Rivian Battery Warming Trick

Rivian Blue · 2025-04-01T08:59:34+00:00

Ever since I got my R1S, I've noticed that the battery range estimation hasn't been the best. Driving a Tesla for the last 3 years, it never had this kind of issue. During my last trip, the driver display shows 255mi remaining. My total trip (including 2 destinations) is 160mi so I believed I should be able to make it easily with a nice cushion. But the center display showed that I would arrive at first destination with 4mi remaining, and run out before the second destination! I knew this was false so I made the drive anyway, and arrived at second destination with 50mi remaining. If I understand correctly, the driver display range is simply the total rated range multiplied by SOC. That makes sense here, since my vehicle is rated for 370mi, 255mi is 68.9%. Coming from Tesla, I expect the number shown in the center display should account for factors like elevation, wind, traffic speed, etc. It's sad that my own mental estimation is better than Rivian's.

wildlife R1T

Member

Mar 23, 2025

I've seen a few articles online talking about WHEN and IF the battery is warmed under different criteria. Well the last thing I read that seemed to be generally agreed upon was that if the Rivian is plugged in and you set a scheduled departure, it will warm the battery and cabin. Yet, if you only hit the fan icon in the app to precondition the vehicle interior, it does not warm the battery.

I just found out recently that it WILL warm the battery by only pressing the precondition button in the app IF... you increase the temp to "HI" by either holding the up arrow or tapping a bunch of times. I did this a couple of weeks back and when I went out the Rivi maybe 5 minutes later I noticed all 4 motors all toasty and a battery temp of 50 when it was cold outside! I will note that it was garaged and it was about 30 degrees in there.

Anyway, I'm sure you've all covered this somewhere but just confirming based on my discoveries. I DIDN'T see the warm motors and increased battery temp when just turning it on at my normal 69 temp.

I'm embarrassed that my flash went off and I didn't have time to take another pic so it looks terrible and has a bunch of smudges. Also, I was plugged in while seeing this. Don't think I've ever seen motors warm when only preconditioning.

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