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Owners Flag Possible Gen 2 Rivian Charging Bug in Sub Freezing Temps
A few RivianTrackr readers and viewers have reached out over the past few days to share reports of a potential software issue affecting Gen 2 Rivian vehicles in colder parts of the U.S. At this time, there is no official confirmation from Rivian, and the information below is based on owner accounts.
According to these owners, when temperatures drop below a certain threshold, the vehicle may display a 12V battery warning that prevents AC charging. In the cases shared with us, DC fast charging continued to work normally. One reader in Minnesota noted that the issue appeared after temperatures dropped well below freezing, including a night that reached -14F.
Owners reporting the issue say it may be affecting multiple vehicles at once. One reader shared that while visiting the Minneapolis Service Center, several additional Gen 2 vehicles were present for the same concern, with staff indicating that appointments are filling up. Some owners were reportedly told the hardware appears to be fine and that the issue could be software related, though this has not been officially confirmed.
At this point, there is no certainty around the cause, scope, or whether this is a widespread issue. We have reached out to Rivian to see if they can confirm whether this behavior is a known issue and if a fix is in development. In the meantime, affected owners said they were advised to rely on Level 3 charging.
We will update this post if and when Rivian provides more clarity or official guidance.
Shoutout to Don for making us aware of this.
Also a Minnesota Gen2 owner, also experienced a “vehicle error” trying to charge that night on my level 2 home charger. The next “nowhere-as-cold” night, things are fine.
We had much colder nights last winter and had no issues — charging or otherwise — with our R1S Gen2. Rivian told me to precondition the battery (not the 12V) before even L2 charging. That sounds a little far fetched, but maybe I am wrong thinking tha? I didn’t have to try that, though. Charging worked fine the following day.
Yep, same issue Minneapolis service center says that they known issue. You need to drive the vehicle around to warm it up, do a hard reset then plug-in on level two charging.
Level 3 works just fine.
My vehicle has been in service for 5 days with this issue! The service tech confirmed multiple gen 2’s are in there with the same issue!
Same issue popped in Minnesota. Had to do a completely reboot from the menu with Bluetooth off and truck unplugged to get charging.
Was -12F and I was at 3% pulling into cabin about 70 miles from the nearest DC charger. Rivian support seemed to know it was happening and suggested the change in my reboot process to make it work.
Thank you, this restart sequence worked on my Gen2 R1S , too!
The restart sequence worked for me once, but not today. 🙁
Same in upstate NY, gen 2 with no issues last winter, but when the temp dropped to 8 degrees a few nights ago the truck displayed a general charging error and wouldn’t charge on wall connector. Drove 30 min to work the next morning hoping battery would heat up enough to accept a charge and plugged in a level 2 which worked after two tries. Very annoying as this seems like something that should’ve been worked out.
I had a similar issue in upstate NY. It was about 15 degrees out and my G2 R1s wouldn’t charge at any of the chargers in my complex. Restarting the car didn’t help. But it did charge at a fast charger. I didn’t have this issue last year and it has been colder than that before.
Same issue with mine
Minnesota driver. Plug it says error unplug and re plug in. Annoying for sure. 8 years if Telsa never had this problem hoping they fix it asap
I live in Colorado and I have had similar problems twice on colder days. After resetting with the left steering wheel button and hazard button it temporarily fixed the problem both times. Now I just have to check to make sure it’s taking a charge before I go to bed. Not ideal.
I live in Washington State with a Gen 2 R1T. And mine wouldn’t level 2 charge even after 3 hard resets and the temp was around 28F outside. Last year I never had any charging issues like this so it’s likely a software bug. They need to figure this issue out quick though! I live in an area that level 3 chargers are few and far between.
It got really cold again over the weekend in MN, so I did some experimenting. I plugged in yesterday morning when it was 4F outside and the R1T said the battery was at 19F. It would not L2 charge. So I brought it to an L3 and charged it until the battery was at 47F. I brought it home, plugged it in, and it started charging.
Then I was curious how cold the battery could get before the charging problem manifested. I stopped the charging and allowed the battery to cool. At 41F, I tried to charge again and it charged. I stopped the charge and repeated at 38F. No dice. So this doesn’t appear to be an issue with the 12V per se (which is what the service center said), but more of a software glitch with the main battery and internal charger that occurs once the battery temp drops below 40F. The 12V issue might be just another symptom.
A few hours later (battery at 31F), I decided to see if triggering battery preconditioning would help. I set the destination to the nearest L3 and then drove around the block to trigger preconditioning. I then parked at home and plugged in…. and it charged! Not ideal, but another potential way to address until Rivian fixes the software.
So definitely a software issue with the battery and internal charger. As many have said, this didn’t happen last winter, so hopefully they can compare what has changed in that portion of the code with respect to March of this year and address quickly.
Same issue in our NACS 2026 R1s.
Failed to L2 charge on a morning with outside temp of 15F, battery temp 27F. Hard reset and preconditioned to get motors to about 70F (battery only changed to 28F). Then successfully L2 charged.
They need to get this fixed for folks who use schedule charge to charge off peak. Waking up with a dead car when needing to drive to work is not ideal.
Exactly! My Gen 2 R1T has now failed to charge overnight twice.
Gen 1 R1S owner here. I experienced what I think might be the same issue with the cold weather charging. It got very cold overnight here in Pennsylvania to about 18. I use scheduled charging & plugged in my vehicle last night before going to bed & confirmed the blue light was on around the charge port. Woke up around 4am & discovered it wasn’t charging. Tried numerous things, unplugging & plugging, soft reset, power cycle wall charger, turn scheduled charging off & on, turn scheduled charging off completely – none of these worked. Did a hard reset & ultimately got charging started. Very frustrating.
Yeah I’m having the same issue this morning for the first time. Was about 5F overnight and the truck didn’t charge. Got to work and plugged in there and it wouldn’t charge either.
Now I was at a point that I wouldn’t make it back home so I went to a nearby Tesla 325kW supercharger and it worked but was only pulling about 32kW. I’m supposed to be at work so I can’t sit there for 3 hours charging, so after maybe 30 minutes (+15%) I went back to work and plugged in and it took the L2 charge. The battery temp had gotten up to about 56F at the Supercharger.
This is not ideal at all. Hopefully this is just a bug that will get fixed and not an LFP hardware issue.
Same issue here when it drops into single or negative digits.
Also Upstate NY. Gen 2 R1T. It’s a real pain to wake up and find that your vehicle failed to charge. Rebooted the Rivian and the charger to no avail.
2025 Gen 2 R1S Max pack – have been unable to charge on my outside Rivian wall charger in cold temps for a few days now. Today I got the “replace 12V battery” alert also, despite having had it replaced a few months ago.
Gen 1 R1T here. Having trouble getting more than 5 kW on L2. Always got the full L2 11 kW unless close to 100% SoC. Outdoor and battery temperature are around -10 C (14 F).
Same issue with my 2026 R1S. Happens with subfreezing temps when the R1 is sitting outside. For me, it happens scheduled charging for sure. When I remove the scheduled charge, it will sometimes work. Not ideal. Dropped mine off at the service center today and there is a cold snap this weekend so hopefully they can recreate the issue since I have had it happen twice since Thanksgiving.