By Josh Perry, Editor
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Reports of electric vehicle (EV) startup Rivian and its new adventure vehicle line with larger battery capacities than any other on the market have already come out, but this week an article from Teslarati reveled greater details about the batteries and the thermal management techniques that Rivian is incorporating.

A recent article provided more details about the Rivian battery packs in its new electric vehicles. (Rivian)

The 180-kW Rivian batteries provide 80 percent more energy than Tesla Model S or Model X, according to Teslarati, and allow users to travel more than 400 miles on a single charge. The company calls its battery solution the “megapack.”

According to the article, whose author visited the Rivian facility in Irvine, Calif. to get a firsthand look at the company’s testing and manufacturing, Rivian is testing the batteries under real-world conditions and trying to understand how batteries will react to long-term use.

As one researcher noted, Rivian wants to know the batteries better than the manufacturers and the company is trying to accomplish that prior to putting the vehicles into production.

To keep these high-powered battery packs cool, Rivian has turned to cold plates between the battery cells.

The article explained, “A single cooling system chills both layers of cells at the same time. According to Rivian, this reduces the amount of energy needed to power the system, thereby allowing the car to have better range in all types of conditions. In addition to saving power, the cooling system’s design allows for tighter packaging of cells within the modules…Rivian’s unique packaging allows the module to be 25% denser than any other battery module on the market.”

Carbon fiber is used to protect the battery packs from water damage and a shield runs the length of the vehicles to protect the batteries, which are located on the underside of the truck, from physical damage and live up to the company’s claim of being all-terrain vehicles.

Read more from the Teslarati visit to the Rivian facility at https://www.teslarati.com/rivian-battery-lab-irvine-california-megapack-production.