It's that time of year again where we get out our beach chairs, put on our swimsuits, put shrimp/burgers on the grill, or just crank up the A/C to keep cool.
Unfortunately with the heat come some challenges for many rivian owners. I have seen a large number of owners struggle with messages that they're charging has been slowed down due to high temperatures at the “plug” or charge handle. I have some tips to help and will also explain why this happens.
First, let's discuss why this happens. With level 2 charging, (this would be charging at your home or office on AC power) there is usually a temperature sensor in the charging handle. The vehicle can also sense if things are getting too hot as well. EV chargers like the Tesla wall connector, for example, have a sensor in the charging plug which will trigger the charge rate to slow if it detects the temperature is too high. Your Rivian vehicle can also sense the temperature when level 2 charging and will also trigger charging to slow. This is an important safety function as heat can be the result of arcing which is a dangerous electrical condition that can result in the melting/burning of equipment or worse case a fire.
So the charger or vehicle will continue to slow down the rate of charge to keep the temperature within a safe range. If the temperature cannot be kept within the safe range. The charger or vehicle will terminate the charging altogether.
Now while this protects vehicles and chargers against damage it can also be very annoying for many owners because instead of charging at 48 amps their vehicle will slow down to 32 amps or maybe even much slower. This results in the charge taking much longer than it would normally if it were charging at the maximum. It probably goes without saying that in some cases this could cause you to not have enough electrons to make a needed trip.
When you see a message like this on your charger or on your vehicle, it's important to rule out any potential safety issues. For example, above I talk about the charge handle being hot, but in some cases if there's a wiring problem, the charger itself can get hot and that should be investigated immediately. If the charger itself is overheating that can be caused by loose or damaged electrical wiring and is a serious safety issue. If that’s the case you should stop using the charger until a licensed electrician is able to check it out and deem it safe.
The Tesla universal wall connector is the charger I highly recommend. Tesla chargers have a sensor that will prevent the charge handle from overheating and display a blinking red flash code which, depending on the number of blinks, will tell you exactly what is happening. See page 38 of the Tesla wall connector manual for a full list of fault codes.
If you see the problem with the charge handle overheating only in the hot summer months, the problem is usually the hot temps and not a safety condition, but it's always good to verify anyway. In many cases the problem will be caused by the charge handle being above the safe temperature.
This actually happened to me a number of times last summer. And there are some things you can do to help prevent this in the hot summer months. Rivian Vehicles seem to be more susceptible to this condition and I think one of the reasons why is that the charge port is located on the front driver side of the vehicle. The front of the Rivian is where a lot of the heat from the cooling system and HVAC is dissipated. If you go into the frunk in the hot summer months you will notice that it can get pretty warm in there and I think this contributes to some of the higher temps at the charging port and charging handle. The cooling fan pulls the heat from the front of the vehicle and appears to push the hot air out through the front wheel wells. All the hot air appears to be flowing right near the charge port location making it more susceptible to overheating in high temperature conditions.
Here are some things that you can do to reduce the likelihood that the charge handle will overheat and slow down the charging.
Avoid parking the vehicle in direct sunlight.
If you park your vehicle in a non-climate controlled garage, make sure there is plenty of ventilation around the front and sides of the vehicle for heat to escape.
If you back your rivian into the garage and the front of your vehicle is fairly close to the garage door, try pulling straight into the garage instead as a lot of heat typically will collect at the garage door in the hot summer months making that the hottest part of your garage.
try charging your vehicle only in the evenings or at night when the Sun is down and ambient temperatures are lower.
If your garage is not climate controlled try to ventilate the area to prevent too much heat from accumulating inside your garage. Remember your Rivian will run its cooling system while charging and when it does this inside of a closed garage with no ventilation it will cause temperatures to rise significantly.
The last thing you can try to do is reduce the maximum charge rate on your charger or on your rivian to 40 amps or lower from the start. This will usually be sufficient to prevent the charger handle from getting too hot in the first place. This should only be a last resort though if all the other solutions fail to help resolve the issue.
With that said, it's also worth investigating if you use an adapter that the adapter is working properly and not the source of the overheating condition. In my case, our Tesla gen 3 wall connector is a J-1772 wall connector that doesn't have any adapter and it was still getting too hot and slowing down the charge rate. My wife's Rivian R1S uses the standard J-3400 gen 3 Tesla wall connector with the Tesla tap mini adapter. Her car is parked in the opposite direction and does not have this issue. In my case, at least the overheating I believe was a result of the front of the truck being too close to the very hot garage door and charging at 48 amps was just too much and so it would typically slow down to 32 amps. This only happened a handful of times last summer but We live in Maryland. Those living in the south or out west in places like Southern California or Arizona will likely find this a much more frequent and annoying issue. The best solution of course is to park the truck in a climate-controlled garage, but not everyone has that option including us as our garage is not climate controlled.
Hopefully this has helped explain a little bit why this happens and provides some solutions that will help you charge at the maximum speed possible when the hot summer sun is beating down.
Have you had this issue? If yes, what did you do to resolve it? Be sure to post a comment below and let us know what you think.
Be sure to visit our website ElectrifiedOutdoors.com for all the best Rivian tips, info, and accessories. You can also check out Our YouTube channel as well. Thanks for stopping by 😎
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