Undriveable at night in wet snow due to LED headlights not melting snow & ice

[TollKeeper]

The Volvo's in my fleet have LED headlights, and are near flat to the nose of the truck..

Volvo thought of this problem ahead of time, and put a heating element in the housing.

Something that would be a simple to fix, if Rivian would do it.

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[wrightwood]

As we say on the Tesla forums, “Not A California Problem”.

As someone who does a fair amount of snow driving in the mountains, I can tell you this is very much a California problem. Mammoth finished last season with 75 feet of snowfall. Maybe our snow tends to be drier than the PNW, but we also see all kinds of snow.

There are aftermarket heated headlight replacements for Jeeps, like these ones. Maybe someone will step up and make these for Rivian soon.

 

[skookumracing]

As someone who does a fair amount of snow driving in the mountains, I can tell you this is very much a California problem. Mammoth finished last season with 75 feet of snowfall. Maybe our snow tends to be drier than the PNW, but we also see all kinds of snow.

There are aftermarket heated headlight replacements for Jeeps, like these ones. Maybe someone will step up and make these for Rivian soon.

Washington gets its fair share of wet sticky snow...

 

[chrismc]

Washington gets its fair share of wet sticky snow...

They don’t call it “Cascade Concrete” for nothing!

 

[racekarl]

Are the headlight housings glass or plastic? If you go the Rain-X or similar route make sure you get a product that is approved for the material. Putting the wrong stuff may not work, or at worst could damage the material.

 

[Chewy734]

The Volvo's in my fleet have LED headlights, and are near flat to the nose of the truck..

Volvo thought of this problem ahead of time, and put a heating element in the housing.

Something that would be a simple to fix, if Rivian would do it.

That would be a nice and elegant solution, but I’m unsure how simple it’d be to implement.

 

[Gassious]

I would think that something like this would work plugged into a DC frunk outlet, wrapping the heater over the top or along the side of the headlight housing.

https://www.oemheaters.com/product/6130/silicone-rubber-heater-1-x-6-25w-12v-8-teflon-leads-psa

https://www.oemheaters.com/product/6133/solistat-2-10-thermostat-for-dc-max-10-amps-24v

 

[not_a_car_guy]

Maybe one of the amazing Rivian aftermarket providers could build a lens heater tailor made for Rivians, out of this stuff:

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...ave-your-led-headlights-in-winter-212316.html

(I think they used a picture provided by OP for this article ;-) ).

 

[Singletracker]

As I head into my first ski season with my R1T (pray for snow ), I do find this issue to be a bit concerning. I will be traveling into the Sierras on a regular basis and, at times, coming home late. Hope somebody finds a solution to this problem.

 

[jjwolf120]

Has anyone tried applying one of the coatings, like Rainx to the headlights?

 

[AdamEk]

Just had a full body PPF done. Did not add the full ceramic coating, but they did simple wipe/spray on ceramic... water does bead off pretty well..the flat vertical surface of the headlights doesn't help this situation..

Try some RainX?

 

[Robin]

Here in the PNW our snow is mostly on the warm wet and sticky side... So when driving in light to heavy snow flurries we get a lot of build up on our vehicles.. Well the R1T is no different... the big problem is at night the snow covers up the headlights and visibility goes to zero... I have experienced this twice now as we are getting into the snow season here in the Washington Cascades... Last night we had to pull over about every 3 miles to wipe off the headlights... Not fun. There is just not enough heat from the LED lights to melt off the snow. Rivian either needs to add washer nozzles (our Volvo V90 CC has these), or add heated lenses. Heated head light example, Looking a pair of these. Wonder if I could power off frunk 12vdc outlet or tap into fog lights.. Another option is to mount on forward mounted roof cross bar and power from bed outlets some how.. Also researching transparent ITO or thin wire heating element to stick on stock headlights...

I have emailed my guide with pictures and raised this as a safety issue. Will also create service ticket.... And posted here tagging RJ..

Anyway.. beware if you find yourself in wet sticky snow at night...

🫣

 

[not_a_car_guy]

Maybe one of the amazing Rivian aftermarket providers could build a lens heater tailor made for Rivians, out of this stuff:

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...ave-your-led-headlights-in-winter-212316.html

(I think they used a picture provided by OP for this article ;-) ).

Here's the link to the manufacturer's site for this transparent heating film. Could be a fun project:

https://www.chasmtek.com/products/agent-10

 

[NY_Rob]

Has anyone tried applying one of the coatings, like Rainx to the headlights?

People tried pretty much every coating known to man last winter.. no positive results IIRC.

We need heat inside the lens housing or a wiper fluid squirter at the top of the lens like some vehicles have.

 

[A Land Rover Forever]

I LOVE the R1s, hands down best SUV on the road!! This is a BIG problem...Rivian needs to wake up and fix it or I'm going back to a Range Rover. An adventure vehicle that can't be used in a snowstorm is not really an adventure vehicle!

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