Any Battery Degradation in your Rivian yet?

[LL75]

Guessometer doesn't tell you actual kWh battery capacity, so we don't know on our side without getting into the system and reading data. Only Rivian can do that right now. Right?

If you want an accurate number, Rivian has to remotely get in the system. Tesla does this to my model 3 a few times before

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[Blakeney]

Yes I was told

 

[LL75]

Yes I was told

so, what did they say? typical answer? "within spec?"

 

[LevelHeaded]

so, what did they say? typical answer? "within spec?"

Some amount of degradation is absolutely within spec. It's a consumable component; literally no way to engineer it not to degrade. In addition, currently-used chemistries are such that the first year typically has the most rapid rate of degradation.

 

[rkalbiar]

Next month will be one year for my R1T, I am super shocked that I have no perceivable battery degradation yet!
My Tesla's definitely showed degradation within the first year.

 

[Andystroh]

I asked Rivian chat at about 10 months of ownership, they said no measurable drain in HV battery and my 12v were at 90% capacity.

 

[hayduke]

Scanned this thread quickly but didn't see any mention of power/regen loss. Batteries degrade in energy storage capacity but also power delivery and absorbtion.

I am not sure if there is anything particularly wrong with my truck (14 months old, 16k miles) but over the last month or two I've noticed that I am not able to regen nearly as much as I used to. Unlike complicated range tests that are difficult to repeat, I live in a very hilly area and routinely travel up and down 1000s of feet on shorter, routine drives. I've always been impressed on how I can drop down a steep mountain pass and never touch the brake while ICE cars need to downshift and pump the brakes.

Given that the weather here this time of year is fairly constant and mild, and I typically charge to the same amount (70%) I thought the fact that I now need to use the brakes significantly toward the bottom of long hill descents (but didn't used to) was somewhat telling. The audible "ding" of regen being reduced now happens earlier, more severely (in terms of the bar shown on the dash) and often than it used to.

Based on what I know about batteries, I might have assumed that if I happened to be at a low state of charge, regen ability might be more available (we all experience how it is reduced at high state of charge). At least anecdotally, I haven't noticed this. The other day I left home with ~60% state of charge and within just a mile or two on a downhill but not a steep one regen got limited fairly noticeably.

Intuitively it just seems very strange, since even under heavy regen the battery is getting charged at a rate slower than a DCFC, so I'm wondering why I get limited so much.

Of course this could be the result of a software update but if there is some issue it seems like it would be difficult to go to a service center and say either way something is wrong or not, and if so, by how much and if that is covered by the warranty. I guess there is no regen degradation clause in the warranty.

Anyone else experience this? Realizing I might be a corner case with so much vertical driving in my daily routine.

 

[itselectric]

Owners think battery degradation is more perceptible than it is. The only way you could ever really tell within the first 50,000 miles or so is if you had some type of issue or if you had the data directly pulled and confirmed.

Trying to measure it is next to impossible with factors like weather, speed or using the guessometer which, as its name states, can't give you the exact numbers required to calculate anything.

Unless Rivian's BMS is complete garbage, I would find it very unlikely anyone has more than 3-4% loss in usable battery. When you are talking about 300 miles of range, that's 10 miles which will easily be added or subtracted to daily driving habits without noticing what is happening.

In my opinion the only real takeaway from this thread can be that it seems like Rivian's BMS is doing its job and owners aren't noticing crazy losses in range or battery capacity so far.

Side note- that Recurrent company has a good business idea and something that hasn't really been thought through. When some of these vehicles hit 80 - 100k miles over then next 5-7 years and are sold as used, how will range and vehicle capabilities be represented? Will buyers know what they are really getting? It's not full battery capacity.

Interesting shifts will be coming to the used car market in the future.

 

[ironpig]

I had a 2014 Tesla Model S. When we traded it in 2022, it had about 10% battery degradation - according to the stated range. Which seemed fairly accurate given my driving habits and getting to know the car over 8 years.

But there is no way to really know unless you have access to diagnostic tools. Tesla is/was notorious for tweaking software to modify range estimates over the years.

But day to day over 8 years I didn't notice a significant change enough to sway me from buying EVs or cause me to worry about degradation when I bought my Rivian. And I would hope battery tech has improved a little bit since 2014.

 

[SparkyR1t]

Similar here my model y is almost 4 years old and minimally noticeable battery range decrease. I believe we are learning the Lithium Ion battery’s are pretty solid and will typically last well beyond the 8 year warranty. Forgot to mention no noticeable issue with traction battery range decrease on my R1t which is now a year and a half old and I would not expect any.

As I have been driving EV’s since 2015 I really have zero concerns for the traction battery. Now the cost of a head light or tail light assembly after the warranty runs out, that concerns me!!!

 

[scottf200]

Any of you folks on TeslaFI for Rivian (aka https://electrafi.com/) and can post a picture like the above that shows the 'fleet' average (green line) for your Rivians?

 

[R1TS]

I asked Rivian chat at about 10 months of ownership, they said no measurable drain in HV battery and my 12v were at 90% capacity.

Happy that you’re happy. But, doesn’t quite make sense that there is no measurable change in capacity after almost a year.

I have literally never heard of an EV without any degradation in one year. Every single consumer battery degrades after that much time.

These aren’t magical batteries that Rivian uses. It’s the same battery that Samsung supplies to other makers. And, given how inefficient the Rivian is, with its higher than average phantom drain, I don’t see how Rivian can be saying to everyone here (it seems) that there is no measurable change.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I have had R1T for 14 months with 19078 miles, AT wheel package, daily commute mostly in conserve mode, have done several long trips were it has been charged to 100% during those trips, regular charging 70% and charge everyday roughly about 18kw a day, we have camped several time consuming the battery with electric appliances (fridge, grill, coffee pot, toaster), been off-roading several time. Desert runs in summer and freezing temps in Tahoe.

I have not noticed any degradation with the truck as of yet. With the software update adding miles its harder to tell but I cant see any degradation I still get 2.21 miles per Kw on average.

I don't drive it rough with quick starts (this has also saved my tires, I see so many post about tread wear with 10k or less miles A assume they stomp on it every chance they get) Although I have raced it up the mountain roads a few times and the handling is amazing considering the size and weight of the truck.

I think year 2 and 3 will have more visibility on degradation. I'm hoping their battery management system minimizes this impact.

You also have the 20" tires which have more tread to start with. Most of the people complaining have the 21's which, if my experience is anything to go by, are garbage. I remember when the tires were new they looked almost bald as they didn't have very good tread depth.

For a reference point I have the 21's and need tire replacement at 16k miles. They are trash and I'm switching rims because of it. The extra range doesn't matter at all when the tires are melting off at an insane rate.

 

[Prime]

I was watching the Electrified YouTube channel last weeks episode. They went over DC fast charging vs home charging reviewed a few hundred fleet vehicles vs surveyed home vehicles and there was zero difference in long term (I think post 50k miles) battery degradation between frequent DC fast charging vs home charging. As someone else pointed out new thermal management for these vehicles prevents issues when fast charging.

Also even when charging to 100% all these vehicles have buffers of at least 5-10kw that is not getting charged. So you’re never actually charging the whole battery to 100% so shouldn’t be such a fear to do so when needed. I think the bigger issue would be frequently taking the battery below 5%.

 

[240vPlug]

I was watching the Electrified YouTube channel last weeks episode. They went over DC fast charging vs home charging reviewed a few hundred fleet vehicles vs surveyed home vehicles and there was zero difference in long term (I think post 50k miles) battery degradation between frequent DC fast charging vs home charging. As someone else pointed out new thermal management for these vehicles prevents issues when fast charging.

Also even when charging to 100% all these vehicles have buffers of at least 5-10kw that is not getting charged. So you’re never actually charging the whole battery to 100% so shouldn’t be such a fear to do so when needed. I think the bigger issue would be frequently taking the battery below 5%.

I have seen the same tests done with Bolt EV and Tesla. Not much measurable difference. A lot of thr degradation happens in the first 1-2 years. On both i saw reports .,. Which varied of course of between 5-8%. Some folks complained of slightly higher 10-12% but not too many of those that i saw.

When you buy an EV ... at least one that uses an NCM battery you should expect at least 5-7% in the first two years. That's been my experience with several past EVs.

After the first 1-2 years degradation seems to taper off. Its no reason to panic and again degradation is not something worth losing sleep over.

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