Rivian advised me to not use my Tesla wall charger

[Dark-Fx]

Agree. Buzzing is not in and of itself indicative of a problem.

Call me skeptical, but did either of these "experts" do the proper troubleshooting by attaching a clamp-on ammeter to see what the current load actually is in each of these scenarios? Amperage data is far more informative than buzzing....

Best to check both positive and neutral wires as well for 120V circuits (or in the case of a 240V EVSE, the other hot leg). Current should be identical. Anything else indicates you have power going to ground or mixed neutrals/circuits somewhere. Other 240V devices that might use the neutral make that measurement a little more difficult though.

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[DrBluey]

I have both a Rivian wall charger and a Tesla V3 connected to separate 60amps circuits. Lately the Rivian has been giving me the warning of the plug too warm so it slows me down from 11.1kw to 7.4 within 10 minutes. I read in another post to tighten the wire screws. When I did that, it brought me down to 7.3kw. R1S charges at 11.1 with the Tesla charger the whole time without a warning. I wonder if something is going on with the Rivian chargers. Anyone else have this issue? Again, Tesla charger works just fine with Rivian.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

First, I'm sorry your having this experience. This is an extremely frustrating and anxiety provoking situation for anyone.

I agree Rivian is just looking for a way out. It sounds like it's an electrical problem with your home and Rivian doesn't know what to do.

I have two Tesla chargers and two Rivians. You sometimes hear a buzz from the breaker and that's not abnormal....usually.

The NEMA 14-50 outlets can melt...which is why I recommend hard wired installs. If you must do a 14-50 get a high end industrial grade receptacle like the Hubbell.

Was the work permitted and inspected? It sounds to me like the job wasn't done correctly and you need to get an experienced electrician in there that knows what she/he is doing. Permitting and inspection protects you and it also gets a 2nd set of eyes on the electricians work to keep them honest.

 

[derekmw]

100% legal cover their ass

The rest of us can just keep on keeping on.

Totally, so many of us charge with Tesla wall chargers and do not have this issue. I charged mine with our Tesla wall charger for almost 2 years until we sold the vehicle.

This sounds like they can't figure out what the issue is - either something on the vehicle, or something at your house, and easier to just make that statement and hope you don't have another melt down. lol

 

[lefkonj]

The melting of breakers would have me concerned. If they look at the wire while it is charging are their temperature issues that could cause this? Something just seems off from what you described. I don't use the Rivian charger, ever. Been 18 months no problems.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Hey all,

Just got off the phone with Rivian Service and was advised that Tesla wall chargers are not “approved” systems to charge my R1T with and reminded me that “Rivian is only advising you to not use the wall charger…it’s up to you to use it.”

I then asked Rivian what are the wall chargers that Rivian “approves” (aside from theirs) and is this information available publicly.

This is the first I’ve heard this statement from Rivian and wondered if anyone else has seen or heard of this.

It's just the standard broad-stroke corporate legal position, one that you would find from just about any company—to limit their legal liability and protect their business. It's not equipment they've designed to work with their cars. They can't and don't want to say, "it's totally fine". Should anything bad happen, it's not a scenario they would be willing cover with their warranty. That doesn't mean it's not going to work. Just like warnings against use of unapproved Supercharger adapters, legal positions aren't that hard to understand? You just have to put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself what you would do to give yourself (and your business) the most amount of legal cover?

 

[NeedSumCoffee]

It’s not a general feedback for Rivian owners, it’s a CYA statement for your personal situation that they don’t know how to resolve.

 

[adam12]

Will write my 2 cents. Full disclosure I am not an electrician. I wanted to do my own install and did a fair amount of reading/ viewing YouTube. Spouse vetoed my doing it myself. First electrician wired off an internal sub panel with a 40 A breaker. The buzzing and heating was obvious while in use. A new consult led to a reinstall off the main panel with an appropriate rated 50 a circuit. There was some thermal degradation of the plug and due to placement I re-intstalled the setup in another location in the garage with a Hubbell industrial grade plug. I have a Siemens Level 2 charger. So long story for my opinion--- If there is obvious incompatibility you should note something ( thermal degradation, Obvious heating of the circuit. or buzzing.)

 

[Florida Panhandler]

I hardwire my Lv2 chargers only for a reason. just for piece of mind, I eliminate the NEMA plugs entirely. These seem to be the main cause of so many issues. Too much risk.

 

[RivAW]

Hey all,

Just got off the phone with Rivian Service and was advised that Tesla wall chargers are not “approved” systems to charge my R1T with and reminded me that “Rivian is only advising you to not use the wall charger…it’s up to you to use it.”

I then asked Rivian what are the wall chargers that Rivian “approves” (aside from theirs) and is this information available publicly.

This is the first I’ve heard this statement from Rivian and wondered if anyone else has seen or heard of this.

One of the big problems Rivian has that concerns me for its future is that Rivian Service advisors seem to just make up things or make statements that are simply untrue or nonsensical. This was also previously true of many of the "Guides" which was a good idea, but ended up being a simple waste of resources.. There is a lot of misinformation that purportedly comes directly from service advisors who make statements that are simply not correct.

 

[Grabs10]

The one of the main reasons I went with a couple gen 3 Teslas wall chargers in my diy install was that the Tesla chargers accepted #4 copper on the wall charger terminals. Was not willing to have a charger that could only accept #6 and still pull 48 amps of constant load. Don’t like that loading on such a small wire. Plus the threads on here on having to get a hold of Rivian to reset things like the “dip” switch and the issues people were having was a bit of a turn off on the Rivian charger.

If the audible buzzing I don’t think that is right. Buzzing breakers sounds like a fire hazard.

 

[Riv E In]

I don’t know much but what I have learned is:

Audible Buzzing is not good.
Heat is bad.
Melting is very bad.

Don’t burn your house down.

 

[R1Tally]

Agree. Buzzing is not in and of itself indicative of a problem.

Call me skeptical, but did either of these "experts" do the proper troubleshooting by attaching a clamp-on ammeter to see what the current load actually is in each of these scenarios? Amperage data is far more informative than buzzing....

I'd suggest connecting a clamp on ammeter to an oscilloscope and see if the waveform looks like a sine wave or if there are some weird harmonics causing the problems that have been observed. My thought is that something is possibly wrong with this particular Rivian's onboard charging circuitry.

 

[R1Tally]

I'd suggest connecting a clamp on ammeter to an oscilloscope and see if the waveform looks like a sine wave or if there are some weird harmonics causing the problems that have been observed. My thought is that something is possibly wrong with this particular Rivian's onboard charging circuitry.

I'd suggest using a Fluke i410 Current Clamp or equivalent which has an output of 1 mV/A.

To me, all indications point to a problem with the vehicle. I'd love to learn what you find.

 

[ChuckL]

I have both a Rivian wall charger and a Tesla V3 connected to separate 60amps circuits. Lately the Rivian has been giving me the warning of the plug too warm so it slows me down from 11.1kw to 7.4 within 10 minutes. I read in another post to tighten the wire screws. When I did that, it brought me down to 7.3kw. R1S charges at 11.1 with the Tesla charger the whole time without a warning. I wonder if something is going on with the Rivian chargers. Anyone else have this issue? Again, Tesla charger works just fine with Rivian.

I’ve seen this with both of my Tesla wall chargers this summer when my garage is hot. Even when my charging starts at 10 pm the garage is frequently ~ 97 degrees. Texas in the summer….
My Tesla never had this problem.

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