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Rhidan

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Do you have any more info you can share on this? I've got my electrician coming in the next couple weeks to install a 60A 14/50 outlet in my garage, so that I can take advantage of the federal tax incentive. But if it makes more sense to wait for the Xcel rebate, then I would do that instead.
I've been trying to follow the Xcel plan, but its not absolutely clear to me if they have approval to go forward with their plan or not. Here is a recent article about a hearing they had before the Colorado PUC. From the Xcel website, I spent some time reading their actual plan. It looks like they plan to offer a $500 rebate for the install of a Level 2 charger (50 amps or less) if you also enroll in an off-peak charging program. People who already have a level 2 charger can also get a $200 rebate if they also enroll in an off-peak charging program. There is also an option to have Xcel install a charger for you at their cost, and then you pay a monthly fee for the equipment. Again, I've had trouble figuring out if the plan is going forward in 2021, or if they still need further state approval.


I'm hoping for more details on this as well. Given how many test mules I see along I-70, I'm actually surprised that I've not yet spotted a Rivian running tests. I'm back and forth between Breck and Denver frequently. It's 81 miles door-to-door, so I'm fairly confident I can make the round-trip without any concerns, but I'd like to know that for sure.
Yea, the round trip mileage doesn't have me worried. I'm more curious about the real life driving conditions. What happens when you're stuck for an extra hour in I-70 ski traffic with cold weather? Maybe I'm too old for the free parking lots, but I also wonder what happens to the battery charge if you leave a Rivian parked in the cold weather at the ski resort all day.
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cohall

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You cant get 60 A (48 derated) from a 14-50R (max 50 A, 40 derated). If you are looking for the full 48A (derated) potebtial from the truck's charger you will have to install a hard wired (no outlet) 60A circuit.
And this is exactly why I'm hiring an electrician :)

I think I meant 50A, since I think the plug in version of a charger makes the most sense for my situation, and 40A charging should be plenty fast enough for my needs.
 

cohall

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I've been trying to follow the Xcel plan, but its not absolutely clear to me if they have approval to go forward with their plan or not. Here is a recent article about a hearing they had before the Colorado PUC. From the Xcel website, I spent some time reading their actual plan. It looks like they plan to offer a $500 rebate for the install of a Level 2 charger (50 amps or less) if you also enroll in an off-peak charging program. People who already have a level 2 charger can also get a $200 rebate if they also enroll in an off-peak charging program. There is also an option to have Xcel install a charger for you at their cost, and then you pay a monthly fee for the equipment. Again, I've had trouble figuring out if the plan is going forward in 2021, or if they still need further state approval.
Very helpful. Thanks for sharing!
 

SurlyBurris

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Hi All. Littleton resident with a res since 4/19. I don't know if Xcel has changed the plan, but we looked hard at past bills and usage during peak vs off-hours when we put in the 60A for our model 3 and had a very hard time finding any savings. Granted we are only a 2 person household and It will vary wildly depending on each individual household, but I'd suggest spending the time to do a thorough review.
 

manitou202

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Yea, the round trip mileage doesn't have me worried. I'm more curious about the real life driving conditions. What happens when you're stuck for an extra hour in I-70 ski traffic with cold weather? Maybe I'm too old for the free parking lots, but I also wonder what happens to the battery charge if you leave a Rivian parked in the cold weather at the ski resort all day.
Our E-tron and Model X only lose about 1-3% on a cold day parked outside at the ski resorts. Also sitting in traffic blasting the heat uses about 2000-3000 watts continuously which equals about 2-3 kWh/hr. So for a 135 kWh battery that's about 2%/hr sitting in traffic.
 

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tomis916

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Hi everyone! Another Tom here in Boulder - waiting on a R1T with the large battery pack.

I'm planning on guilt-free mountain bike trips and pulling our @TAB trailer. I'm new to BEVs and it feels like a steep learning curve, but I'm learning by lurking. Also, I've never spent anything close to this amount on a vehicle so I'm still trying to get my head around that.
 

MReda

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I'm in the Springs, and for some reason, I have neglected this thread.

I haven't skied in years, but I take regular mountain biking trips into the mountains (and occasionally just a weekend with the family or friends, but mostly mountain biking). I had created a thread specifically about mountain biking with the R1T, to be updated as more accessories and such emerge, but I am really looking for to this for supporting those trips, not too mention rides on the local trails.
 

photontorque

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Another CO member here.

Our E-tron and Model X only lose about 1-3% on a cold day parked outside at the ski resorts. Also sitting in traffic blasting the heat uses about 2000-3000 watts continuously which equals about 2-3 kWh/hr. So for a 135 kWh battery that's about 2%/hr sitting in traffic.
This is excellent info. I have never owned an EV, and have several questions related to CO effects on EVs:

1. effect of cold on range for driving, and parked outside in the cold for long (>12 hrs) periods. In other threads I've seen discussions about the effect of cold temperatures on batteries, i.e. reducing the effective capacity. I'm wondering about experience in CO specifically -- how have temps affected range while driving? Manitou202's post above addresses aspects of the parked case. Do you happen to remember how long you were parked, and the temperature? I ask in part because a use case for us includes heading to the mountains for a night or few in the winter time, with the car parked outside. Nighttime temps can be single digits or sub-zero. Presumably the vehicle has heaters that keep the battery at some minimum temperature, and that has to be considered when knowing what capacity we need to have when we reach our destination. Given we may not have access to a L2 charger near us, maybe just plugging the Rivian in to a regular outlet provides enough to support the self-heating that occurs at night? Or is all this overkill and EV car batteries are ok with single digit or sub-zero temperatures?

2. effect of climbing, and recovery via regenerative braking. how do mountain climbs affect range performance relative to "normal" driving? And how much does regenerative braking recover the range lost to the inefficiency of the uphill portion?

Grateful for the experience of forum members.
 

Gshenderson

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I did a 1,000 mile round trip in my Tesla (2015 Model S 85D) yesterday from Park City to Livingston, MT and back. Temps were between 12-30 degrees F. I was getting about 2/3rds of the rated range. In other words, if the battery said it had 150 miles of charge, it equated to actually getting 100 miles. I was on interstates doing about 80mph, so some of the difference between rated and actual was that. But doing this trip in warmer weather I would generally only see a reduction of about 20% in rated miles vs. actual. I had the heater on, but set at 65 degrees. No seat heaters. I will say that they trip planner in the car was fairly accurate as predicting the actual power usage based on the environmental conditions and the route I put into the Nav.

I’ve not seen much of any noticeable difference in power consumption between cold and warm temps if the car is sitting idle.
 

manitou202

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Another CO member here.



This is excellent info. I have never owned an EV, and have several questions related to CO effects on EVs:

1. effect of cold on range for driving, and parked outside in the cold for long (>12 hrs) periods. In other threads I've seen discussions about the effect of cold temperatures on batteries, i.e. reducing the effective capacity. I'm wondering about experience in CO specifically -- how have temps affected range while driving? Manitou202's post above addresses aspects of the parked case. Do you happen to remember how long you were parked, and the temperature? I ask in part because a use case for us includes heading to the mountains for a night or few in the winter time, with the car parked outside. Nighttime temps can be single digits or sub-zero. Presumably the vehicle has heaters that keep the battery at some minimum temperature, and that has to be considered when knowing what capacity we need to have when we reach our destination. Given we may not have access to a L2 charger near us, maybe just plugging the Rivian in to a regular outlet provides enough to support the self-heating that occurs at night? Or is all this overkill and EV car batteries are ok with single digit or sub-zero temperatures?

2. effect of climbing, and recovery via regenerative braking. how do mountain climbs affect range performance relative to "normal" driving? And how much does regenerative braking recover the range lost to the inefficiency of the uphill portion?

Grateful for the experience of forum members.
It's really hard to know how the Rivian will do in cold weather. There are so many variables unfortunately. For example many EV's like my Model X use resistive heating which isn't very efficient. So in cold weather it loses range faster than my Taycan for example which uses a heat pump. Another factor is thermally insulated glass and body insulation. My Model X had thin glass and poor insulation, so the car always felt cold. My Audi E-tron has insulated glass and great body insulation so it didn't take as much heat to keep the car warm. The seat heaters combine with a heated steering wheel can also make a huge difference. They use a lot less energy than trying to heat the cabin. So you will need to treat heating the cabin a bit differently. It's not waste heat like in a gas power vehicle.

I'm not sure if Rivian's will have insulated glass and if they will use a heat pump. If they do, this would be a good sign of better cold weather performance.

In really cold temperatures (<15F), leaving the car outside for a day or two could use as much as 10-20% of the battery. But again, this is variable depending on the car. They all have different settings for what temperature the battery is maintained, and at what state of charge they stop heating the battery. I don't have a lot of experience with this because I have only had my EV's parked outside during the day in cold temperatures unplugged. I have used a 110V outlet at hotels overnight in cold temperatures, and that was sufficient to keep the battery warm at still add a bit of range. So this would definitely be the preferred scenario.

In terms of driving through the mountains, EV's are incredible at regenerating much of the energy while driving downhill. Going over Monarch and Hoosier pass for example, I'm able to drive down the pass without ever using my brakes. I can recuperate most of that energy. My efficiency driving through mountain passes is better than driving on open highway at 75mph. The only time mountains would be a concern would be a one way trip where you start at 5,280ft and end up at 10,000ft.

Using A Better Route Planner (https://abetterrouteplanner.com) works extremely well at planning trips through the mountains ahead of time. It does an excellent job factoring in elevation. Also, the factory navigation systems in my Model X, E-tron, and Taycan all take elevation into account when predicting range. So if you were leaving Denver and entered Vail as your destination, the navigation would tell you how much charge you would have left when arriving at your destination. They all have been really accurate (within 5%) on trips like this assuming you are driving reasonably. They also adjust for temperature, or at least based on your climate control settings. Turn on the heat full blast and the built in navigation will instantly change the amount of charge you will arrive with.
 

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Fenwayfan77

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And this is exactly why I'm hiring an electrician :)

I think I meant 50A, since I think the plug in version of a charger makes the most sense for my situation, and 40A charging should be plenty fast enough for my needs.
Yep. 40A will be more than enough. For those that want the 48A (60A dedicated circuit/hard wired), go for it. To each their own. Doing all the math, it's about 1 to 1.5 hours faster arriving at the charging goal. Unnecessary for my particular situation.
 

Gshenderson

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Yep. 40A will be more than enough. For those that want the 48A (60A dedicated circuit/hard wired), go for it. To each their own. Doing all the math, it's about 1 to 1.5 hours faster arriving at the charging goal. Unnecessary for my particular situation.
With a NEMA 14-50 outlet in my garage, my Tesla charges at 30mph. Same car plugged into any commercial J-1772 charges at 19mph. So it’s 50%+ faster.
 

Fenwayfan77

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With a NEMA 14-50 outlet in my garage, my Tesla charges at 30mph. Same car plugged into any commercial J-1772 charges at 19mph. So it’s 50%+ faster.
Anything over 46A appears worthless as the Rivian's kW acceptance is capped at 11 kW (roughly 46A). A 48A could push 11.5 normally if there wasn't a cap by Rivian. A 40A/240 EVSE is pushing 9.6 kW. Definitely not a 50 percent difference when you are comparing Chargepoint/Juicebox or other third party EVSE's (40A & 48A) and crunching the numbers.

Two calculators are below. There are more. First link shows a 48A (11 kW cap) EVSE estimated full charge from 0 on the R1S (135 kWh) would take 13 Hours and 38 min. 15 hours and 37 min. on a 40A (9.6 kW). That's only a two hour difference from 0-100. It's a 1 hour difference going from 0-50 percent full. The other link shows similar results.

A 19.8 MPH (40A/9.6 kW) vs. 22.7 MPH (48A /11 kW -capped) charging speed.

Here are the two links:

https://evcompare.io/charging-calculator/

https://www.homechargingstations.com/ev-charging-time-calculator/

I can't speak to your situation, but what kWs are those J1772s that you are referring to pushing and what is the Tesla's acceptance rate when utilizing your Tesla EVSE?
 
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DucRider

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Anything over 46A appears worthless as the Rivian's kW acceptance is capped at 11 kW (roughly 46A). A 48A could push 11.5 normally if there wasn't a cap by Rivian. A 40A/240 EVSE is pushing 9.6 kW. Definitely not a 50 percent difference when you are comparing Charepoint/Juicebox or other third party EVSE's (40A & 48A) and crunching the numbers.

Two calculators are below. There are more. First link shows a 48A (11 kW cap) EVSE estimated full charge from 0 on the R1S (135 kWh) would take 13 Hours and 38 min. 15 hours and 37 min. on a 40A (9.6 kW). That's only a two hour difference from 0-100. It's a 1 hour difference going from 0-50 percent full. The other link shows similar results.

A 19.8 MPH (40A/9.6 kW) vs. 22.7 MPH (48A /11 kW -capped) charging speed.

Here are the two links:

https://evcompare.io/charging-calculator/

https://www.homechargingstations.com/ev-charging-time-calculator/

I can't speak to your situation, but what kWs are those J1772s that you are referring to pushing and what is the Tesla's acceptance rate when utilizing your Tesla EVSE?
The 11 kW number by Rivian is a rounded number. I wouldn't count on it being a hard cap.
The J1772 standard and communication protocols deal in amps and not kW (or voltage).
The Rivian will have a charger rated to accept 48A. If the line voltage is 220, that will equate to 10.56 kW. At 240V, it would be 11.52 kW.
Many, many EVs with "6.6 kW" chargers in their specs will draw 7.2 kW from an EVSE. 6.6 kW is 30A @ 220V, and since line voltage is usually ~240V, the actal kW number comes out to the 7.2. These "6.6" kW chargers are actually 30A chargers.

J1772 standard:
The J1772 Pilot is a 1khz +12V to -12V square wave, the voltage defines the state and the duty cycle defines the current available to the EV. The EVSE sets the duty cycle and the EV adds resistance from the pilot the Ground to vary the voltage. The EVSE reads the voltage and changes state accordingly.
State Pilot Voltage EV Resistance Description
State A 12 N/A Not Connected
State B 9 2.74k Connected
State C 6 882 Charging
State D 3 246 Ventilation Required
State E 0 N/A No power
State F -12 N/A EVSE Error
Pilot Duty Cycle - The Pilot Duty Cycle is dependent on the Max current setting of the EVSE.
Up to 51A Amps = Duty cycle x 0.6 Duty cycle = Amps / 0.6
51 - 80A Amps = (Duty Cycle - 64) 2.5
Duty Cycle Max Current
10% 6A
20% 12A
30% 18A
40% 24A
50% 30A
60% 36A
70% 42A
80% 48A
86% 55A
88% 60A
90% 65A
92% 70A
94% 75A
96% 80A
 

Fenwayfan77

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The 11 kW number by Rivian is a rounded number. I wouldn't count on it being a hard cap.
The J1772 standard and communication protocols deal in amps and not kW (or voltage).
The Rivian will have a charger rated to accept 48A. If the line voltage is 220, that will equate to 10.56 kW. At 240V, it would be 11.52 kW.
Many, many EVs with "6.6 kW" chargers in their specs will draw 7.2 kW from an EVSE. 6.6 kW is 30A @ 220V, and since line voltage is usually ~240V, the actal kW number comes out to the 7.2. These "6.6" kW chargers are actually 30A chargers.

J1772 standard:
The J1772 Pilot is a 1khz +12V to -12V square wave, the voltage defines the state and the duty cycle defines the current available to the EV. The EVSE sets the duty cycle and the EV adds resistance from the pilot the Ground to vary the voltage. The EVSE reads the voltage and changes state accordingly.
State Pilot Voltage EV Resistance Description
State A 12 N/A Not Connected
State B 9 2.74k Connected
State C 6 882 Charging
State D 3 246 Ventilation Required
State E 0 N/A No power
State F -12 N/A EVSE Error
Pilot Duty Cycle - The Pilot Duty Cycle is dependent on the Max current setting of the EVSE.
Up to 51A Amps = Duty cycle x 0.6 Duty cycle = Amps / 0.6
51 - 80A Amps = (Duty Cycle - 64) 2.5
Duty Cycle Max Current
10% 6A
20% 12A
30% 18A
40% 24A
50% 30A
60% 36A
70% 42A
80% 48A
86% 55A
88% 60A
90% 65A
92% 70A
94% 75A
96% 80A
Interesting about the 220 vs. 240. The rest of your post might as well have been written in Sanskrit. You electrical engineers always know how to crack me up! ;)
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