Trailer-Battery Charging While Towing?

[Lil'O Annie]

I'm curious about how the Rivians handle charging a camping-trailer battery, if at all. ICE vehicles charge trailer batteries while driving through a connection to the alternator. EVs obviously don't have an alternator, so do they charge trailer batteries at all??

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[azbill]

I believe I checked this many months ago with my horse trailer, which has a battery for the breakaway braking, and it was working. The aux output should be there when the truck is on.

 

[Thedude]

Charges just like an ICE truck when towing.

 

[Lil'O Annie]

Charges just like an ICE truck when towing.

Any idea how that impacts range?

 

[Thedude]

Any idea how that impacts range?

It doesn’t. The charge rate was generally around 8amps so after ten hours of towing it would transfer about 1kwh of power. If you were towing for ten hours you’d have stopped to charge at least three times so that small draw is negligible.

 

[Lil'O Annie]

It doesn’t. The charge rate was generally around 8amps so after ten hours of towing it would transfer about 1kwh of power. If you were towing for ten hours you’d have stopped to charge at least three times so that small draw is negligible.

Great!! Thanks for the info!! I'll have an Ecoflow-power-kit system in my Aliner Amp that lets me control the "alternator" charging amps, so I can set it to whatever I want...8amps or less.

 

[Chris TX]

I came to this thread expecting someone was asking about using a trailer-mounted battery to charge to vehicle while driving. It's good to see the level of intelligence here with Rivian owners vs the Tesla forums I've seen. And yeah, like others have said the 12V in the trailer wiring will charge the batteries.

 

[Miketz]

I'm curious about how the Rivians handle charging a camping-trailer battery, if at all. ICE vehicles charge trailer batteries while driving through a connection to the alternator. EVs obviously don't have an alternator, so do they charge trailer batteries at all??

You can also use any 120 volt AC to 12 V DC charger to charge external batteries. Just plug it into the 120V AC power socket.

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