Rivian is overhauling the charging expertise for its EV prospects, providing them extra details about how their battery-powered autos soak up and use vitality.
The automaker is rolling out a software program replace to its autos and smartphone app that goals to provide its prospects a extra thorough and holistic view of their car’s charging capabilities, whereas additionally providing quicker charging speeds to all of its EVs. The modifications come as Rivian navigates a harder charging atmosphere, with public EV charging nonetheless experiencing notable gaps and federal spending on charging installations drying up.
The new replace permits Rivian house owners to see “the place their vitality goes” in actual time, says Wassym Bensaid, chief software program officer on the firm. The up to date Energy app will show detailed graphs explaining how vitality is used when the car is idle and can present tips about how you can greatest preserve vitality and vary, he says.
“The thought is [to] democratize the entry by way of ‘vitality in’ with charging after which ‘vitality out’ with the way you’re spending your vary” Bensaid says.
The Energy app can even now embrace two tabs: “Charging” for vitality consumption and “Energy Monitor” for vitality output. The Charging tab reveals EV house owners how a lot vitality is flowing straight into their battery pack throughout a cost session, as in comparison with the vitality being utilized by different car techniques.
When they’re actively charging, the app gives an in depth breakdown of the place the vitality goes, together with battery, general system consumption, HVAC utilization, and any related equipment. And within the Energy Monitor tab, there’s a brand new chart that reveals prospects how local weather, retailers, and drive techniques are consuming vitality once they’re driving or parked.
A brand new “Trip Target” function gives charging suggestions when utilizing navigation for a visit that features a charging cease. Once the charging session has began, the app will calculate and notify the shopper the second they attain the perfect cost stage for the remainder of the journey. No extra ready till it will get to one hundred pc (or 80 p.c for those who’re involved about battery well being).
Under Energy Monitor, there’s a brand new interactive graph that reveals projected vary affect over time whereas driving or parked, primarily based on insights from the proprietor’s latest driving historical past. An animated Yeti character (Rivian’s mascot) will use facial expressions to indicate whether or not the proprietor’s effectivity is excessive, low, or regular for present circumstances, and there will likely be useful suggestions for maximizing a car’s effectivity.
In addition to the app enhancements, Rivian can also be making it simpler — and quicker — to cost its autos. The firm is including a “extremely requested” function to precondition the battery on demand. Owners can heat or cool their battery pack when they need, even earlier than navigating to a charger, which will help optimize charging speeds. A transparent banner will point out when the battery is warming or cooling and when preconditioning is full.
“The thought is [to] democratize the entry by way of ‘vitality in’ with charging after which ‘vitality out’ with the way you’re spending your vary.”
Both Rivian’s first-generation and second-generation EVs are getting quicker DC charging due to a software program replace. The Gen 2 Large Pack will get an additional enhance, charging even quicker at a pace of as much as 215kW, which might add 15 p.c of vary in simply quarter-hour of charging, the corporate says. Rivian achieved this by optimizing battery temperatures in simulation by means of particular person cell enhancements after which just about testing and refining the options in a simulated atmosphere with real-world circumstances. The firm’s engineers then validated the brand new optimized temperatures with precise autos.
But this replace is just the start of Rivian’s deliberate enhancements to the charging expertise. Bensaid says that within the coming month, the corporate will roll out a brand new “Smart Charging” function that enables prospects to time their home-charging periods to economize on their vitality invoice, cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions, and cut back their carbon footprint. Next yr, Rivian will launch a brand new bidirectional charging function that enables individuals to make use of their autos as cell energy mills to ship energy to digital gadgets, different EVs, and even their very own house.
“Utilities and the grid is so fragmented, like I’m personally even not privy to promotional charges in my space,” Bensaid says. “Having an answer the place we make that tremendous straightforward for patrons — you simply configure issues as soon as after which software program does it for you routinely behind the scenes — I imply, that will likely be a recreation changer.”
