Vehicle to Vehicle charging

[CommodoreAmiga]

The V2V has been confirmed by RJ and they demonstrated V2V by charging the HD Live Wire directly from the R1T on The Long Way Up.

Didn’t they just plug the level 1 charger into the 120V outlet of the Rivian?

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[RobBot]

I don't think so, I seem to remember them talking about how amazing it was because they had level 1 charging everywhere else, but the people at Rivian were able to make it so they could DC charge directly from the Rivian.

I can't find any sources now, so maybe I'm just making shit up lol

 

[cwoodcox]

I don't think so, I seem to remember them talking about how amazing it was because they had level 1 charging everywhere else, but the people at Rivian were able to make it so they could DC charge directly from the Rivian.

I remember this too.

 

[RobBot]

Not solid evidence, but it seems to support what I was thinking. The fact that they couldn't initially charge, and that it was a game changer.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/36540...rman-take-the-long-way-up-on-electric-harleys

But once you were able to charge the bikes with the Rivians, that seemed to be a total game-changer for the trip.

I think otherwise I'd have to watch Long Way Up again. And while it was fun to watch, I'm not really a motorcycle guy and it was motorcycle show. I mainly just waited for them to talk about Rivian.

 

[Gshenderson]

Not solid evidence, but it seems to support what I was thinking. The fact that they couldn't initially charge, and that it was a game changer.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/36540...rman-take-the-long-way-up-on-electric-harleys



I think otherwise I'd have to watch Long Way Up again. And while it was fun to watch, I'm not really a motorcycle guy and it was motorcycle show. I mainly just waited for them to talk about Rivian.

That doesn’t specifically say they did DC to DC to charge the bikes. They could have plugged them into the 15amp 110v outlets. Did they actually show DC to DC in the film?

 

[RobBot]

I think they showed the box, but not the plugs. Again, I'd have to watch the series again to make sure. I've got no idea which episode they developed it, and they only talk about it briefly.

Better source, but only in video form:



"We developed, along with Rivian and Harley Davidson, we developed this thing from Rivian to bike. We had this box that could fill the bikes in about an hour"

This site claims 0-100% in 60 minutes with Level 3

https://electrek.co/2019/07/12/full...harley-davidson-livewire-electric-motorcycle/

So sounds like it was level 3

 

[cwoodcox]

I think they showed the box, but not the plugs. Again, I'd have to watch the series again to make sure. I've got no idea which episode they developed it, and they only talk about it briefly.

Better source, but only in video form:



"We developed, along with Rivian and Harley Davidson, we developed this thing from Rivian to bike. We had this box that could fill the bikes in about an hour"

Yep, they had a box that was doing DC to DC, they never discussed it specifically but it was clearly a hand-built thing, not an off-the-shelf product. I don’t think the trucks had a 240-volt outlet either, but even that wouldn’t charge them in an hour.

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

Yep, they had a box that was doing DC to DC, they never discussed it specifically but it was clearly a hand-built thing, not an off-the-shelf product. I don’t think the trucks had a 240-volt outlet either, but even that wouldn’t charge them in an hour.

Livewire has no support for L2 charging, so even if Rivian had a 240V outlet it wouldn't improve charging speeds.

I assume Rivian has or will have 240V support, since they want to sell these vehicles in Europe and other regions where 240V @ 50Hz is the "norm" and they don't use 120V.

 

[Trandall]

I just figure, if I'm out in the sun, why not use it? Even if it won't fully charge the truck, its still free juice

Solar charging, especially R1's is a long way from being free juice. As mentioned just hauling around the added weight of the equipment would negate most of any miniscule benefit of added juice, now factor in the cost of the equipment and it would likely be the most expensive bit of juice you ever put in.
Unfortunately solar charging or even hauling around extra batteries just isn't practical. I would make sure I had configured the largest battery and most efficient wheels way before considering any other methods of extending range.

 

[Gshenderson]

Yep, they had a box that was doing DC to DC, they never discussed it specifically but it was clearly a hand-built thing, not an off-the-shelf product. I don’t think the trucks had a 240-volt outlet either, but even that wouldn’t charge them in an hour.

The current Harley marketing states a 15.5kWh battery. So charging that in an hour would take at least a 15kW feed (OK Captain Obvious! ?). At 240v that would be 65 amps. So potentially the battery they had on the prototypes could have been smaller, and “about an hour” could be slightly over an hour and they may not have been going from totally empty to totally full, so... it’s possible this could have been a 240v 50amp AC feed, but who knows. DC to DC still seems more likely to me since they were using some external black box.

 

[DucRider]

The current Harley marketing states a 15.5kWh battery. So charging that in an hour would take at least a 15kW feed (OK Captain a obvious! ?). at 240v that would be 65 amps. So potentially the battery they had on the prototypes could have been smaller, and “about an hour” could be slightly over an hour and they may not have been going from totally empty to totally full, so... it’s possible this could have been a 240v 50amp AC feed, but who knows. DC to DC still seems more likely to me since they were using some external black box.

For some inexplicable reason, the LiveWire is limited to 1.44 kW when charging from 240V (L1 speed) even though they also have DCFC capabilities with much higher C-rates.
The box the jury rigged was a low speed DCFC device

 

[skyote]

Pics of the charger from Long Way Up.

 

[kylealden]

However, to get that 700w from solar, you’ll need 4 of their 200w panels which are 7’x2’ in size each (they fold down to 2’x2’x1.5’ blocks for transport). So you’ve essentially used up most of the truck bed carrying all that around.

Don't forget most of these panels are pretty heavy - you could easily cross 100lbs trying to get 600+W solar (and thousands of dollars of expense), not counting the huge batteries. At which point you're probably well beyond cancelling out that 2-4 mi/day of range in extra power needed to push the payload around. And you're talking about a ton of hassle to set up and deploy these panels every time you use them (and all of your friends making fun of you for needing a triple-size campsite to recharge your batteries.)

I spent a bunch of time looking into a similar solution (using Omni's off-grid battery and an array of folding panels) and my conclusion is that if you really want the ability to recharge off-grid, it's cheaper, lighter, more effective, and probably climate-friendlier to just carry a generator (which has emissions but doesn't lock a ton of fixed manufacturing impacts into an occasional-use battery/panel array). Or better yet, just ask a friend to tow-charge you if you get truly stuck.

The exception would be if you want true zombie-apocalypse off-grid boondocking independence and plan to camp for weeks or months between moving your truck. In which case you're kidding yourself and should just buy a bicycle and some guns or something ?

(I do think for residential/long-term installations, solar makes a ton of sense even if it's just a partial offset. I plan to put in a solar/powerwall array at home and hope to mostly sun-power my EVs. But it's just not (yet) a viable portable solution for anything but marginal offsets. I would love to see a solar tonneau cover integrated into the vehicle's BMS because that seems like it could nudge overall efficiency up, but it would be a gimmick at best.)

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