Humid Air Causing Fogging on Rivian Interior Glass Surfaces

Vincent · 2025-01-10T19:33:15+00:00

A friend needed to support his son who would be running a 'very cold' marathon on Sunday while rucking a 30 pound pack. The outside temps will be around 15F-20F the whole time. The location of the race is nowhere close to any L2 chargers, but he's not worried about driving distance to or from the race - it is 50 miles away from his house. He says he will be sitting in his ruck with his laptop and watching his live track+Garmin inReach data for the duration of the race (about 4 hours). He thought about taking his Honda EB2800i gasoline powered generator, if he can use the level 1 EVSE attached to the generator and keep the truck running with full heat + power - without really consuming much of the truck's main battery? He feels it's super dorky to have a gas generator running while attached to a Rivian in the woods, just so he can stay warm, but don't know if it would work ok this way and 'preserve' the main battery so he doesn't need to worry about driving range when we wants to head home. He talked to me about it and I told him the simple answer is NO. I tested this theory the other night when I was plugged into a 5.9kW charger. To maintain the interior amenities (interior and exterior lights, radio, heater, seat heaters), it took almost all of the charge. I charged for 15 minutes, it delivered 1.6kW, and the truck consumed 1.4kW, delivering only 0.2kW to the truck battery. Told him he would be using a laptop at another 200ish watts. The little trickle charger charges at 1.4kW on a good day, 1.2kW is normal for me. You can slow the bleed, but you cant stop it. My advise to him was for him to charge it up to 100% at home, and roll the dice is what I would do.

Rivian Mom

Active Wheeler

Dec 31, 2024

During this winter, it's common for owners to experience foggy glass surfaces, and it can be pretty egregious. When the HVAC is set to heater and defog, the issue is reliably reproduced when it's relatively cooler outside. This is kind of a safety issue, as it can pop up 5 minutes into a drive or 30-60 minutes into a drive. A friend of mine recently experienced this, and I was able to offer her some advice from my own previous experience.

Here's what her car looked like. I experienced the same issue last year while we were on a road trip under very specific conditions - incredibly high humidity, low air temperature (40s, if I recall correctly), and it was especially an issue if the car was preconditioning for a DC Fast Charger. I assumed that the temperature and humidity combination, plus preconditioning the battery, somehow made the AC compressor not function at 100% for in-cabin climate usage. I seem to remember that if I cancelled the destination to the fast charger (and thus stopped preconditioning), it went back to normal.

Another tip for a better result is to turn on the recirculation feature, so that it's drying the same cabin air repeatedly. Also, be sure to check under your floor mats for wet carpet. There have been reports of AC system leaks, where the condensate drips back into the vehicle, saturating the carpet. If that happens, it's never removing moisture. To help diagnose the issue, look for condensate, or a lack thereof, dripping outside the car. These tips should be very helpful.

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