Unacceptable Heater Performance

[shimps1]

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.

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[krikiter]

It was -6 this morning in Michigan, and I was comfortable with the HVAC set at 74 Auto. FWIW, I did use scheduled departure to pre-warm the cabin. I do wish the steering wheel was hotter though.

Edit to add: my battery was at 51 degrees when I started my drive. So maybe your truck was diverting too much current to heat the battery to be able to heat the cabin? In either case, I'd submit a ticket.

 

[Redline]

Yeah I had no issues this weekend in northern Minnesota with temps in the -10 range.

 

[av8or]

Doesn’t sound right to me, mine works great! I would do a hard reset and see if it’s better. If not I would open a ticket with Rivian.

 

[COdogman]

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.

You didn't say what temperature you had it set to.

It does take some practice using this HVAC system. Yesterday it was also -5 here in CO and I have learned that for the first part of a drive of 20 miles or so I need to turn the temp up to 74. Then, after 5-10 miles I can turn it way down to 66-68 and it's pretty toasty in there. Turning the fan up higher during that time doesn't make it warmer.

It works similar in the summer with the A/C.

 

[shimps1]

You didn't say what temperature you had it set to.

It does take some practice using this HVAC system. Yesterday it was also -5 here in CO and I have learned that for the first part of a drive of 20 miles or so I need to turn the temp up to 74. Then, after 5-10 miles I can turn it way down to 66-68 and it's pretty toasty in there. Turning the fan up higher during that time doesn't make it warmer.

It works similar in the summer with the A/C.

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.

 

[COdogman]

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.

Ok I'm sorry - I didn't know "hi" was what it displayed when you take the temperature all the way up. I've never had to go that far. I thought by "hi" you meant the fan speed.

I would definitely say it's worth having Rivian check it out. Something isn't right. The tricky part will be reproducing it if the day they have it isn't just as cold, or at least close...

 

[shimps1]

Ok I'm sorry - I didn't know "hi" was what it displayed when you take the temperature all the way up. I've never had to go that far. I thought by "hi" you meant the fan speed.

I would definitely say it's worth having Rivian check it out. Something isn't right. The tricky part will be reproducing it if the day they have it isn't just as cold, or at least close...

Yea, I think that probably proves I've got something wrong. I'm regularly on max temp "HI" to be comfortable. If you've never seen it, something is off.

 

[breeves002]

If you set it to "Hi" make sure to lower the fan to 3-4 at the highest when it is that cold. If the fan is going full blast you will actually cool off the cabin more with outside air.

I drove in -4ºF yesterday. I left my R1S outside all night unplugged. I did a 15 minute cabin warm up and then drove 2 hours round trip. The heater pumped out great hot air when stopped and it cooled off some when moving on the interstate. When I was driving into a strong headwind the cabin got fairly cold and the heater could not keep up. When I went back home however I was driving with the wind behind me and the cabin got nice and warm. It was a two degrees warmer at -2ºF on the drive home.

People don't really think about it as much but moving, especially at high speeds makes it a lot harder for the cabin heater to keep up due to convection. Just be happy you don't own a Mach E. If you think this is unacceptable you'd be in for a world of hurt with that car. In 4ºF after sitting outside for 6 hours in my Mach E I wasn't even able to get any heat at all. The cabin heater and battery heater are the same 5kW heater. The Rivian can do about 10kW of battery heating with the motors then the cabin heater has its own 5kW (or so) heater. Much better performance in the Rivian than the Mach E. The Rivian also has incredible battery insulation, it looses such little heat I don't understand how it is that good. The Mach E battery loses heat so incredibly fast.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

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.

 

[shimps1]

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.

This would have been a combination of about 40 minutes total. 20 minutes of pre-conditioning (got up to 42 degrees), and then 20 minutes of driving that got the cabin up to maybe mid 50s. It's also not the first time it has struggled like this, but this was the first time it was significantly cold outside, so it was more noticable.

 

[Zoidz]

If you set it to "Hi" make sure to lower the fan to 3-4 at the highest when it is that cold. If the fan is going full blast you will actually cool off the cabin more with outside air.

Yes, this is important to understand. When the heating capacity is limited in an EV (as compared to an ICE where 60% of the fuel consumed is just waste heat) setting the fan speed to high makes the situation worse, not better. If not on recirc, setting the fan to high is literally heating the air and pushing it right back out through the nooks and crannies. At a lower fan speed that heated air is retained in the cabin.

 

[breeves002]

Yes, this is important to understand. When the heating capacity is limited in an EV (as compared to an ICE where 60% of the fuel consumed is just waste heat) setting the fan speed to high makes the situation worse, not better. If not on recirc, setting the fan to high is literally heating the air and pushing it right back out through the nooks and crannies. At a lower fan speed that heated air is retained in the cabin.

Thanks for the added expansion to what I said.

I generally recommend people just set the temperature not higher than about 75ºF, especially if you don't normally set it that high. Leave it on auto. It won't make the car generate any more heat, but may raise the fan speed and actually cause more cooling than heating.

 

[HaveBlue]

The Rivian gives heat faster than any vehicle I've owned but how high you may need it probably varies from my tolerance. This weekend was in the teens at our cabin and there was heat within minutes but I don't think I could tolerate 70 in the car. When it gets into the 50s I start tearing jackets off as I'm sweating from the temperature swing. Having a 70 degree car and getting outside to 15 feels like a sauna to deep freeze.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

This would have been a combination of about 40 minutes total. 20 minutes of pre-conditioning (got up to 42 degrees), and then 20 minutes of driving that got the cabin up to maybe mid 50s. It's also not the first time it has struggled like this, but this was the first time it was significantly cold outside, so it was more noticable.

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?

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