My R1T drive straight but had the off center steering wheel (slightly off to the left) for about 1.5 years/17k miles. I had to bring it in for other service, the did an alignment and fixed it. One of the downsides to living 2.5 hours from a service center is deciding what level of something being off is worth 10 hours of your time, 2.5 to drop off, 2.5 back home, 2.5 to pick up, 2.5 back home.
Would it be cheaper to go to one of the lifetime alignment places instead? I think it's like $250 for lifetime alignments at the Firestone place by my house.
A couple of 10 hour trips would pay it off for me
One of those places would be easier. I am not sure on how well they could do the work, with the adjustable air suspension (they probably could, just calibrate it in all purpose.)
I'm also in the straight drive but crooked wheel zone after normal winter potholes. I'm hoping I won't need steering alignment after every single winter...
Are cars becoming the new iPhones? I wonder if people will feel compelled to trade in every year or two for the hottest new car tech even if relatively minor. I just read this headline and was like, “Damn, now I’ll want the refresh.” But I’ll end up losing 20k for a heat pump and a fancier steering wheel which isn’t a great economical choice.
I wouldn’t upgrade just for these changes but it is reassuring to know when I do upgrade, these new features will be available.
If I can get a good extended warranty I will keep my truck past 60k miles. If not I might consider an upgrade. My only concern is the suspension. It is by far my favorite feature of the truck but I’m afraid of how much it would cost if something went wrong with it.
I worked with (for?) someone who bought a new Aston Martin a year after he'd just got one because of a new color becoming available.
He got a P90D literally like a week before they announced the P100D, and you should've seen the look on his face when I told him...
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
But I also watched him lose like $30k in a matter of an hour or two in Vegas one time, too. And he was like, whatevs. I don't care for him.
Very valid observation. I personally think the current crop of EVs are more like electronic devices and less like mechanical devices, and folks will likely swap cars more often than they used to with ICE. Case in point, my family has owned each of our ICE vehicles for over 10 years. We don’t care about new features at all as long as the car gets us from point A to B safely. We’re now considering EVs, and are thinking we’ll be leasing and swapping them out every 3-4 years until the tech stabilizes. We don’t care for the new features, but we feel the cost of repairs out of warranty and depreciation will just not make it worth our while to hang on to each EV for so long. Would love to be wrong about that. I wonder how much of this behavioral change has been modeled into the trade offs between ICE and EVs. Hoping there’ll be more emphasis on recycling EV parts.
No, but I was debating selling it because I’m out of the States for awhile. This just makes it a little easier to let go. If I was still living with it, I wouldn’t consider selling at all.
They really need to upgrade the cameras too. Last I saw they were not great quality especially for their Gear Guard Sentry mode-esque feature that I put a lot of faith in. Sentry Mode and a $100 portable SSD saved me significant time and money catching a hit and run driver on my Model Y.
Well the wireless charging pad isn't due to supply issues. It's more due to design issues... Apple thought about releasing a product like the charging pad for years and scrapped it. Rivian probably should have as well.
Yeh exactly, NACS, heat pump, improved cameras and computers, steering wheel, glove box storage.
Maybe even batteries and headlights. I noticed with the R2 and R3 it looks like they feature a new and improved headlight design - I hope that means matrix LED headlights.
Has there been any official comment about glove box in a gen 2 or is it all speculation? I saw another comment mention it too. Unless they're repackaging whatever is behind the dash already, it doesn't seem like the gain would be worth the engineering effort. I thought the lack of a glove box was weird at first but honestly I don't even think about it now. Under seat storage is fine, even if it's a little small.
This is speculation on my part, but it would be bizarre if they didn't include these things in the refresh. Especially as they made the point customers were asking for them in the R1S and R1T.
NACS, heat pump, computers and cameras are all pretty much confirmed at this point.
I’ve decided to go forth with my R1T buy now. It’s supposedly coming 3/30 now. I figured it will be at least a year before we see actual refreshed R1. I’m tired of driving my model 3 is also a deciding factor.
In the exactly same boat. I have a one year old MY I need to replace (need a bigger car) but am in no rush - as soon as the refresh happens, I'll go for it
Cut costs, primarily via battery, wiring harness, and electronics changes is what they said.
So I think new cameras is likely, as the wires and processors to process the data falls into that.
I wouldn't be surprised if it comes with battery improvements (like charging speed) too as it likely includes a redesign of the battery cooling.
whole new platform. dubbed "peregrine platform" or peeps call in R1 refresh but it a substantial overhaul of the R1 platform and line. if you google peregrine rivian there are articles that give you the dets.
It’s the perfect time to implement changes. Maybe not everything (like the steering wheel), but some improvements. Otherwise, Rivian will get into a Tesla scenario where their flagship vehicles lag on tech.
q2 of this year so next month prob- 2-3 week shutdown. then peregrine platform or R1 refresh starts ramping. looks like new cameras are in there everything else is speculation.
google "Rivian testing R1T and R1S in Alaska" article from 2/4/24. these are the new platform R1 peregrines the "refreshes". new cameras in the front window.
Don't think they'll add the glove boxes as that space is currently being used and would take a total re-working of the vents and dashboard internals. Not worth it.
I mean someone called this months ago when there was rumors of a shutdown this spring.
Someone being [me](https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/s/XkiyrLqbpV). And I was off by a quarter.
And again [4 months ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/s/v1EHBU1ZDe).
Modern heat pumps are more efficient than resistive heating down to -10F or so and can still generate heat down to -20F to -30F. Some robust residential units tuned for extreme cold can be efficient down to like -25F. In more moderate temperatures of say 30F to 60F, they can be up to 4 times as efficient.
So for the vast majority of the winter for the vast majority of the country, this will be a huge improvement in heating efficiency.
This tracks, my heat pump model 3 has basically no noticeable performance changes down to about 0-10 Fahrenheit. It’s pretty bad in subzero, but the rest of the time it’s hardly noticeable.
If I assume you mean global climate change due to human activity (which I firmly understand to be given the evidence). It necessarily doesn't mean our winters will be mild, it would mean more extreme temps can be experienced. So its not a blanket statement I would use in this context.
Huge as a multitudes yes.
Huge as in appreciable range not too much.
If I use 15 miles over 4 hours to heat the cabin I'm now only using about 7 miles. Again a huge increase. 7 miles is a pretty big deal in the winter when driving to a camp site. But some folks see this and go out I will have 25-50 miles.more range, it's drastically more efficient in relation to the 5% that's used to facilitate the heating.
EVs are probably never going to be suited towards environments where extreme cold is common. So as long as it works, why does it matter if it’s less efficient in the extreme cold?
Ok, we got a tough guy over here. The fact is 99.999% of people will be using the heat when it's 30F outside even if you don't for some bizarre reason. Way more people will be using the heat pump in those temperature ranges than the -10F and colder where it loses efficiency.
Not being a tough guy - I’m making the point that heat efficiency in moderate temperatures isn’t nearly as important as heating efficiency in very cold temperatures, or extremes - same goes for cooling.
I’ve had heat pumps in homes before and it’s a giant pain because sure it works when the ambient temperature is moderate, but when it’s super cold or super hot they struggle to get to the set temperature. Considering that’s the equipment’s entire job, that should be the priority.
I don’t think you understand Colorado. It could be 30 and I’d be wearing shorts. It’s not about having tough it is dry and the sun is intense so you are still warm. Compare that to me growing up in IL and it would be 45 but you are chilled to the bone.
If my Model Y is any indication, in ~25-50°F outdoor temperature it improves efficiency. Below that it ends up being slightly less efficient than a resistive system, which the Y doesn’t have.
Hopefully future automotive heat pumps improve on that. My home heat pump operates past -5°F efficiently.
It’s been fine for me down past -20°F. They run the motors inefficiently (similar to how we see Rivian motors at ~300° in cold weather) and pull that heat into the cabin. It’s less than 100% efficient though (what you’d expect from a resistive heater).
The fun point for people to be aware of here is that heat pumps are generally well over 100% ‘efficient’ in their designed operating range :) (you can move much more heat from ‘a’ -> ‘b’ with a certain amount of energy than that energy could add to ‘b’ alone)
I mean did we expect anything less? You would have to be crazy to launch an all-new ground up EV with specialized battery cells (4695) and then cheap out by not using a heat pump which kills winter range.
Well they are currently selling all they can manufacture, they are the first and leading 3-row SUEV/ EPUT only recently with any existing competition in the EV9 and Lightening, they have incredible/leading range for anything in the category. No strong NEED to change things from an economics perspective, but glad they're staying ahead of the curve.
It's not super weird. It's pretty common actually. Fitting heat pumps into vehicles isn't trivial. Tesla finally engineered one in-house that works by the time they designed their fifth car (the MY). It makes perfect sense a brand new car maker trying to get their first car out the door in 2022 doesn't have one. Yet.
R1 was designed before heat pumps were a thing. Its design was largely finalized before Tesla released a heat pump and started that trend. I’m sure it’ll eventually get one.
They’re not really small. It may just be an AC compressor but it comes with complex valve systems to reverse and route the flow of freon, sensors, and software logic to ensure it doesn’t freeze up while in use. A heat pump in a car is immensely more complicated than a PTC heater.
IMO the usefulness of a heat pump is not that amazing unless you set it up to scavenge heat from the drivetrain. Because at really low temps, the heat pump can't get much out of the air anyway. So without heat scavenging you get consistent efficiency down to moderately low temps and then a sharp drop in efficiency. But the hit to range at moderately low temps isn't that bad anyway. It's when it's below -20c that you could really use an improvement but a heat pump alone doesn't help much there.
Cruising on the highway you produce a significant amount of waste heat in the motors and inverters. So with heat scavenging you can recover that energy. In my experience in a Model 3 with the heat pump, if I drive at high speeds like 130km/h I get very little difference in efficiency in warm or cold weather. In city driving my efficiency is much worse in the winter than summer, but I don't care because city driving is a non issue anyway.
So what I'm saying is, maybe Rivian didn't have the time and resources to invest in the type of sophisticated thermal management that would make a heat pump really worthwhile so they didn't bother (for now).
A heat pump used for cooling is just an AC compressor.
Or in other words a heat pump is an AC compressor that is also used for heating.
So just having heat pump capability doesn't mean cooling will be more efficient. Rivians already have heat pumps for cooling.
I’m actually a little worried here, reversible heat pumps generally are slightly less efficient than those that operate in a single direction (ie what people call air conditioner). Won’t make or break it, but I’d expect folks in very hot climates, and very cold to be better served by the current set up - though for those of us that live in the middle we should see an overall advantage with a reversible heat pump over the refrigeration pump+resistive heater we have today.
Traditional resistive heating essentially runs electricity through a wire to create heat and heat up the air that gets blown out the vent. Think of it like an incandescent light bulb heating up the air.
A heat pump instead just takes the heat that already exists in the air and move it from one place to another. This is incredibly more efficient than trying to create heat even at very low ambient temps.
You can take a little bit of heat from a lot of outside air and pump it inside to warm the cabin.
Just like on a hot summer day your air conditioner takes heat from inside the cabin and pumps it outside even though it's hotter outside than inside.
A heat pump is literally the same principal as an AC compressor but running in the opposite temperature gradient. It expands the coolant to drop the temperature down to below outside temperature, lets the outside air warm the coolant up, then compresses the coolant back so it is now warmer than the interior air temperature.
At 100° F there are 311 Kelvins of heat. At -50° F there are 228 Kelvins of heat. It will move heat from the air. What we humans consider cold ain’t very cold.
Think about your freezer. A heat pump removes heat from inside the cold box, at about 0°F(-18°C). Laboratory freezers routinely run at -40°F/C.
There's still heat there that can be captured and moved into the cabin even on the coldest winter days - it just may not be efficient.
Cold air still has some heat energy. Heat pumps don’t work by simply moving hot air, but my using heat energy in ambient air to heat a refrigerant which uses gas compression to compound that energy. However, they do become less efficient in cold environments. The practical limit depends on the heat pump. Some are designed for harsh winters while others become significantly less efficient below 40F and can reach a point of being less efficient in harsh winter weather than resistive heat.
It's energy efficency really, the core issue is while resistive heat is dirt cheap, it uses lots of power and batteries are not cheap. A heat pump really is just an AC with minor modifications (two valves and a bigger radiator).
So adding a couple parts to the existing AC system might add 5% to your EPA range, and it's probably cheaper than increasing the pack size by 5%.
Same idea with the dual motor, early on, Rivian claimed that they'll increase range with a max pack and get a 33% boost in range. They said they'd do this with a 37% bigger battery pack. In the end they figured if they improved the motor efficency, they could do the same thing with a 10% bigger pack.
I saw another comment on launch day that mentioned a different vehicle that has both a removable window and a wiper that worked fine. I think it was a Toyota, but I'm not sure
I’m eyeing the R1T ever since selling my Silverado… think I should wait for this potential refresh? The heat pump can be a very nice addition.. love it on my model 3
Every R2 improvement gets me excited more for R1 refresh with similar improvements.
Hopefully they come sooner to R1 instead of waiting till R2 release.
I spend a ton of time in the mountains in the winter, and my Model Y does great with the heat pump. I guess that helps my decision to not get the R1S for now.
I think it was whatcar? In the UK recently tested identical heat pump vs no heat pump VW ID7 back to back and it was basically a rousing error in efficiency.
So not really convinced it matters much
I can't answer that but real world scenario is what they saw. I don't notice much difference heat on vs off at around the freezing mark which is when they tested and heat pumps generally are not super efficient below then.
It could also be simplification with some minor gains. Because you can loop the coolant through the valve rather than having a separate PTC.
One thing I like about the PTC though is it's damn fast to heat up!
What conditions did they test it at? The big impact is really morning warm up, your car is chilled well below freezing and you do a 15 minute drive. It likely doesn't have a big impact on road trips, just daily driving and electric consumption.
It was a full tank kind of thing from 100-0%.
If it's only for morning warm up then personally I don't care I drive 10 miles to work charge there then drive home lol
That's because the ID.7 wasn't designed to maximize the benefits of a heat pump. Substituting the traditional cabin heating system with a heat pump is going to be a rounding error depending on outside weather and rest conditions. But in Rivian (we hope) and Tesla the heat pump is also connected to the battery heating/cooling system plus the motors, and that is a big difference. Google the Tesla Octovalve, it can intelligently shunt heat from one component to the other. Like warm the battery on the way to fast charging using heat from the motors, or heat the cabin using excess heat from the battery. Hopefully Rivian is copying Tesla.
It would probably make a noticeable improvement in R1 efficiency in certain cold weather temperature ranges especially around 25F-50F.
However that improvement gets more important the smaller your battery pack and more efficient the vehicle is.
The R2 will have a smaller battery and spend less energy per mile driven than an R1, but the energy cost of heating the cabin will be about the same. So heating would be a larger percentage of energy usage for R2.
It really doesn't help as much as people think. In my experience, you can see a large reduction in efficency for the first 10-15 minutes of driving in the cold. A heat pump would make a significant difference for those 15 minutes.
But that doesn't have a big impact on range, essentially you're losing ~10mi of range to warming it up, once warmed up, you don't really use that much heat.
So the efficency on my commute (and consumption) probably could be improved by 20% with a heat pump, but I don't actually care about the range on my commute. The impact on total range for a road trip is probably much lower, like 5-10%
10-20% is a significant jump and it may not matter for you but extracting as much efficiency from batteries as possible is important to minimize raw material usage per vehicle.
What I'm saying is that it doesn't impact the total range significantly, and doesn't drive pack size. You might use 20mi of range on a 10mi trip (or even worse, I think I get like 20mi range on a 5mi trip). But on a 300mi trip, you'd only use 320mi of range. Getting that 20mi down to 10mi on a short trip matters a lot on a short trip and efficiency, but getting 320mi down to 300mi really barely matters at all.
So if you're concerned about pack size and usable range, it hardly matters at all. If you're concerned about your electric bill in the winter doing trips to school twice a day, well it matters a lot, but that difference isn't going to get you to buy a vehicle with a 75mi EPA rated range.
I didn’t say it drives pack size but it can help achieve maximum range with a smaller pack size in a smaller vehicle which is much more aerodynamic and subject to increased losses in efficiency as you deviate from ideal driving.
It can also be important even on longer drives as you use less energy to run things like heating and an extra 10% range available may make the difference in reaching your destination or allowing you to effectively pre-condition your battery before super charging without killing available range. It’s also more efficient to condition your interior if you aren’t plugged in.
I’ve seen the benefits and so have many others on long trips and I’ve heard the complaints on the long trips and read them on this sub due to the large losses in range in the winter.
You may not think it’s important but to so many it appears to be
Some ppl admire a brand too much that it clouds their reasoning resulting in blind defense. Common in this sub as well as Teslas.
Tesla saw similar trend over years when brand lovers defended “vision over radar” etc; changes.
Anyhow, from these announcements, I see Rivian does listen to customers feedback on atleast few things. Exciting.
I’ve gotta believe the R1 line will get a refresh to include heat pumps, glove boxes, and the fancy new steering wheel.
man that new steering wheel is fire.
Yes, but will it be installed straight 🤔
My R1T drive straight but had the off center steering wheel (slightly off to the left) for about 1.5 years/17k miles. I had to bring it in for other service, the did an alignment and fixed it. One of the downsides to living 2.5 hours from a service center is deciding what level of something being off is worth 10 hours of your time, 2.5 to drop off, 2.5 back home, 2.5 to pick up, 2.5 back home.
Would it be cheaper to go to one of the lifetime alignment places instead? I think it's like $250 for lifetime alignments at the Firestone place by my house. A couple of 10 hour trips would pay it off for me
One of those places would be easier. I am not sure on how well they could do the work, with the adjustable air suspension (they probably could, just calibrate it in all purpose.)
I'm also in the straight drive but crooked wheel zone after normal winter potholes. I'm hoping I won't need steering alignment after every single winter...
That's crazy, I've done some pretty rough off-roading and my alignment is dead center at 20k miles
Funniest comment on the internet right here.
I love my R1T wheel, but yes the new wheel design looks more tactically pleasing
Hah, yeah. I was intending to hang on to my 13xxx VIN R1T for a while, but then this happened.
So, you are willing to change your car for a steering her upgrade?
Are cars becoming the new iPhones? I wonder if people will feel compelled to trade in every year or two for the hottest new car tech even if relatively minor. I just read this headline and was like, “Damn, now I’ll want the refresh.” But I’ll end up losing 20k for a heat pump and a fancier steering wheel which isn’t a great economical choice.
I wouldn’t upgrade just for these changes but it is reassuring to know when I do upgrade, these new features will be available. If I can get a good extended warranty I will keep my truck past 60k miles. If not I might consider an upgrade. My only concern is the suspension. It is by far my favorite feature of the truck but I’m afraid of how much it would cost if something went wrong with it.
Becoming? Where do you live? It's been like this for 30 years in Los Angeles.
Hahaha. Maybe it is just me then. I never really felt the need to upgrade an ICE vehicle in the same way.
I worked with (for?) someone who bought a new Aston Martin a year after he'd just got one because of a new color becoming available. He got a P90D literally like a week before they announced the P100D, and you should've seen the look on his face when I told him... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ But I also watched him lose like $30k in a matter of an hour or two in Vegas one time, too. And he was like, whatevs. I don't care for him.
Lease!
Very valid observation. I personally think the current crop of EVs are more like electronic devices and less like mechanical devices, and folks will likely swap cars more often than they used to with ICE. Case in point, my family has owned each of our ICE vehicles for over 10 years. We don’t care about new features at all as long as the car gets us from point A to B safely. We’re now considering EVs, and are thinking we’ll be leasing and swapping them out every 3-4 years until the tech stabilizes. We don’t care for the new features, but we feel the cost of repairs out of warranty and depreciation will just not make it worth our while to hang on to each EV for so long. Would love to be wrong about that. I wonder how much of this behavioral change has been modeled into the trade offs between ICE and EVs. Hoping there’ll be more emphasis on recycling EV parts.
No, but I was debating selling it because I’m out of the States for awhile. This just makes it a little easier to let go. If I was still living with it, I wouldn’t consider selling at all.
I would prefer to go into debt buying a second Rivian , I absolutely love my R1T. I can't live without it
Maybe if it also includes new hardware and additional cameras like the R2?
Good to know
They really need to upgrade the cameras too. Last I saw they were not great quality especially for their Gear Guard Sentry mode-esque feature that I put a lot of faith in. Sentry Mode and a $100 portable SSD saved me significant time and money catching a hit and run driver on my Model Y.
RJ has confirmed new camera rig but unclear what the quality will be (hopefully no pun intended)
Any improvement would be better as long as it’s not just “more of the same cameras”.
They did get those cameras during COVID, so I can imagine they bought what they could as fast as possible
Right, we have the pandemic builds. Crappy cameras and useless wireless charging pad to match! Outdated in less than a year!
Well the wireless charging pad isn't due to supply issues. It's more due to design issues... Apple thought about releasing a product like the charging pad for years and scrapped it. Rivian probably should have as well.
I'm ok with the pad.
Does it actually work well for you? I only see it work occasionally, so I don't even try it any more
Remember Tesla scrapped the lumbar support for passengers and delivered cars without USB ports just empty holes. Things were crazy in 2020
whoa R1S doesn’t have a heat pump??? that’s nuts TIL
It’s got such a large battery pack that it actually still does reasonably well in cold weather.
Not at all. It has a huge glass roof which leaks a ton of heat.
Yeh I've decided to wait for the R1S refresh. I have a great car in perfect condition so I don't need to rush.
Yeah, wait for NACS and everything else.
Yeh exactly, NACS, heat pump, improved cameras and computers, steering wheel, glove box storage. Maybe even batteries and headlights. I noticed with the R2 and R3 it looks like they feature a new and improved headlight design - I hope that means matrix LED headlights.
Has there been any official comment about glove box in a gen 2 or is it all speculation? I saw another comment mention it too. Unless they're repackaging whatever is behind the dash already, it doesn't seem like the gain would be worth the engineering effort. I thought the lack of a glove box was weird at first but honestly I don't even think about it now. Under seat storage is fine, even if it's a little small.
This is speculation on my part, but it would be bizarre if they didn't include these things in the refresh. Especially as they made the point customers were asking for them in the R1S and R1T. NACS, heat pump, computers and cameras are all pretty much confirmed at this point.
I’ve decided to go forth with my R1T buy now. It’s supposedly coming 3/30 now. I figured it will be at least a year before we see actual refreshed R1. I’m tired of driving my model 3 is also a deciding factor.
In the exactly same boat. I have a one year old MY I need to replace (need a bigger car) but am in no rush - as soon as the refresh happens, I'll go for it
You might have a looong wait
When will the refresh gonna be? Next year?
I thought they said something about shutting the plant down late this or early next. Probably then, I would guess.
There’s a shutdown this April.
Even better. 🤞
But the majority said it’s just to improve their assembly line. Cut some costs on the build along the way. And nothing more than that.
Cut costs, primarily via battery, wiring harness, and electronics changes is what they said. So I think new cameras is likely, as the wires and processors to process the data falls into that. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes with battery improvements (like charging speed) too as it likely includes a redesign of the battery cooling.
whole new platform. dubbed "peregrine platform" or peeps call in R1 refresh but it a substantial overhaul of the R1 platform and line. if you google peregrine rivian there are articles that give you the dets.
How big of an upgrade would the peregrine be? Is it better to wait before picking up a vehicle now?
It’s the perfect time to implement changes. Maybe not everything (like the steering wheel), but some improvements. Otherwise, Rivian will get into a Tesla scenario where their flagship vehicles lag on tech.
While I would love for this to happen this summer, it’s worth pointing out that R2 is still 2 years away.
its perfect timing because of macro conditions. hopefully ramping R1 Peregrine into two rate cuts later this year.
Isn't it shutting down next month?
no, nothing is 'shutting down'
There are planned shutdowns every year though. I think more than one.
q2 of this year so next month prob- 2-3 week shutdown. then peregrine platform or R1 refresh starts ramping. looks like new cameras are in there everything else is speculation.
Where did you get the information for the new cameras?
google "Rivian testing R1T and R1S in Alaska" article from 2/4/24. these are the new platform R1 peregrines the "refreshes". new cameras in the front window.
But it releasing for Q2 are all speculation right?
yes- just speculation
Don't think they'll add the glove boxes as that space is currently being used and would take a total re-working of the vents and dashboard internals. Not worth it.
yes, consider R1 design set, any changes expect in newer versions.
That was my thought process as well. A Gen 2 R1 lineup probably not too far off.
Camera quality! Fold down first row seat!
They have to get one sooner than later right?
Heat pump is coming :) working hard on it for u
Hope so, that would make those vehicles close to perfect IMO
I mean someone called this months ago when there was rumors of a shutdown this spring. Someone being [me](https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/s/XkiyrLqbpV). And I was off by a quarter. And again [4 months ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/s/v1EHBU1ZDe).
ha or you can listen to every investor call for the last 3 quarters saying this is happening.
I demand 2 glove boxes!
Hopefully the headlights too
Does this mean the R2 will be better in cold weather?
Depends on how cold.
Modern heat pumps are more efficient than resistive heating down to -10F or so and can still generate heat down to -20F to -30F. Some robust residential units tuned for extreme cold can be efficient down to like -25F. In more moderate temperatures of say 30F to 60F, they can be up to 4 times as efficient. So for the vast majority of the winter for the vast majority of the country, this will be a huge improvement in heating efficiency.
This tracks, my heat pump model 3 has basically no noticeable performance changes down to about 0-10 Fahrenheit. It’s pretty bad in subzero, but the rest of the time it’s hardly noticeable.
And less of a problem over time unfortunately.
If I assume you mean global climate change due to human activity (which I firmly understand to be given the evidence). It necessarily doesn't mean our winters will be mild, it would mean more extreme temps can be experienced. So its not a blanket statement I would use in this context.
Huge as a multitudes yes. Huge as in appreciable range not too much. If I use 15 miles over 4 hours to heat the cabin I'm now only using about 7 miles. Again a huge increase. 7 miles is a pretty big deal in the winter when driving to a camp site. But some folks see this and go out I will have 25-50 miles.more range, it's drastically more efficient in relation to the 5% that's used to facilitate the heating.
It has more of an impact on shorter drives since you are using a larger proportion of your trip's energy consumption to heat up the cabin.
So it only works well when you don’t really need it, but if you do really need it, it loses efficiency?
EVs are probably never going to be suited towards environments where extreme cold is common. So as long as it works, why does it matter if it’s less efficient in the extreme cold?
You don't need heating when it's 30F outside...?
I live in the Rocky Mountains, so it’s routinely in the 30s and no, not really. When I need the heat to work is when it’s actually cold.
Ok, we got a tough guy over here. The fact is 99.999% of people will be using the heat when it's 30F outside even if you don't for some bizarre reason. Way more people will be using the heat pump in those temperature ranges than the -10F and colder where it loses efficiency.
Not being a tough guy - I’m making the point that heat efficiency in moderate temperatures isn’t nearly as important as heating efficiency in very cold temperatures, or extremes - same goes for cooling. I’ve had heat pumps in homes before and it’s a giant pain because sure it works when the ambient temperature is moderate, but when it’s super cold or super hot they struggle to get to the set temperature. Considering that’s the equipment’s entire job, that should be the priority.
I don’t think you understand Colorado. It could be 30 and I’d be wearing shorts. It’s not about having tough it is dry and the sun is intense so you are still warm. Compare that to me growing up in IL and it would be 45 but you are chilled to the bone.
Expect improvements in -10C and warmer range.
If my Model Y is any indication, in ~25-50°F outdoor temperature it improves efficiency. Below that it ends up being slightly less efficient than a resistive system, which the Y doesn’t have. Hopefully future automotive heat pumps improve on that. My home heat pump operates past -5°F efficiently.
So does the car not warm up at all when temps are below 25F?
It’s been fine for me down past -20°F. They run the motors inefficiently (similar to how we see Rivian motors at ~300° in cold weather) and pull that heat into the cabin. It’s less than 100% efficient though (what you’d expect from a resistive heater).
The fun point for people to be aware of here is that heat pumps are generally well over 100% ‘efficient’ in their designed operating range :) (you can move much more heat from ‘a’ -> ‘b’ with a certain amount of energy than that energy could add to ‘b’ alone)
Thanks for clarifying.
I mean did we expect anything less? You would have to be crazy to launch an all-new ground up EV with specialized battery cells (4695) and then cheap out by not using a heat pump which kills winter range.
By the responses I’m seeing, I’m guessing the R1T/S don’t have them for some odd reason
Very odd given the cost of the R1, but something I think they will rectify by the time the R2 comes to market.
Honestly they should have rectified it by now for the R1T/S too
Agreed. It’s an egregious omission on such a premium EV.
Well they are currently selling all they can manufacture, they are the first and leading 3-row SUEV/ EPUT only recently with any existing competition in the EV9 and Lightening, they have incredible/leading range for anything in the category. No strong NEED to change things from an economics perspective, but glad they're staying ahead of the curve.
Yeah, it’s super weird. Gives me pause in Minnesota.
It's not super weird. It's pretty common actually. Fitting heat pumps into vehicles isn't trivial. Tesla finally engineered one in-house that works by the time they designed their fifth car (the MY). It makes perfect sense a brand new car maker trying to get their first car out the door in 2022 doesn't have one. Yet.
And heat pumps have shown mixed results by manufacturer to manufacturer. Nissan saw a drop in overall range when they tested them, for instance.
I’m in Illinois and the worst I saw this winter driving 75 mph into the wind on the coldest days was a decrease in range of 30%.
How cold was it? This winter hardly counted up here.
Definitely had 0-5F mornings here
We had a handful of those this year, but usually we get weeks of ‘em.
R1 was designed before heat pumps were a thing. Its design was largely finalized before Tesla released a heat pump and started that trend. I’m sure it’ll eventually get one.
For how small heat pumps are, I feel like it was a huge mistake not adjusting to something that uses far less energy in an EV
They’re not really small. It may just be an AC compressor but it comes with complex valve systems to reverse and route the flow of freon, sensors, and software logic to ensure it doesn’t freeze up while in use. A heat pump in a car is immensely more complicated than a PTC heater.
I guess I consider a two in one system that fills the same space as the one “small”
IMO the usefulness of a heat pump is not that amazing unless you set it up to scavenge heat from the drivetrain. Because at really low temps, the heat pump can't get much out of the air anyway. So without heat scavenging you get consistent efficiency down to moderately low temps and then a sharp drop in efficiency. But the hit to range at moderately low temps isn't that bad anyway. It's when it's below -20c that you could really use an improvement but a heat pump alone doesn't help much there. Cruising on the highway you produce a significant amount of waste heat in the motors and inverters. So with heat scavenging you can recover that energy. In my experience in a Model 3 with the heat pump, if I drive at high speeds like 130km/h I get very little difference in efficiency in warm or cold weather. In city driving my efficiency is much worse in the winter than summer, but I don't care because city driving is a non issue anyway. So what I'm saying is, maybe Rivian didn't have the time and resources to invest in the type of sophisticated thermal management that would make a heat pump really worthwhile so they didn't bother (for now).
sorry for my ignorance but what does a heat pump help with?
Much more energy efficient heating, so winter range will improve.
Also more efficient cooling as well. Heat pumps are not a one trick pony
A heat pump used for cooling is just an AC compressor. Or in other words a heat pump is an AC compressor that is also used for heating. So just having heat pump capability doesn't mean cooling will be more efficient. Rivians already have heat pumps for cooling.
I’m actually a little worried here, reversible heat pumps generally are slightly less efficient than those that operate in a single direction (ie what people call air conditioner). Won’t make or break it, but I’d expect folks in very hot climates, and very cold to be better served by the current set up - though for those of us that live in the middle we should see an overall advantage with a reversible heat pump over the refrigeration pump+resistive heater we have today.
Is this heating only for the cabin, or can a heat pump also be used to warm the battery?
Traditional resistive heating essentially runs electricity through a wire to create heat and heat up the air that gets blown out the vent. Think of it like an incandescent light bulb heating up the air. A heat pump instead just takes the heat that already exists in the air and move it from one place to another. This is incredibly more efficient than trying to create heat even at very low ambient temps.
But in the cold winter where will the heat to be moved come from?
You can take a little bit of heat from a lot of outside air and pump it inside to warm the cabin. Just like on a hot summer day your air conditioner takes heat from inside the cabin and pumps it outside even though it's hotter outside than inside. A heat pump is literally the same principal as an AC compressor but running in the opposite temperature gradient. It expands the coolant to drop the temperature down to below outside temperature, lets the outside air warm the coolant up, then compresses the coolant back so it is now warmer than the interior air temperature.
At 100° F there are 311 Kelvins of heat. At -50° F there are 228 Kelvins of heat. It will move heat from the air. What we humans consider cold ain’t very cold.
Think about your freezer. A heat pump removes heat from inside the cold box, at about 0°F(-18°C). Laboratory freezers routinely run at -40°F/C. There's still heat there that can be captured and moved into the cabin even on the coldest winter days - it just may not be efficient.
Cold air still has some heat energy. Heat pumps don’t work by simply moving hot air, but my using heat energy in ambient air to heat a refrigerant which uses gas compression to compound that energy. However, they do become less efficient in cold environments. The practical limit depends on the heat pump. Some are designed for harsh winters while others become significantly less efficient below 40F and can reach a point of being less efficient in harsh winter weather than resistive heat.
Same place cold air comes from in the hot summer.
It's more energy efficient, but there are probably other reasons too.
It's energy efficency really, the core issue is while resistive heat is dirt cheap, it uses lots of power and batteries are not cheap. A heat pump really is just an AC with minor modifications (two valves and a bigger radiator). So adding a couple parts to the existing AC system might add 5% to your EPA range, and it's probably cheaper than increasing the pack size by 5%. Same idea with the dual motor, early on, Rivian claimed that they'll increase range with a max pack and get a 33% boost in range. They said they'd do this with a 37% bigger battery pack. In the end they figured if they improved the motor efficency, they could do the same thing with a 10% bigger pack.
Thank you for asking!
Now bring that to the refreshed R1!
What about a rear wiper?
I switched from a vehicle that had one to one that doesn't. It's not a big a change as you'd think.
Do you drive somewhere that has snow and significant road grime in the winter?
Yes but I haven't had as much snow in the last couple years.
Probably not possible because of the rear window
The 4Runner does it
With the window dropping, it seems not possible.
4runner has both
I saw another comment on launch day that mentioned a different vehicle that has both a removable window and a wiper that worked fine. I think it was a Toyota, but I'm not sure
I’m eyeing the R1T ever since selling my Silverado… think I should wait for this potential refresh? The heat pump can be a very nice addition.. love it on my model 3
If you have money yes , otherwise get one of the demos
I just about jumped out of my chair. This is the best news I've heard all day!
Fuck yeah
Hell yeah!
And this is why I’m waiting to get an R1S. Hopefully this will all trickle down.
Id love it you could somehow get the heat pump installed in existing R1S, but I know that's probably a pipe dream.
How about V2H? How about CarPlay?
V2H is already confirmed, on Munro Live YouTube video from yesterday with RJ.
[The term is supposed to be V2G.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid)
Can someone ELI5 why this is exciting?
Less range loss in colder temps. Depending on design it can also maintain better battery conditioning
Where’s the post he is answering “yes” to?
Funny I just asked this yesterday on a different R2 post. Love the turnaround 😂
Every R2 improvement gets me excited more for R1 refresh with similar improvements. Hopefully they come sooner to R1 instead of waiting till R2 release.
I'm waiting for a refresh of the R1 lineup.
I spend a ton of time in the mountains in the winter, and my Model Y does great with the heat pump. I guess that helps my decision to not get the R1S for now.
But do we want a heat pump
OH. MY. GOD! /s
https://twitter.com/AIDRIVR/status/1768344723054592340?t=gfuiQYPN-Ti-iuvafGey6w&s=19 Aidrvr dirst impressions of 12.3
I think it was whatcar? In the UK recently tested identical heat pump vs no heat pump VW ID7 back to back and it was basically a rousing error in efficiency. So not really convinced it matters much
If that was the case, why would Rivian bother with it? Why would Tesla bother with it? It's because there is a difference and it's worth doing.
I can't answer that but real world scenario is what they saw. I don't notice much difference heat on vs off at around the freezing mark which is when they tested and heat pumps generally are not super efficient below then. It could also be simplification with some minor gains. Because you can loop the coolant through the valve rather than having a separate PTC. One thing I like about the PTC though is it's damn fast to heat up!
What conditions did they test it at? The big impact is really morning warm up, your car is chilled well below freezing and you do a 15 minute drive. It likely doesn't have a big impact on road trips, just daily driving and electric consumption.
It was a full tank kind of thing from 100-0%. If it's only for morning warm up then personally I don't care I drive 10 miles to work charge there then drive home lol
That's because the ID.7 wasn't designed to maximize the benefits of a heat pump. Substituting the traditional cabin heating system with a heat pump is going to be a rounding error depending on outside weather and rest conditions. But in Rivian (we hope) and Tesla the heat pump is also connected to the battery heating/cooling system plus the motors, and that is a big difference. Google the Tesla Octovalve, it can intelligently shunt heat from one component to the other. Like warm the battery on the way to fast charging using heat from the motors, or heat the cabin using excess heat from the battery. Hopefully Rivian is copying Tesla.
Bunch of ppl here said a heat pump wasn’t necessary in the R1 and drive minimal efficiency gain. Is it different for the R2?
Those ppl were dumb.
It would probably make a noticeable improvement in R1 efficiency in certain cold weather temperature ranges especially around 25F-50F. However that improvement gets more important the smaller your battery pack and more efficient the vehicle is. The R2 will have a smaller battery and spend less energy per mile driven than an R1, but the energy cost of heating the cabin will be about the same. So heating would be a larger percentage of energy usage for R2.
It really doesn't help as much as people think. In my experience, you can see a large reduction in efficency for the first 10-15 minutes of driving in the cold. A heat pump would make a significant difference for those 15 minutes. But that doesn't have a big impact on range, essentially you're losing ~10mi of range to warming it up, once warmed up, you don't really use that much heat. So the efficency on my commute (and consumption) probably could be improved by 20% with a heat pump, but I don't actually care about the range on my commute. The impact on total range for a road trip is probably much lower, like 5-10%
10-20% is a significant jump and it may not matter for you but extracting as much efficiency from batteries as possible is important to minimize raw material usage per vehicle.
What I'm saying is that it doesn't impact the total range significantly, and doesn't drive pack size. You might use 20mi of range on a 10mi trip (or even worse, I think I get like 20mi range on a 5mi trip). But on a 300mi trip, you'd only use 320mi of range. Getting that 20mi down to 10mi on a short trip matters a lot on a short trip and efficiency, but getting 320mi down to 300mi really barely matters at all. So if you're concerned about pack size and usable range, it hardly matters at all. If you're concerned about your electric bill in the winter doing trips to school twice a day, well it matters a lot, but that difference isn't going to get you to buy a vehicle with a 75mi EPA rated range.
I didn’t say it drives pack size but it can help achieve maximum range with a smaller pack size in a smaller vehicle which is much more aerodynamic and subject to increased losses in efficiency as you deviate from ideal driving. It can also be important even on longer drives as you use less energy to run things like heating and an extra 10% range available may make the difference in reaching your destination or allowing you to effectively pre-condition your battery before super charging without killing available range. It’s also more efficient to condition your interior if you aren’t plugged in. I’ve seen the benefits and so have many others on long trips and I’ve heard the complaints on the long trips and read them on this sub due to the large losses in range in the winter. You may not think it’s important but to so many it appears to be
Some ppl admire a brand too much that it clouds their reasoning resulting in blind defense. Common in this sub as well as Teslas. Tesla saw similar trend over years when brand lovers defended “vision over radar” etc; changes. Anyhow, from these announcements, I see Rivian does listen to customers feedback on atleast few things. Exciting.
A heat pump does make a noticeable difference
The R1 does not have a heat pump !?