Out of Spec: R1T Charging Curve, Cost and Analysis

[Davethadog]

Similarly capable can mean many different things. My 13 year old truck is 22¢ a mile based on today’s gasoline price. The ICE F150 I’d replace it with would be 17.6¢ a mile, and have a 6.5’ bed. For my needs that’s more capable and cheaper ?

The Raptor gets 18mpg highway, so that’s 25¢ a mile at $4.49 and 19¢ at a more reasonable $3.49/gallon. Not sure where 70¢ is coming from.

You’re right. I wrote that when I was at the gym…. Should have just left the phone in the locker.

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[Rhidan]

The R1T’s lack of any pre-conditioning is boggling. Back in the day Rivian always talked about how good their thermal management was, and how cooling axially with the cooling plate was superior to Tesla. Theoretically they could add pre-conditioning as an OTA update. But Kyle really had to play with the truck to get the optimal curve because it was either too hot or too cold.

 

[AllInev]

Wow, $.10/kWh…

*cries into $.18/kWh electric bill*

Wow, $.18/kWh…

*cries into $.31/kWh electric bill*

 

[SeaGeo]

Very informative video, as usual. Seageo will be happy!

Thrilled to see his analysis. Still super annoyed by how absurdly touchy it is. A battery charging at a peak rate of barely 1.5C should not be anywhere near that temperature sensitive.

New to EV’s here. So… does this mean the charging speeds will be even lower if it’s 110 degrees out here in AZ? How much can I expect to lose?

Actually, probably not. That's closer to the ideal charging temp than being in the 40s. The A/C should cool it off once they get their thermal management figured out.

The R1T’s lack of any pre-conditioning is boggling. Back in the day Rivian always talked about how good their thermal management was, and how cooling axially with the cooling plate was superior to Tesla. Theoretically they could add pre-conditioning as an OTA update. But Kyle really had to play with the truck to get the optimal curve because it was either too hot or too cold.

Yeah. That's pretty absurd that it took him that much to figure it out. This isn't an Ioniq 5 cranking out like 3C for a huge chunk of the pack.

They absolutely could and should add preconditioning. Even if it's just a manual button. Even without it, I'm rather confused by the trucks seemingly nearly total inability to predict and manage the temperature during charging. What have they been doing with all of their real world testing these last two years?

I a little surprised they are only requesting 450 amps. Going to 500 amps would ne a nice little addition , and they should have some room to push the curve up a bit further in the upper half of the pack, but most importantly they need to get the curve to be rock solid and easily repeatable.

 

[Scott]

For me, I will charge at home 98% of the time, so none of this is a deal breaker to me. That said, my take aways are:
1. Theoretical curve looks fine-to-good.
2. Current thermal management / lack of pre-conditioning is not what it should be.
3. If I had to predict, I would guess within 6 months, the problems with lack of preconditioning and thermals will be much improved via OTA updates and that theoretical curve will become pretty close to reality (but I wouldn't buy the car if I NEEDED that to happen for it to be a useful car)
4. To me the bigger problem is how few charging stations will provide the needed amps. I was surprised @OutofSpecKyle downplayed the value of an 800v architecture because of this. In theory an 800v car wouldn't need to find a charger that would provide the higher amperage. (Although my knowledge is slim here, and it is possible those chargers won't dish out the 800v's either.). Given the state of current charging stations, much of the curve will just flatten out to 150-160KW most of the time in the real world and you will very rarely see the 160-200 range

Other less likely future improvements
- It is possible, but not as likely as #3, that they could move the curve up a bit by requesting more amps, however, since so few stations seem to provide more it won't make a big real world difference.
- it is possible, and somewhat likely that they become a bit less aggressive with the 55-70 % taper and we see charging speed in that range improve over time
- Even less likely, but possible, is, if they are only letting 125 of 135 KWh's be used now, that we see 2 or 3 more usable KWh's be made usable in future software updates, thus increasing the range by up to 7ish miles


Overall Kyle seemed totally happy with the car as a road tripper when you combine the range with the current charging curve, and didn't seem frightened off by these initial issues. That in and of itself is reassuring. For my use case I am feeling better about avoiding the oddball 21 in tire size and switching to the 20in ATs. My only real gripes based on all the review so far are:
- lack of apple music integration (although it sounds like Alexa will be able to handle it at some point, but that won't be as good as carplay or the onboard spotify UI)
- lack of good SMS integration
- and the biggest one, lack of basic lane centering on non-mapped roads.

Everything else is checking out pretty well for me so far from these reviews.

 

[Riviot]

I'm fine with this. It's possible to drive 400 miles (450 theoretically) with only one 20 minute stop. I would stop once for at least 20 minutes anyway when driving that far. Only about once a year do I drive more than 350 miles in a day that would require multiple charge stops.

On our last regular 550 mile/9 hour road trip from Seattle area to Western Montana, we stayed overnight in Spokane for the first time. Between leaving at 11am with no traffic, and just feeling way better the second day, there's no going back to single day long drives.

3) $60 to DCFC is no joke!

Solidifies my choice to stay overnight at a few hotels and campgrounds I've scouted who provide free Level 2 charging or 220v hookups. Free juice is another reason to stay overnight!

 

[Riviot]

Not sure where 70¢ is coming from.

Was he thinking Total Cost of Ownership / mile?

You’re right. I wrote that when I was at the gym…. Should have just left the phone in the locker.

 

[Jabbahop]

What this charging curve info says to me is that either the DC version of the Adventure Network or a ton of very remote destination chargers will be critical for those of us that want to go off the beaten path away from highways and walmarts. Here is the plugshare map of southern Utah with the incredible national parks, monuments, BLM land, and forest service land. All of the chargers in the eastern areas (canyon lands, arches, escalante, etc.) are 125kw max chargers.

 

[Boudro]

Great video. I missed it or is some where else. What theoretically are we looking at charge times say 5% to 60% on the faster or more common 350kw EA chargers. Just rough times.

 

[kanundrum]

I a little surprised they are only requesting 450 amps. Going to 500 amps would ne a nice little addition , and they should have some room to push the curve up a bit further in the upper half of the pack, but most importantly they need to get the curve to be rock solid and easily repeatable.

Iirc they can charge at 500amps as they mentioned I. Their winter testing Video at super cold temps so not really sure what their deal is. I guess conservative mode for now as time goes on.

 

[hroussel]

Thrilled to see his analysis. Still super annoyed by how absurdly touchy it is. A battery charging at a peak rate of barely 1.5C should not be anywhere near that temperature sensitive.

...

Yeah. That's pretty absurd that it took him that much to figure it out. This isn't an Ioniq 5 cranking out like 3C for a huge chunk of the pack.

They absolutely could and should add preconditioning. Even if it's just a manual button. Even without it, I'm rather confused by the trucks seemingly nearly total inability to predict and manage the temperature during charging. What have they been doing with all of their real world testing these last two years?

...

Now the million dollar question I'm afraid to ask: is this a hardware limitation, or a software limitation? I certainly hope it can be fixed with OTA update.

 

[MountainBikeDude]

One big positive I took away from this was the charge time estimate for 0-100% of an hour and 22 minutes when the charging session started was decently accurate and I appreciated that it wasn't based on its current power draw, but the packs ability to charge to that capacity.

It did end up taking an extra 10-15 minutes to hit 100% but it was good to know if I plug it in, check the time to charge and walk away, in all likelihood it will be at capacity when I return to it after that given time period.

Also... The inability to hit full production targets could benefit those of us Max pack holders, as it will likely delay its production to the point where the 800V architecture is incorporated. I also think given the added costs of the battery and its size, it would be a nice inclusion.

 

[Autolycus]

It's Saturday, and my brain is toast, so can anybody help me with my math: If I'm on a road trip and I need to charge at EA stations in GA, TN, NC, and SC, and assuming "ideal" charging conditions, it looks like charging times and cost for a 10-60% charging session would be approximately:

10-60% SOC = 50% of usable SOC delivered to battery, which seems to be ~124kWh/2 = ~62kWh delivered to battery. That should add about ~136 miles of range at hwy speeds, based on 2.2miles/kWh that we’re seeing as a rough approximation.

With transmission/efficiency losses, that's probably about 69kWh from the charging station.

Looks like the "ideal" curve should easily deliver an average of 180kW-185kW over that SOC range, if not higher. That should give about a 23 minute charging session.

NC, SC EA stations are billed by the kWh. For Pass+ members the rate is $0.31/kWh:
69kWh x $0.31/kWh = $21.39

GA and TN EA stations are billed by the minute. For Pass+ members the rate is >90kW EVs, the rate is $0.24/minute:
23 min x $0.24/minute = $5.52

Is that right?! Will the cost really be that much cheaper in GA and SC (assume charging in that sweet spot range and actually being able to pull 180+kWh.)

 

[Lobstahz]

What have they been doing with all of their real world testing these last two years?

I also expected them to have ironed this out better with what I perceived on the outside to be extensive real world testing for the past couple of years. Trying to make sense of this new information, and honestly doing a bit of rationalizing, I'm thinking they were dialing in things that cannot be very well modified later, like Noise Vibrations and Harshness (NHVs). Every review has glowed about how nice the ride is, and no one has mentioned a suspension or drive mode that has not worked just as desired/described.

Prioritization-wise of what to use their limited testing resources on, I can see that being a logical decision. I'm not sure how you'd be able to tune ride comfort, etc post-launch as you'd need ride data that I don't expect the truck to provide. Whereas charging provides a lot of reliable data to the truck and back to the mothership, making it a much better candidate to do later post-launch. I can see the logic that they're leaning into OTA updates for optimizations to the charging curve. Customer deliveries will provide a much bigger data set than they could have every hoped to gather themselves, even further pushing this tuning into a "better post-launch" category.

I also think Rivian is being very conservative with their initial DCFC charging curve, particularly higher than 150kW. 150kW chargers (particularly at 400v) are more far more plentiful than 150kW+ and I could see decisions made to optimize for the most likely cases first for DCFC, which would be 150kW and come back to optimize for 150+ later. Also keep in mind that Rivian has the best, highest mileage AKA most battery cycles, warranty currently out there, and I imagine that is strongly factored into their curves. They don't want to be doing battery replacements at year 6 and 160k mi if they could have played it safe at the start.

As discussed many times, their warranty beats Tesla, the current standard-bearer and easily tops Audi who doesnt even list a remaining capacity target.

Rivian Battery Warranty: 70% or more of the battery capacity for 8 years or 175,000 miles
Tesla Battery Warranty: 70% or more of the battery capacity 8 years or 120,000 miles
Audi Battery Warranty: 8 year/100K miles (whichever occurs first) high-voltage battery limited warranty coverage on MY21 Audi e-tron vehicles. Battery capacity decreases with time and use. Warranty coverage may not return battery capacity to an “as new” condition with 100% net capacity. See owner’s literature or dealer for limited warranty details. (I couldn't find more details in a quick Google search)

tl;dr - I fully expect them to adjust this with OTA updates and this will be a non-issue in less than 12 months.

 

[SASSquatch]

I'm fine with this. It's possible to drive 400 miles (450 theoretically) with only one 20 minute stop. I would stop once for at least 20 minutes anyway when driving that far. Only about once a year do I drive more than 350 miles in a day that would require multiple charge stops. I believe Rivian will improve their battery preconditioning so that charging will be able to stay between 170kw -200 kw up to 57%. They may also allow a bit more KW on the taper between 57%- 80%.
I think Kyle statement of "not industry leading but still pretty good" summed it up well. After all it's just not feasible to be the best at everything.

More importantly, there is room for growth here. I don't expect RIVIAN to have industry leading charging curves in the first few months of releasing their first production vehicle. They need data on pack performance which they will be getting from all of their employee owners and I suspect non-employee owners.

A lot of what Kyle was pining for can (and likely will) be improved upon with OTAs. If we come back here in 6 months I am willing to wager we will have much improved curves.

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