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Preconditioning battery?

Gavinmcc

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Ok, before anybody yells at me, I did look through the manual and I did see preconditioning mentioned:

But, and it’s a big but, I don’t see anywhere where it tells me how to set it, start it, or even what it is, or when I need it.

Yes I semi understand it, but on cold mornings do I need to do it before heading to work? Is it only a road trip thing? A fast charge thing? A shamalamadingdong thing?

And fine, yell at me, I can take it.
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Madsen203

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No need to precondition to drive to work. Period. It only improves cabin temp and lowers wh/mi at the expense of using more house energy. If you don’t need every drop of range or cabin fully warm, preconditioning isn’t necessary.
 

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No need to precondition to drive to work. Period. It only improves cabin temp and lowers wh/mi at the expense of using more house energy. If you don’t need every drop of range or cabin fully warm, preconditioning isn’t necessary.
I thought for people in really cold temps preconditioning the battery affects regen strength, too. My understanding is that a cold battery cannot accept enough incoming power for high levels of regen.
 

zefram47

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There are two methods of preconditioning. One is cabin preconditioning and is done through the app before leaving. You'd do this to warm or cool the cabin using shore power, assuming you're plugged in, and saving range/battery. Obviously you don't need to do this, but the truck will be much more efficient on your drive if it preconditions first in very cold or hot weather. The second kind of preconditioning is for DC Fast Charging. My understanding is that the only way to do charge preconditioning right now is to use the truck's navigation to navigate to a charger and about one hour from the charger it will start preconditioning to optimize battery temperatures for the best/fastest charging experience. Hopefully they eventually allow manual battery preconditioning so we can navigate with apps like ABRP and not worry about the truck's nav.
 

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So what you can do is start the cabin preconditioning from the app. Then up the charge level from 70 to 85.

That way the battery starts up and the cabin will be to temperature when you leave.
 
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Gavinmcc

Gavinmcc

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Do most people plug in each night and keep their vehicles at 70%?

I’ve only had her 6 days, but I figured I’d run the battery down to at least 40% before charging back to 70. But is it better to just keep her at or about 70 most of the time?
 

Craigins

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Do most people plug in each night and keep their vehicles at 70%?

I’ve only had her 6 days, but I figured I’d run the battery down to at least 40% before charging back to 70. But is it better to just keep her at or about 70 most of the time?
I keep it at 70 and plugged in. But I use level 1 charging so it takes awhile to charge. Also I've had the truck bug out a few times and drain like 5-10% overnight.
 

WSea

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Do most people plug in each night and keep their vehicles at 70%?

I’ve only had her 6 days, but I figured I’d run the battery down to at least 40% before charging back to 70. But is it better to just keep her at or about 70 most of the time?
Your charging plan is fine as long as you remember to charge higher when you need it. I typically run between 50-70 for local uses. Precondition climate 5 minutes before leaving. Tonight I plugged but stopped charging on app. Plan to start charging again tomorrow a couple hours before leaving. Been getting only about 1.5 for local trips. We have lots of hills so that’s probably why but want to see difference with warmer battery. It easy to over think things
 

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So what you can do is start the cabin preconditioning from the app. Then up the charge level from 70 to 85.

That way the battery starts up and the cabin will be to temperature when you leave.
This is my method when below freezing out and I need the range. Otherwise, just warm cabin, and know the regen is reduced so drive less aggressive to try and reclaim rather than friction brake.
 

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ThePineappleWins

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Do most people plug in each night and keep their vehicles at 70%?

I’ve only had her 6 days, but I figured I’d run the battery down to at least 40% before charging back to 70. But is it better to just keep her at or about 70 most of the time?
Anytime I'm home I'm plugged in and I'm set for 70%.
 

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No need to precondition to drive to work. Period. It only improves cabin temp and lowers wh/mi at the expense of using more house energy. If you don’t need every drop of range or cabin fully warm, preconditioning isn’t necessary.
Rivian's charging strategy seems to be either on or off and doesn't pull power off the cord for anything besides getting the charge level to your target. If the charge level drops due to ancillary use it kicks the charger back on. I hope they change it sometime in the future to draw off the wall to counter any use in the vehicle instead of pulling from the battery first, but as of the 2022.47 software it isn't.


I thought for people in really cold temps preconditioning the battery affects regen strength, too. My understanding is that a cold battery cannot accept enough incoming power for high levels of regen.
There doesn't seem to be a difference in regen if outdoor temperatures are around freezing and you are plugged in, preconditioned or not. I charge to 85% every day and get 3-4 messages on my driver's display flapping between regen due to temps and due to high level of charge.

I'm not sure if preconditioning will change that if you aren't plugged in, but I generally always plug in over night. Unplugged and no preconditioning for sure limits power and regen significantly in very cold temps. I've seen as much as 50% loss in power and regen reduced so much it obligates using the brakes any time I'm stopping from above 25 mph or so.
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