Extreme cold weather driving report - 2022 R1T Quad

[d15b7]

Today I drove my ‘22 R1T Quad on a 93 mile trip; about 50/50 Interstate and back roads. The truck had been sitting outside for the last 5 days undriven (it vampire drained 11 kwhr in that time. That’s typical for mine). My truck has 35k miles on it.

It’s been very cold here the last 5 days with salt and snow (that’s why I haven’t been driving mine I try to keep it out of the salt and instead drive my 2008 beater Trailblazer with 230k miles on it !). When I left this morning it was 19F outside and the wind had been blowing 30-40 mph with wind chills in single digits. The battery pack temp was 21 F. The motors were ice cold. I drove the entire trip with cabin heat at 70 and heated seats and wheel on. Truck was in All Purpose mode in standard height on 21” tires.

My average for the entire trip was 2.26 mile per kwhr and I was driving at or slightly above the speed limits. When I finished driving the pack temp was 38F and the highest motor temps I saw were 139F.

I’m super happy with that performance and I’d say my range was only affected slightly from normal (the Regen was nearly non existent for the first 2/3 of the trip since the pack temp was so cold).

I’m not sure why so many EV folks complain of horrible drop offs in range and performance - this was brutal conditions and the Riv performed great and I was super comfortable the entire time! Loving this truck more and more as I put tens of thousands of miles on her.

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[sherold]

I will say those numbers do not add up to me and, fortunately it worked in your favor I'd have guesstimated something in the 1.7-1.8 range.
You must have been going downhill quite a bit or had those extreme wind gusts at your back
2.26 mi/kwh is a "normal" spring/fall efficiency for me with 20"ATs in central Indy.

Let us know what you got on the way back...

 

[d15b7]

That 93 miles was round trip for me! The winds were very noticeable especially on the highway they were pushing the truck around. Mostly cross winds I’d say. On normal summer days I’d get 2.5-2.6 mile per kwhr doing that same trip

 

[Golfer04]

Just curious. How did you measure the efficiency?

 

[ThirteenElectrics]

I've never had this experience. My cold weather range in Rivians is abysmal, and I've taken a ton of trips. Perhaps disabled regen let you coast a ton, and the coasting was efficient. What was your average speed?

 

[d15b7]

Just curious. How did you measure the efficiency?

I press the truck icon in the center display (it’s what I like to leave the display showing - it has all the temp gauges and distance travelled and efficiency number) and before I leave the house I zero out the mileage / efficiency display and at the end of the trip I note the mileage (for my business records) and also look at the mile per kwhr number (that’s the 2.26 number I got today over the 93 mile trip)

 

[d15b7]

I've never had this experience. My cold weather range in Rivians is abysmal. The most probable explanation is that this was a one way trip and you were driving downhill.

This was a round trip. I left my home, drove the 93 miles (stopping twice to service clients) and ended up back at home.

 

[ThirteenElectrics]

What was your average speed? I don't even get 2.26 mile per kWh in the summer. I live in a hilly area, though. And perhaps the early Rivians were built with better ball bearings...

 

[Doug]

I have those temps all winter in MN. I also have a Gen 1 R1T. I drove over two hundred miles last Sunday at 0 decrees with a -13 windchill and I got about 1.4 to 1.6 efficiency. With wind and cold temps I rarely see over 2 kwh in the winter.

 

[Ecupip]

I'm with you OP. Cold weather doesn't affect mine much. I don't park outside, but I only see a - .10 - .20 difference in 20-degree weather on my same commute. Same as you, interior set at 70, heated seats, and wheel on.

 

[bfilippo]

My current (~1000 miles) daily winter driving (new trip started around Thanksgiving) with my truck sitting outside of my garage exclusively is at 2.06 average. That's with All-Purpose about 90% of the time with a few snow and off-road for a few bad stretches. Gen2 R1T, 20" goodyear stock tires that are AT but called AS, designed with Rivian. In rural Maine, mostly 2 lane highway driving around 45-65mph with lots of hills and bends, but not serious elevation changes like out west to gain efficiencies.

 

[d15b7]

What was your average speed? I don't even get 2.26 mile per kWh in the summer. I live in a hilly area, though. And perhaps the early Rivians were built with better ball bearings...

About half of my 93 miles today was on I95 and I476. I was going 55 to 70 mph there. The other half was on smaller back roads. I was going 35-50 on those.

 

[krb1183]

yeah when i drive my 2025 R1S-20ATs in sub-30 degree weather i always get below 2.0, last trip was the 110miles to service center and got 1.86 mi/kwh in 26-29 degrees. in the fall here ~70 degrees i've gotten 2.46 on the same trip. ABRP data says anyway.

 

[André]

In my experience the range decreases quite a lot in the first few miles when starting with a cold battery even when I warmed up the cabin prior to leaving with the truck still plugged in my destination charger. Now I force the battery to be warmed by increasing the targeted range so the car prepare the battery pack for charging. This way the expected range is unaffected by the pack temperature other than the expected reduction in cold temperature. Tesla does a better job for that by doing it automatically.

Also, I suspect that the efficiency calculation made by the system (miles/kWh) exclude the kWh used to warm-up the pack...

 

[d15b7]

I wonder if the 20AT tires hurt it more in cold weather? My 21s are the original ones and are pretty worn out (low resistance maybe?). I’ve got 4 new 21” ones ready to go on soon but haven’t put them on yet. I keep my pressures up at 50 cold psi. (As the temp has been dropping here I’ve been adding air every week or two to keep them at 50 cold psi)

also perhaps having more miles on mine has the wheel bearings and driveshafts etc ‘looser’ now?
I’m not hyper-miling it whatsover - but I do start off gently (I’d say like a normal car like when I’m driving my Trailblazer) and since the Regen is so much less in extreme cold I tend to lift off the gas pedal way sooner before stopping (otherwise I have to step on the brakes and I always try to avoid that in any EV !)

as I said in spring summer fall this exact trip would have been 2.5-2.6 so I did lose efficiency today. But it just wasn’t a huge loss.

PS when I drive my other ICE commuter (a ‘18 Civic Type R) I lose at least this much mpg in cold vs warm weather. It burns significantly more gas in sub 30 deg temps. (But boy does it run better!!! Holy cow I bet it makes 20-30 more hp in cold weather than hot. The turbos like it cold!)0

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