a thought on making 12v last longer

[d15b7]

I’m the owner of a ‘22 R1T with about 55k miles on it. Still on the original pair of batteries but I suspect sometime soon it’ll need a new set (from everything I’ve read). I keep my Gear Guard and proximity unlock turned off at home in an effort to ease the load on my 12v batteries (so far it seems to have helped).

here is what I’ve been thinking that maybe Rivian could do in an OTA update to help keep the 12v batteries healthy as long as possible (stay with me now) - once every week or two or maybe even once a month, I wonder if they could pulse charge the 12v batteries at night to ‘desulfate’ them and keep them healthy? Reason I mention this (I’m no 12v battery expert!) is that I own a fairly nice Schumacher battery charger and I’ve used it a bunch of times to revive the 12v batteries on some of my other equipment and collector cars; it’s got all sorts of settings on it and one of them is for ‘desulphating’ and when it’s in the process of desulphating the plates it charges in a different manner (by pulsing the voltage I believe?). It definitely works and often can revive a failing battery for years to come.

my question for Rivian would be: if you can do some sort of desulphating pulse charging every once in a while and rejuvenate the 12v batteries - maybe they could live for 5+ years or so?? IDK if a software update could implement something like that, but it seems within the realm of possibility to me? What do you guys think?

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[SilentD]

Wow seems like a very interesting idea.

Who makes your fancy ‘desulphating’ charger? I have a battery tender from Costco for like $50 that works well but nothing like what you’re talking about

 

[d15b7]

Wow seems like a very interesting idea.

Who makes your fancy ‘desulphating’ charger? I have a battery tender from Costco for like $50 that works well but nothing like what you’re talking about

the one I really like is made by Schumacher. I also have a Noco Genius 10 that can repair/desulfate but I feel that the Schumacher works better and has brought back/revived some of my old lead acid batteries

 

[dradam]

Interesting Idea. I know that others had added a trickle charger to the 12v through the OBD or directly to diminish the time that the batttery cycles. I wonder if they could desulphate as well with the battery installed.

 

[Zoidz]

Probably not? From what I understand, desulphating sends high frequency higher voltage pulses that electrically vibrate the crystals, causing them to shatter. I doubt Rvian has this capability built into the 12 VDC charging hardware.

 

[Time2Roll]

I thought Rivian had updated the charging profile. These batteries just need to get fully charged or capacity is incrementally lost every day. I understand the desulfation on a SLA battery is a bit hard on it also. Does seem like less issues lately of stranded vehicles due to 12v.

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