Portable battery to charge Rivian off-grid? Jackery 3000 pro

[RivianXpress]

Wondering if this could serve as an emergency backup unit if you were going off grid camping in your R1. Using the solar panels would also help if you camped for multiple days in the sunshine?

How fast (slow) would it charge?

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[jjswan33]

So 25A max output at 120V so max charge rate of 3kW and total capacity of 3kWh. So you'd charge for 1 hour and add ~6 miles of range. You'd be better off with a gas/propane generator in my opinion.

 

[RivianXpress]

So 25A max output at 120V so max charge rate of 3kW and total capacity of 3kWh. So you'd charge for 1 hour and add ~6 miles of range. You'd be better off with a gas/propane generator in my opinion.

Thanks - you'd have to carry gas or diesel fuel as well with a generator ... hmmm

 

[jjswan33]

Thanks - you'd have to carry gas or diesel fuel as well with a generator ... hmmm

As an alternative to fuel you could get two Ecoflow Delta Pros and a double voltage hub to get 240V but you'd still only be able to get ~15 miles of range would be expensive and heavy and take a long time to recharge. Or if you want more backup get a bunch of extra batteries but this type of setup is going to take a lot of room too and each battery weighs ~100lbs

https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-pro-double-voltage-hub?variant=40358069403721

It sucks to use old school fuel but it's also very easy to get.

 

[kylealden]

Carrying extra batteries is never going to be a good tradeoff as a range extender. They're huge, heavy, slow, and will only add single-digit miles (and less than you think, after losses). I'd bet the above Jackery is probably closer to 4 miles than 6 in practice. For four thousand dollars!

For that money you can just hire out a friend to tow you to an EA station every time you run out of batteries for the rest of your life.

I'll just snip my last post on this topic:

I feel like threads like this are always worth a reminder that fossil fuels are radically better from an energy density point of view than any battery, even despite the intrinsic inefficiency (thermal loss etc.).

I love my EVs and it's easy to want to electrify everything, but for an occasional use range extender it's simply the wrong choice. Batteries are huge, heavy, and have high manufacturing overhead (environmentally speaking).

The tradeoffs are worth it over the lifecycle of an EV, but the marginal utility of a range extender (only a radical minority of miles driven) and the tradeoffs (carrying weight or worse, a trailer that will radically decrease range, at exorbitant cost) mean a generator is simply a better idea, both practically and environmentally speaking.

I'd love to see cleaner generator options (fuel cells/hydrogen/magic), or even a modular hybrid solution (drop a clean generator in the frunk/bed and charge while driving), but for vehicles on the road today, if you truly want to push it off grid, just get an appropriately rated generator and gasoline/diesel. There's really no point getting more exotic than that, and probably won't be for years to come.

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