prompted this post) , I was fresh out of the 50.1 update and wanted to try scheduled departure. Set it for 6:40pm departure at 6:20pm. It started warming the cabin but only got it from 12 degrees to mid-40s after 20 minutes. There was no battery heating during the whole drive. Battery was 27 degrees and stayed there.

I've had my equal share of frustrations with lukewarm temperatures and actually had a service visit scheduled for the 17th which I cancelled after this last update.

For me, just a few minutes with it set to Auto at 74 and it seems to finally act like it should. I was setting to HI before and never could get hot air and Auto did not work either.

Now it seems to get to temp quickly and then drops fan to 1, whereas pre update the fan would never go below 4 when on auto no matter the temp in winter or summer. I'd suggest giving auto a try and see what it does. Otherwise get a service visit scheduled.

We were at 2 this morning and -16 with windchill. Battery was 41.

I usually always leave it on auto, but yesterday was very bad performance.

I just drove it about 30 minutes, and it seemed to perform normally. Battery was 50 degrees, though.

 

[shimps1]

It's a liquid heat exchanger, the electric resistive heating coils heat water that circulates through the motors and battery pack and the cabin heater radiator. It takes a lot of electrical energy to heat water that is constantly being cooled back down by massive hunks of cold metal (the motors) and the huge battery pack.

Compare it to the old cast iron baseboard radiators that were very heavy and even heavier when filled with water.. it took a lot of energy and forever to heat them up.

If this is true it would explain why heat was fine when the battery was 50 degrees (today,) but underperformed yesterday when the battery was 27 degrees.

 

[NY_Rob]

If this is true it would explain why heat was fine when the battery was 50 degrees (today,) but underperformed yesterday when the battery was 27 degrees.

I would imagine Rivian engineers gave battery heating priority over occupant heating as discharging and recharging (regen-braking) a very cold battery could permanently damage it where people can just put additional clothing on.

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