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All discussion of Rivian Automotive
- Thread starter RobStark
- Start date
Ben Affleck And Jennifer Lopez Spotted Cruising In A New Rivian R1S
Star endorsement of any kind is always good to boost a brand's awareness, especially for a startup that is still far from being an established name.
insideevs.com
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Interesting couple of videos from a reliable videographer on Twitter. He’s taking a long trip and noticing that the Rivian thermal throttles way too often when charging, even in winter. Watch the first video and then the next one he has in the thread, both about 30 seconds long. The cooling fans aren’t even turning on at the correct time. Sounds to me like some software updates are in order if not a pack redesign.
He is thinking the problem is that the cooling can't reach some parts of the pack, and it hot spots. Which would likely need a pack redesign. (It would seem that the software would have to be really bad for it to just be a software problem, but maybe they introduced a weird bug in a recent update.)
I suppose it could be a flaw in his pack, but Branden complains about the same thing:
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On the Rivian forum, someone just posted that his vehicle cooling fans finally turned on after unplugging from a fast charging session. Sounds like the vehicle software isn’t anticipating cooling loads from fast charging, but instead reacting to measured pack heat, and it is too late at that point due to thermal inertia. Could be a bug, but I suspect just badly designed software in that the software engineer didn‘t know what they’re doing.
What if the problem is the stacked modules? The bottom modules are too close to the bottom of the pack and are cold, or colder than the top modules? Since there is only a cooling plate sandwiched between the top and bottom modules you have to wait for the bottom modules to warm up before you can start cooling or you would over-cool the bottom modules. (It might be impossible to maintain a similar temperature between top and bottom modules.)
I don't recall if Munro showed any insulation between the pack bottom and the modules. But most non-stacked designs put the cooling plates between the bottom of the pack and the modules which is sort of a barrier from the outside temperature. (And where GM stacked modules they have separate cooling plates on the bottom of each module.)
Even if it results in the bottom modules being too cold to charge? (At those temperatures you might not need much fan usage to get enough cooling, but that also depends on wind speed.)
Only Rivian knows the details, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out, but we might not see the results until next winter. (Though people have complained of problems when charging in the summer as well.)
Tesla used to stack one module in the 80/90 packs, but I think they stopped that with the 100/refresh designs.
It looks like for the long range Lucid Air that they stack two modules near the back:
But Rivian did just release a software update that may improve this, though they said the issue was "rare" which makes Branden question if it is really they fix they are looking for:
Double stacked cylindrical cells with cooling running between the stacks is Rivian's patented battery differentiator.
Lucid is single stack.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
But we have no idea if the stacks in the Semi share a cooling plate like Rivian does or not. Most likely not, because Tesla uses a cooling ribbon between rows of cells in all the current packs we have seen.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Yeah I had always thought the cooling ribbon between cells was inefficient until Jordan of The Limiting Factor channel did his video and corrected me. Tesla appears to have excellent engineering when it comes to heat rejection. Their next gen charging cable with the conductors sitting in a liquid cooling bath is wild.
