Inside Electrify America’s plan to simplify electric car charging

[Hmp10]

My 2015 Tesla charger cord has a plug that fits a standard NEMA 14-50 dryer plug. Unfortunately, Tesla wised up and realized they could charge an arm and a leg for a "wall connector". I'm hoping Rivian will keep it simple, as Tesla once did.

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[EyeOnRivian]

The first question is somewhat mooted by the fact that the Rivian will only accept 50A at 240.

Rivian will have an 11 kW on-board charger. 50a (40a useable) at 240 v is only charging at 9.6 kW. To get the most out of your charging I would think you would want at least a 60amp (48amp useable) at 240v as that could charge up to 11.5 kW.

 

[ajdelange]

50*240 = 12,000 i.e. 12 kw. I rounded. The Rivian will actually accept only 48 A meaning 11.52 kW. I'll wager 3 beers that this was done so that EVSE feeding it can be wired to a 60 A circuit thus relieving the installer of the obligation of installing a separate lockable disconnect. Thus, as I said, the question is mooted. For the Rivian there is no advantage to installing EVSE with output greater than 48 A as that's the most a Rivian will take. And to go higher you get into the extra disconnect issue.

 

[ajdelange]

My 2015 Tesla charger cord has a plug that fits a standard NEMA 14-50 dryer plug. Unfortunately, Tesla wised up and realized they could charge an arm and a leg for a "wall connector". I'm hoping Rivian will keep it simple, as Tesla once did.

Fortunately Tesla had the vision to develop the HPWC which allows me to charge up to 72 A and, were I to ever buy a second Tesla, simultaneously charge it on the same 100 A circuit with the HPWC determining how to share the available 80 A between the two cars. And all at a price only a couple $100 or so higher than that of the mobile charger. I am hoping that Rivian will have the same vision as Tesla and come up with its own HPWC but it is not as important to them as there are several boxes by other manufacturers that can potentially do the job. Rivian isn't working into the vacuum that Tesla was. It would probably be smart for Rivian to go to one of the current manufacturers and have him manufacture for Rivian with firmware customized for Rivian and at least a Rivian escutcheon on the box.

 

[ajdelange]

• Clipper Creek has multiple EVSEs in the range of 40 - 80A (9.6 - 19.2kW+).

Looks as if the HCS - 60 would do the job.

 

[EyeOnRivian]

50*240 = 12,000 i.e. 12 kw. I rounded. The Rivian will actually accept only 48 A meaning 11.52 kW. I'll wager 3 beers that this was done so that EVSE feeding it can be wired to a 60 A circuit thus relieving the installer of the obligation of installing a separate lockable disconnect. Thus, as I said, the question is mooted. For the Rivian there is no advantage to installing EVSE with output greater than 48 A as that's the most a Rivian will take. And to go higher you get into the extra disconnect issue.

When you said "Rivian will only accept 50A at 240" I had taken that as a 50 amp circuit where only 40 amp is usable, hence the different calculation. At any rate, yes, 48 amp (60 amp breaker) at 240v would be the most you would need with a Rivian to approach that 11 kW on-board charger.

But why limit your EVSE to the specs of a Rivian? I would think anyone investing in an EVSE would not just size it to a Rivian, or at least at its current spec, but instead get one powerful enough to be effective for that future replacement or second EV that probably will have a more powerful on-board charger. (This assumes the person has already calculated the need for the most powerful home EVSE charger, say, due to driving many miles in a day.) I was under the impression the EV software and/or on-board charger will only draw what it needs / can handle. I could be way off base here as a yet-to-be-EV-owner and trying to soak up all I can to help determine which kind / size of EVSE to get while also future proofing (to a degree) my set up to get the most out of that investment.

 

[ajdelange]

It's difficult to answer your question because you don't know what the future holds with respect to how many of what type of EV you may buy in the future nor what the charging characteristics of those vehicles may be. The trend seems to be towards faster charging but that cannot be pulled off without resorting to industrial sized equipment using high voltage DC. At the same time the trend in home charging seems to be to limit to a 60 A circuit. The Tesla S could, with a dual charger option, charge at an 80 A rate at one time and the X at a 72 A rate. Both of those are now limited to 48 A (a 60 A circuit). And I'm not sure that bigger batteries are going to be the trend until kW per kg ratings go up quite a bit. I guess the roadster will have a 200 kW battery and of course the Rivians will have 160 but I don't think the trend to batteries of that size across the EV fleet is coming any time soon. Another big factor is where you are in your housing situation. If you are sitting down with your architect planning a new house then the answer is fairly simple. Pull multiple 100 A circuits to several spots in your garage. Then fill them in later with whatever chargers work with the vehicles you buy as you buy them. If you are in an old house with 125 A service then your situation is very different. You are quite limited as to what you can do. Then there may be other factors to consider. As an example I just installed solar. In Virginia this gives the utility the right to charge me not only for the amount of power I buy from them but for my monthly peak demand. I don't want to ever charge more than one vehicle at a time and I don't want to charge it at the maximum rate it will take as that not only raises my bill but takes away my ability to brag that my car(s) are fueled by the sun.

As to the mechanism of charging I assume the Tesla is typical. When a charger is plugged in handshaking between vehicle and EVSE takes place in which the vehicle tells the EVSE how much it wants and the EVSE tells the vehicle how much it can have. The vehicles charging circuits then regulate the draw to the lesser of those two numbers. How much the vehicle wants is set by the user and is, of course, limited by the vehicle's charging equipment. For example, if I plug in my Model X in VA where I have an HPWC on a 100 A circuit the car will tell the HPWC it wants 72 A and the EVSE will tell the car it can have up to 80 so the car will draw 72. If I drive up to QC and plug in here where I have a corded HPWC plugged into an outlet on a 50 A circuit the car will ask for 72 and the EVSE will tell it that it can only have 40 so it will draw 40. If, for whatever reason, I set the car's charging screen to a maximum rate of 20 A it would, at either location, draw only 20 A.

In trying to figure out what to do the most important parameter is the Wh/mi figure for the vehicle. If you need to add 100 miles during each evening's charge session then multiply that by the Wh/mi number (e.g 300*100 = 30 kWh) to get the power you must add to the battery. Then divide by the charge rate (power) of the EVSE. In this example if the EVSE delivers 10 kW then 300*100/10000 = 3 hrs. As the chargers are going to be about 80% efficient you should multiply by 1.125 to get 3.375 hrs. Now that's a reasonable length of time and a 10 kW charger is more than adequate. The Rivian consumption is going to be more like 450 Wh/mi so you would have 450*100/10000 = 4.5 hrs. or a little over 5 hrs with the efficiency taken into account. That's still not bad for an overnight charge. If you needed to add 200 miles you could do that in 10 hrs. Etc.

 

[jimcgov3]

Have you found CCS home charger that will do more than 40 A?

Do you think Rivian will produce its own version of the HPWC?

[EDIT] The first question is somewhat mooted by the fact that the Rivian will only accept 50A at 240. Of course there are other manufacturers out there.

To answer your first question, I have the WattZilla WallWattz 48. It is $50 cheaper than the ClipperCreek at $849 and doesn't look cheaply made like the CC HCS-60. The Wall Wattz has a sturdy stainless steel housing and 25' of cable with a 6' lead with a NEMA 14-60R plug. There is a simple LCD display with 4 different data points: Status of Charging, Level of Charge, Current Charging Session, and Elapsed Time. It has no smarts, which is ok, as I assume the Rivian app will have all the smarts that I need.

www.wattzilla.com

 

[ajdelange]

I just found another EVSE that will charge the Rivian to the max it can accept. That's the Tesla HPWC. Some enterprising bloke has come up with a Telsa to J1772 adapter that will carry 48 (actually 50) Amps. The product is called a Telsa Tap and is available from Amazon. The only thing that I am a little uncertain about is the way the UL/CE certification statement is worded. It looks as if the components, or some of them, are UL/CE but not the device as a whole. Thus a Tesla owner (or even someone who owns no Teslas) could install a pair (or more) Tesla HPWCs and charge a combination of Rivian, Tesla, Hyundai... vehicles at once with the master HPWC doling out the available current. Whether I charge with one of these at home or not I expect I'll want one in the Rivian's kit as there are a fair number of Tesla destination chargers out there. Note that it does NOT work with super chargers. It is an AC only device.

 

[Mjhirsch78]

Preface: I’m an optimist.

This conversation is all built on guesses right now. It is all we can do right now.

1. Rivian specifically said they under-promise and over-deliver. Tesla’s semis rated at 500 miles are getting 600 at full load. Do we believe that Rivian is not aware of how much cooler claiming 400 miles and then delivering 450 or 500 miles could be for them? Do we not wonder if that 400 miles is assuming some sort of towing or heavy load happening, allowing for more when not towing/hauling?

2. A truck is simply not going to be as aerodynamic as a car. It is a different use case. It will likely never compare favorably to a well-designed SUV.

3. As a teacher, I drive short range during the week and then hit up mountains during the weekend maybe twice a month in the winter. All of these are within the 400 miles to get there and back. The trips we would take a trailer are going to end at campsites with plug-ins. This will be slow but should be enough to get us home at the end of the weekend. Once summer hits, the family does local trips every two or three days. Then maybe twice a summer we take a longer trip. This trip, based on CURRENT chargers, would take me 1800 miles from the PNW to Wisconsin simply planning to stop for two hotel stays. Yes, it will take longer. No, this doesn’t bother me. The only hitch is Montana may be rough right now. However, in 2 years, it would seem strange that no charging company would see this opportunity. In short, this vehicle does everything a guy like me needs.

I guess what I am getting at is that this whole thing feels like a non-issue for the average family and a real problem for a small subset. If Rivian is as smart as they appear, it seems like they will find ways to tackle this (some already mentioned in this thread). And for some of you, maybe this will just not work for another 5-10 years of tech advancement.

 

[Hmp10]

Serious hypermiling is not required in order to get EPA and better than EPA performance in a Tesla.

In April 2019 Motortrend took a Tesla Model S Raven (with the new range improvements) on a test drive from Fremont to Los Angeles -- a distance of 359 miles -- to test its claimed range of 370 miles. This test was made in dry, temperate weather. The car made it with a bit to spare . . . but with this proviso:

"We're told [by the Tesla engineers] to set the climate control at 72, fan speed at 2, drive at the speed limit, and on the freeway to keep between 65 and 70 mph." Although there were some route options, the test driver was also told not to deviate from the route Tesla specified.

I lived in California and now live in Florida. On either coast I would be rear-ended if I tried to stay below 70 on the freeways, where traffic typically runs 80-85 mph. And not even delivery or dump trucks drive the 45 mph speed limit on the straight, flat 6-lane surface streets that stretch for miles on end in Florida and where speeds are typically close to 60 mph (as local police seem to give about a 15 mph leeway before taking enforcement action).

I do not doubt a Tesla can deliver EPA range if one is exercising care, even short of hypermiling. I do doubt, however, if most drivers can or will comply with the above conditions consistently. Add in a little cold or rainy weather, and the range deteriorates further. Besides the significant impact of cold on battery charge, just keeping the cabin warm in winter affects range enough that Tesla recommends using the seat heaters in order to reduce the need to warm the cabin air.

I honestly hope that two years from now I'm eating crow about this, but I seriously doubt that most Rivian drivers will routinely attain the advertised range on their trucks or SUVs.

 

[Lmirafuente]

To the Forum on this topic,

I spoke to RJ at the Overland West Expo earlier this year and he ask me, my wife, a reporter that walked up into the conversation and he asked us a few questions work thinking about:

1. How many gas stations do you there are in the USA?
2. How long do you think it takes to build a gas station?
3. How long do you think it takes to build a charge station?
   
   The answers to these questions are below and RJ has no concerns about the electric range anxiety.

1. 165,000
2. three years (think about the environmental impact studies, etc)
3. one month

Also, check out what Chevron is already doing: https://electrek.co/2019/05/20/chevron-ev-charging-gas-stations/

RJ said that in 10 years, and in my opinion before then, the issue of charge anxiety will be non-existent.

Hope this helps...

 

[ajdelange]

I honestly hope that two years from now I'm eating crow about this, but I seriously doubt that most Rivian drivers will routinely attain the advertised range on their trucks or SUVs.

I would think what you get in your Tesla would be representative enough of your driving style and conditions that it should be reasonably representative of what you can expect in your Rivian.

That said, I estimate that 30% of S, X and 3 drivers achieve spec or better mileage. As of the end of August the average S, X, or 3 driver is achieving 97% of spec. But do note that that goes down to 84% in the winter months.

I'll also note that with my X I usually set autopilot for 5 - 10 over the speed limit (depending on what the traffic is doing) and achieve 128% of spec but the majority of my driving is not on freeway. It is on rural roads where the speed limits tend to be between 80 and 100 (kmph) in the countryside and 50 in towns.

I would also venture a guess that the car companies have as many lawyers involved in setting their advertised range as engineers because they know that there will be hundreds or thousands of sharks circling any claimed range hoping to be able to form a class.

All in all, unless you are one of the few who gets less than 60% of advertised range on his current BEV, I think we can expect to get pretty close to what Rivian eventually specifies.

 

[skyote]

Did anyone else notice how Rivian often says up to 300+ or 400+ range? I get the feeling it is their corporate culture to under promise & over deliver. Let's hope that's what they are doing with the range and that the efficiency calculations that some have done here are understated.

 

[Hmp10]

"Up to" usually means a maximum that can be obtained under optimal conditions, such as "earn up to $400 an hour working at home!" In the case of EV range, "up to" probably means under optimal road, load, and weather conditions with fairly conservative driving.

The Rivian website uses the term "up to" when citing range, and EPA ranges are never qualified that way. Rivian has not given EPA ranges thus far, and I suspect none have yet been calculated. It will be interesting to see where they come in.

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