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Shhh...Don’t Tell Anyone the Rain Isn’t *That* Bad

GoWest!

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Checking in here from the PNW. Reservation in for a R1S and I’m excitedly awaiting the day when I get to drive a Rivian on our beautiful PNW roads! Clarification: the roads aren’t that great but the scenery is!
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JackA

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We live in north central Washington near Chelan. It does not rain much here! We too are reservation holders on the R1S. Looking forward to taking it off road...
 
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GoWest!

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We live in north central Washington near Chelan. It does not rain much here! We too are reservation holders on the R1S. Looking forward to taking it off road...
Hi there. We’ll need to have a meet up once we start receiving our vehicles!
 

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Mjhirsch78

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Olympic Peninsula here and got an R1T reservation in. So excited to finally wave at you all as we pass on the gravel.
 

ajdelange

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Got a knee jerk from the title but I'm calmed down after reading the thread. The PNW is lovely, no question about that but there was a reason for the knee jerk. Rain is indeed bad, bad, bad in terms of what it will do to your range in a BEV. It doesn't take much water on the road to knock 25% off usable range. That means your large battery model could lose 100 miles to it!
 

DucRider

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[QUOTE="ajdelange, post: 5588, member: 481" Rain is indeed bad, bad, bad in terms of what it will do to your range in a BEV. It doesn't take much water on the road to knock 25% off usable range. That means your large battery model could lose 100 miles to it![/QUOTE]
I've never heard of anyone taking anywhere near that kind of range hit solely due to rain. I live in the NW and with all other things being equal (temperature, speed, etc.) it's maybe 10%. Six years with an EV, and intereact with lots of owners while promoting EV adoption. Never heard anyone else say they that took that kind of range hit.

If you are in a warmer climate where rain is accompanied by cooler temps, the combination could easily amount to the 25% you refer to.
 

ajdelange

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Next time you encounter rain look at your consumption gauge. Even wet pavement will increase consumption noticeably. I normally use 300 Wh/mi. A gully washer will push that up over 400 (hence the 25% number). Temperature change has relatively little to do with it as the loss comes from the tires having to push water out of the way and water is much, much thicker and denser (1000x) than air, even cold air.
 
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DucRider

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Next time you encounter rain look at your consumption gauge. Even wet pavement will increase consumption noticeably. I normally use 300 Wh/mi. A gully washer will push that up over 400 (hence the 25% number). Temperature change has relatively little to do with it as the loss comes from the tires having to push water out of the way and water is much, much thicker than air, even cold air.
That probably explains some of it.
The NW rarely gets "gully washers". We tend to have slow steady rain or just light mist that keeps the roads wet/damp, but not a lot of standing water. Tires and speed will also play a big factor, as well as the particular vehicle.
But our experience has still been different. Driving to a company Xmas party last year, we had light rain wet roads on the way down (temps in the low 40's), and very hard rain with standing water on the return trip later that evening. Miles/kWh were not appreciably different, and nowhere near a 25% penalty from dry conditions. AFAIK, only Tesla uses the wh/mi metric. Efficiency is typically provided to the driver in mi/kWh. We were at something like 2.7 mi/kWh on the first leg, and 2.5 on the return trip (after a cold soak of the battery and needing constant defrost/heat due to wet coats, etc). We would have been under 3 mi/kWh without the rain. 30 miles each way of mixed road types (and speeds) with about 65% on 65mph freeway.

Hard to say what impact rain will have on Rivian vehicles. It may be that the highly efficient Tesla's are more sensitive to anything that impacts that efficiency. ICE vehicles have the same physics, but certainly don't lose 25% of their mpg when driving in rain. I would guess more like a 10% range drop on the Rivians since they are less efficient out of the gate, but that likely depends a lot on tire choice.

All we can do is speculate until people get some miles on production versions under a variety of conditions.
 

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ajdelange

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You are absolutely right in saying that multiple factors go into determining consumption (and thus range). The reason for my post was that I was very surprised at how much of an effect water on the road surface has. I count on being able to drive from one end of Vermont to the other (in a Tesla) without having to stop for a recharge. That is comfortably doable if the road is dry but not during heavy rain and the situation needs to be monitored if the road surface is wet from drizzle or previous rain. Now my R1T will have 100 more miles range than my Tesla and, of course, that will help (if I can find some place to charge it in Vermont) and most readers probably wont have being able to drive from Bratteleboro to Newport on their mission list so the real message here is that people need to be aware that rain, actually, let's make that weather, can be a big factor. As such they should keep an eye on their fuel condition as they progress along their way.

The situation is really no different in ICE and electric vehicles except that the BEV's fuel tank is smaller and the refueling stations are fewer and farther between. Hence the heightened awareness with regard to consumption.

Anecdotal information may be of limited interest so skip this bit if you like. The last time we did the southbound run it was raining pretty hard when we left. The predictor indicated arriving at the southern end with negative margin. As we progressed the rain slowed, then stopped and eventually the sun came out. After each of these events the estimated charge at destination increased and by the time we were running on dry surface it showed a nice margin.
 
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Shzeph

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Never noticed this regional group! Bellevue area here, I preordered an R1S on December 13, 2018
 
 




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