Rivian Charging Problem: Hidden flaw in the A2Z adapter

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 Blue

Member

Dec 27, 2024

I was just on a road trip to go see my mom yesterday and unexpectedly all of the superchargers we hit were V4 and they all had their magic docks locked.

When we tried to charge (on many different chargers at 3 locations) using the A2Z adapter neither the car or the charger recognized it as plugged in. We made it to an EA station with 6 miles left few.

After some research I found someone who had the same problem and posted a pic of their bad adapter. It is super easy to check by looking at the NACS side of the adapter and seeing if the two metal lower outer connectors are the same length. Reached out to A2Z and they said they would send a replacement ASAP. I had to borrow from a friend and her's appeared to be fine when I tested it out.

Image with shorter connector pin circled is attached.