New driving mode needed, hint not conserve, but it conserves___________?

[Greg Chick]

When in Conserve setting the tires are spent to conserve mileage. How about a tire conserve mode? This is a significant issue. Front tire wear is from 6,000K miles, to 50K miles to the point that requires you to replace the tires.
The regen can cause tire wear, the Conserve mode using only front weel drive consumes front tires. As one guy posted, New EV drivers get Torque happy and go Torquing around and that wears out tires. Also lower vehicle height causes tire wear as does higher vehicle height wear out the tires. The alignment is set to standard height, anything else can wear out tread. When tires can be $500 each, this can get expensive, so I ask Rivian to make a new driving mode, "Conserve tires". As well place a warning on the existing Conserve mode that it can wear out the tires.

This is like "Robbing tires to pay driving range".

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[Electrified Outdoors]

All purpose is primarily front drive as well. Rear motor is completely locked out in conserve mode but in AP the rear motor turns off above 20 mph. The rear motor will engage again if requested power or low traction dictate...but mostly it's front wheel.

It's a heavy vehicle with tons of torque. Tesla are the same way...they go through tires fast. Best you can do is rotate them regularly.

I'm with you on the cost. Hopefully more options for the 21s will come soon.

 

[brancky3]

When in Conserve setting the tires are spent to conserve mileage. How about a tire conserve mode? This is a significant issue.

“A significant issue” is a significant stretch. Would you also complain about a corvette burning through tires?

 

[usofrob]

They could have an extra low power mode that doesn't supply or return as much torque to keep the wear down.

 

[RabidRat]

All purpose is primarily front drive as well. Rear motor is completely locked out in conserve mode but in AP the rear motor turns off above 20 mph. The rear motor will engage again if requested power or low traction dictate...but mostly it's front wheel.

Wow this is good to know. Do you recall where this info came from so I can get this level of detail on the rest of the drive modes?

 

[supernu8]

All purpose is primarily front drive as well. Rear motor is completely locked out in conserve mode but in AP the rear motor turns off above 20 mph. The rear motor will engage again if requested power or low traction dictate...but mostly it's front wheel.

I don't think it works that way. Conserve is the only mode, as of today, that uses the rear drive disconnect clutches on the Quad-motor.
What you described is the new dual motor configuration. They removed conserve mode and blended it into all-purpose. I assume front tire wear will be much more pronounced on the dual motor configs coming out.

You can see the rear motor output in this video for reference.
https://stories.rivian.com/drive-modes

 

[brancky3]

They could have an extra low power mode that doesn't supply or return as much torque to keep the wear down.

Why though? Wouldn't the same be accomplished with the driver's right foot? Seems like unnecessary complications

 

[Dark-Fx]

All purpose is primarily front drive as well. Rear motor is completely locked out in conserve mode but in AP the rear motor turns off above 20 mph. The rear motor will engage again if requested power or low traction dictate...but mostly it's front wheel.

There's no advantage to this because of the design of the motors. It takes energy to freewheel them, you may as well use them.

It's also not true.
https://stories.rivian.com/drive-modes

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Don't drive in conserve unless you're on the freeway. That's what conserve mode is for. Don't drive in conserve if towing either.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

Wow this is good to know. Do you recall where this info came from so I can get this level of detail on the rest of the drive modes?

Of course I can't tell you exactly how it works....however I have had folks at service tell me the quad in AP is biased to the front motors but its always monitoring and will redistribute torque based on power and traction. It's more efficient to use the front motors which is why conserve locks out the rears totally. Of course without a scan tool and inside engineering info I can't tell you exactly how it works and under what conditions.

AP tries to give you some of the efficiency of conserve while still making power and traction available as needed.

The part about disconnect and above 20mph pertains to the new dual motor units but they may do something similar with quad motor as well since more power is needed at low speeds.

Many EV maker will do similar things to gain efficiency. Tesla and Hyundai are both good examples.

RJ was talking about how difficult it was for engineering to make it seamless so the occupants didn't realize the motors were being engaged/disengaged.

They start discussing around 14:20 of the below video.

 

[shap]

“A significant issue” is a significant stretch. Would you also complain about a corvette burning through tires?

I think the difference here is implementation. I have air suspension on my 45e, and on the highway, it automatically lowers the suspension. But I did not see any tire wear impact. I never rotated tires - they just did 36K and then I changed it. btw, 45e is a heavy car as well due to an additional 24 kW battery (5.5k lb).

Somehow BMW knew how to make geometry right, so it will be fine with any height.
In R1T they seem to cut the corners, and conserve mode just creates more problems than it solves.

 

[ElGuapo]

I don’t think it is any worse than my X, especially with my three seasons on it. Same with my old M3 - that thing ate tires. It’s just part of owning a car like this.

Don’t want all that torque but love EV and the planet, there’s a Nissan Leaf option.

 

[Zoidz]

There's no advantage to this because of the design of the motors. It takes energy to freewheel them, you may as well use them.

It's also not true.
https://stories.rivian.com/drive-modes

Yeah, these are permanent magnet motors, so there is always going to be drag caused by the permanent magnetic field when the stator is not energized. That results in the front doing MORE work, to drag along the rear motors acting as generators. They could reduce input electricity to the rears in All Purpose, but it makes no sense to power them down outside of Conserve.

Oh Wait.... they could feed that electrical energy from the rear drag back into the battery and get perpetual motion, right????

 

[Dark-Fx]

Many EV maker will do similar things to gain efficiency. Tesla and Hyundai are both good examples.

Most EV manufactures have two different types of motors when they have dual motors. PMAC motors that the Quad motor Rivian has on every corner take energy to even rotate them without producing output torque. Tesla actually uses AC Induction motors up front so they don't have this disadvantage, and then only send power to the PMAC rear motors when the output demands are low.

PMAC are more efficient when being used but they can't freewheel like AC Induction motors do.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

There's no advantage to this because of the design of the motors. It takes energy to freewheel them, you may as well use them.

It's also not true.
https://stories.rivian.com/drive-modes

There's no advantage to this because of the design of the motors. It takes energy to freewheel them, you may as well use them.

It's also not true.
https://stories.rivian.com/drive-modes

That part is correct for dual motor performance per RJ. On the quad motor I can only go by what service has told me more than once. That is that it's biased to the front motors in AP but will still use the others as needed. It also seems to make sense to me.

My intent on bringing this up was simply to say that trying to avoid tire wear is likely futile with these trucks.

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