Very cold temperature range report - part II - with pics and data!

[bfilippo]

Was -5F this morning here in Maine, and was still hovering around 2 in my Gen2 R1T Dual driving local highway at 55 for about 25 miles. Battery around 34F.

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[No_Name5330]

Drove home yesterday at -3 and got 1 m/kwh. Granted i usually get about 1.3 m/kwh but it was definitely a hit and it was night so that didn’t help much.

 

[ThirteenElectrics]

Here's my temperature data from electrafi.com. The efficiency percentage is based on 360 nominal miles, so at 10-15F we’re at 243 miles real world range. Most of those miles are slower than highway speeds.

Temperature	Wh/Mile	Efficiency %	Miles Recorded
10 to 15 F	561.13	67.5	155
15 to 20 F	549.81	69.8	105
20 to 25 F	602.33	64.1	231
25 to 30 F	526.32	73.1	346
30 to 35 F	518.36	73.8	441
35 to 40 F	508.95	75.6	268
40 to 45 F	591.5	64.8	250

Note, most of this is with 21" snow tires on 20" rims (calibrated to 20" tires). The 21" diameter should make them reasonably efficient, but they are soft.

 

[MikeWilliams_R1T]

I live in east TN so not quite as extreme but we are regularly in the 20’s at night and the last week or so, low teens.
I park outside. One thing I found helps is scheduling a short “top up” charge in the morning before I go out and leave it plugged into the level 2.

Leaving at 8am, I set it to start charging around 6am with an 8am departure time in the climate control. I set the charge limit to 85% on my standard plus battery but usually am around 75 or 80% when I unplug it to go out.


My battery temp has been in the high 40’s to low 50’s every time. Even with it being under 20 degrees overnight. Mileage hovering just under 2mi/Kwh.

if I don’t do the top up charge in the morning and the battery is cold soaked, it’s way less.

I realize there is probably a bit of voodoo going on with different charging rituals across EV drivers to maximize range.

I wish Rivian would publish a best practices guide for winter driving / charging since cold weather very much can hit your range and there are a few ways to mitigate it. A software update to precondition the battery for a cold weather departure would be a good idea too kind of like the climate control program.

 

[d15b7]

What was you regen settings (high, medium, low) ? I am surprised the battery wasn’t warmed up to 50F if you were on high regen.

hi. I always run the truck in High Regen (I really like the one pedal driving on all EVs that I drive). When it’s this cold, I’ve noticed that the battery temp climbs approximately 1 deg F for about every 7-8 miles driven (at least in my truck it does)

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