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My intentions are to connect solar panels to offset non-driving usage of the battery. Such as the Camp Kitchen or anything else I might want to plug into the 110v outlets
Amazing! Your posts/replies are the ones I look for the most. And you were the very first reply to my very first post. Cool
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
I think that the way i'd look at this is that if you're worried about getting back after using the camp kitchen, you're probably cutting it too close. Unless you're out there for a very extended period of time. At which point, sure, you could probably toss a panel up to help offset the usage. But even with say a 300w solar panel for an RV, and picked up peak for 4 hours a day, you'd recover less than 1% of the R1T's capacity.
The Rivian is likely going to want to draw about 12 amps from a 110/120v connection. That’s 1440w. So you’d need to find a portable solar system capable of outputting 1500w continuous. From the limited research I’ve done, 1500w systems aren’t small. Rivian has stated that the camp kitchen draws 1440w, so you’d need a similar sized solar setup to run the camp kitchen directly off solar vs. off of the truck battery.
Yeah, I get your use case idea more here. Unless you're sitting out in the middle of nowhere for like.... a month, I would be surprised if the space taken up by a solar panel is worth it and produces any meaningful offset relative to the size of the battery. I know I'm not going off road to camp some distance that I wouldn't have a reasonable buffer to get back to a place to charge. Even if it's just a 110 home outlet.
Good point. I was too lazy to get that far down the logic here either. A 300w panel is generally going to run be about 4'x1.5', so something like 36 square feet at a minimum. Super rough estimate and assuming max wattage.
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.
But if you ask customer service, they won’t confirm that it will be a feature on the production vehicles. RJ has said a lot of things that have been confirmed won’t be there.
I have the Bluetti AC200. I plan on utilizing this, since I bought it originally to use with my Nissan Titan. It can power the kitchen while simultaneously being charged by solar or other inputs. https://www.bluetti.com/products/bluetti-ac200p-2000wh-2000w-portable-power-station
It looks like that system would have the necessary output. On their website it states that an 800w draw would drain the battery in 2.1 hrs. So if the truck is drawing 1440w, then it would last 1:15. You likely don’t want to drain it all the way, so let’s say you’ll get one hour of charging the truck from one each cycling of the generator battery. That would add 1-2 miles of range to the truck.
