Any tests done on Vampire battery drain?

[Max]

The valid complaint to levy against Rivian is that they haven't, as yet, made the option to forego some of the offline loads,

I completely agree. Since I am the one paying for the energy, I should have control over how I want to use that energy. In order to make an educated decision, I not only need the option to make that choice, I need adequate information on breakdown of how that energy is being used. Most smartphones that cost a lot less than an R1T can tell you that. A $30K bolt gives you a simplified version of it. I have no doubt Rivian can do that too if they wish.

p.s. Everyone understand the power is used by R1T to “do” something. What people need to know is if that something is of value to the owner enough to justifies the cost. Any ongoing cost to me after the purchase without my consent or knowledge is not cool. If the power loss is intentional and not due to bad execution, Rivian should put it in user manual as an expected behavior for the vehicle.

Of course for those that this loss or cost is acceptable, this thread may be a waste of time.

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[ajdelange]

Interesting, but seems to be an outlier vs. other Tesla owners (albeit mostly M3) that only see 1% or less per day (less than 1kw). Is there a difference in comms between 3 and X to that extreme?

The newer M3 are newer. Things have been tweaked (improved). But in my case I am
1)Diving an older X
2)using external logging programs from third parties that use the API to query the car.

If I got rid of them phantom drain would doubtless go down. Only 12% of X drivers experience drain worse than mine.

 

[Attesan997]

I completely agree. Since I am the one paying for the energy, I should have control over how I want to use that energy. In order to make an educated decision, I not only need the option to make that choice. I need adequate information on breakdown of how that energy is being used. Most smartphones that cost a lot less than a R1T can tell you that. A $30K bolt gives you a simplified version of it. I have no doubt Rivian can do that too if they wish.

p.s. Everyone understand the power is used by R1T to “do” something. What people need to know if that something is of value to the owner enough to justifies the cost. Any ongoing cost to me after the purchase without my consent or knowledge is not cool. If the power loss is intentional and not due to bad execution, Rivian should put it in user manual as an expected behavior for the vehicle.

Of course for those that this loss or cost is acceptable, this thread may be a waste of time.

I'd love for something like this screen to be added OTA in one of the menus. I don't think the level of drain reported in this thread is supposed to be "normal", the latest OTA still makes reference to fixing vehicle sleep. It's at least the second OTA to mention sleep performance, that's a lot of attention to a specific system if its working as intended.

 

[Max]

Looking forward to owner's report to see how much of a difference this update made:

 

[Lsthrz]

Data point: just returned from trip, 4 days sitting in garage and 10% battery drain. Everything off possible including climate. Give or take about 7 miles drain a day by my estimation. All pre latest software update.

 

[JamesPolk24]

One R1T would increase my family of 7 (3700sq ft home) electric bill by 11% just sitting in the driveway to vampire drain. I take efficiency and consumption seriously and this is really really not good.

Rivian needs to address this as a priority. It goes against the sustainable ethos of their brand and many of the buyers who are their target consumers. Some are comparing the phantom drain to past Teslas but this is much worse than even the worst Teslas. Comparing percent drain is misleading as the R1T is much less efficient per mile. No Tesla in the past ever consumed 4+ kwh/day to phantom. Ever.

Think about it on a fleet size. 100K Rivians would need 450 MW / day to sit idle. This is a mid-size power plant. We have three reservations and own $RIVN but the fan boys saying it's not a big deal should be ignored.

 

[Olsonsolar]

One R1T would increase my family of 7 (3700sq ft home) electric bill by 11% just sitting in the driveway to vampire drain. I take efficiency and consumption seriously and this is really really not good.

Rivian needs to address this as a priority. It goes against the sustainable ethos of their brand and many of the buyers who are their target consumers. Some are comparing the phantom drain to past Teslas but this is much worse than even the worst Teslas. Comparing percent drain is misleading as the R1T is much less efficient per mile. No Tesla in the past ever consumed 4+ kwh/day to phantom. Ever.

Think about it on a fleet size. 100K Rivians would need 450 MW / day to sit idle. This is a mid-size power plant. We have three reservations and own $RIVN but the fan boys saying it's not a big deal should be ignored.

This is of great concern.

 

[Attesan997]

What's become a bit frustrating for me is a lack of communication from Rivian on this issue (surprise!). Things like the proximity key they'll get working eventually vehicles have been doing it successfully for years. The fit and finish issues reported here I'll give a pass on for now, they've only produced so many vehicles for a short period of time. If its all the same issues in a couple years I'll pile on. But the phantom drain is a pretty big issue.

With only the update notes as evidence they're clearly working on something having to do with vehicle sleep. But the bare minimum would be to send out a note, even if its to owners only, that says they're aware of this issue as a result of something that's not working as intended and should have a fix soon. I have no issue giving them time to address it and with my Q42022 but most likely 1H2023 delivery I'd imagine things will improve by then. But not saying anything is strange when I'd think the reports in this thread would only grow with more deliveries.

 

[ajdelange]

One R1T would increase my family of 7 (3700sq ft home) electric bill by 11% just sitting in the driveway to vampire drain. I take efficiency and consumption seriously and this is really really not good.

This is the sort of thing one should think about before ordering an electric vehicle - not after. The average American home evidently consumes power at an average rate of 30 kWh/da. Adding a 100W appliance adds 2.4 kWh to that which represents an increase of 8%.

No Tesla in the past ever consumed 4+ kwh/day to phantom. Ever.

Mine did last night and the night before that and the night before that....

but the fan boys saying it's not a big deal should be ignored.

The wise man pays careful heed to those with actual experience,

 

[ajdelange]

But the bare minimum would be to send out a note, even if its to owners only, that says they're aware of this issue as a result of something that's not working as intended and should have a fix soon.

While I am sure there are places where background drain can be reduced by improvement to software coding, for example, I don't think we can really say that things are not working in general. Rivian, when they designed the truck, designed it for urban cowboys who will be the majority of purchasers despite the way the truck is marketed. Rivian gave them what it thought they wanted (i.e. bells and whistles and a vehicle that is ready to go as soon as the owner steps into it). It takes power to maintain the vehicle in this operational state. A few owners plan to take their vehicles out into the boonies and park it for 10 days while they commune with nature and Rivian's marketing really supports the notion that you can do this but 4kWh/da drain uses 30% of an already too small battery (135 kWh) and 2 kWh/da is 15%. So give up the top and bottom 10% of the battery to prudent battery use and another 15-30% to phantom and you find you have but 50 - 65% available for traction and that may well be on substrate that requires appreciably more than the nominal 450 Wh/mi.

So Rivian is now aware that phantom drain is a big deal to a vocal portion of their user base and has announced that they are attacking it with methods for doing this mentioned in other posts. Fixing anything which is indeed broken is, of course, part of this but the rest involves cutting back on some of the bells and whistles stuff. We'll see how this sits with the majority use case (daily driver) owners. There is a way to satisfy both groups to some extent and that is to give the driver the option to turn off some of the functions that consume lots of power during sleep, to control how often the vehicle sleeps, to have various levels of sleep etc.

 

[Zoidz]

...
With only the update notes as evidence they're clearly working on something having to do with vehicle sleep. But the bare minimum would be to send out a note, even if its to owners only, that says they're aware of this issue as a result of something that's not working as intended and should have a fix soon.

Let's assume they send this email, but as they dig in to the problem, they discover they can't "fix" it? Do they then send an "eat crow" email? Not a recommended business practice.

It's possible this is not just a software problem, but it could also be a hardware problem. I've done some reading and research on how sleep is implemented in vehicles. Some of it is managed via powering up a terminal (bus) to wake up controllers. Other methods include the equivalent of "Wake On LAN" in a PC. If they need to wake up just one controller, but they need to power up a bus, it might wake up 10 controllers with resulting power consumption, depending on how they architected it. This would have been a choice made early in system design, and is hardwired - not easily fixed. Other vehicle brands may use a different scheme/architecture, allowing better management. We will likely never know the details, just the improvements, or lack of improvements.

 

[Attesan997]

Let's assume they send this email, but as they dig in to the problem, they discover they can't "fix" it? Do they then send an "eat crow" email? Not a recommended business practice.

It's possible this is not just a software problem, but it could also be a hardware problem. I've done some reading and research on how sleep is implemented in vehicles. Some of it is manged via powering up a terminal (bus) to wake up controllers. Other methods include the equivalent of "Wake On LAN" in a PC. If they need to wake up just one controller, but they need to power up a bus, it might wake up 10 controllers with resulting power consumption, depending on how they architected it. This would have been a choice made early in system design, and is hardwired - not easily fixed. Other vehicle brands may use a different scheme/architecture, allowing better management. We will likely never know the details, just the improvements, or lack of improvements.

I don't disagree with you, it could very well be something that cannot be "fixed". But in a post Tesla world I'm just confused how? If Tesla could reign in drain to a reasonable level with hardware designed years ago I'm not sure what would prevent Rivian, a clean sheet startup from doing the same.

 

[Zoidz]

I don't disagree with you, it could very well be something that cannot be "fixed". But in a post Tesla world I'm just confused how? If Tesla could reign in drain to a reasonable level with hardware designed years ago I'm not sure what would prevent Rivian, a clean sheet startup from doing the same.

Nothing would prevent Rivian from doing it the same OR differently from Tesla, other than design decisions made early on. Kinda like the decision to to use a 135" wheelbase. It's all good, but you are not going to fix complaints about vehicle length by fixing it in software.

If manufacturer A decided to use controllers that are all communications based wakeup, they can wake up only the exact controller they need to communicate with. To address power consumption you can do some management in software per controller.

If manufacturer B decided to use "power up the bus" based controllers, and they put 15 controllers on a particular bus, you wind up using a lot more power. To fix this, it's hardwired - you have to rewire the vehicle. Here's a stupid, unlikely example but it illustrates what could happen (yes I have seen something like this in a non-automotive product). Early decision made before Gear Guard was an idea - the cameras and subwoofer are on the same power bus, intended to be powered only while "occupied". A year later, Gear Guard Gary is born. Now the cameras need to be powered up when unoccupied, but the subwoofer is also needlessly powered up as a consequence. Again, it's a stupid example but it illustrates what can and does happen.

I'm not saying this is Rivian's problem. I'm just saying that this is a documented design philosophy and the selections made 3 years ago could have an impact on Rivian's ability to fix it.

 

[Olsonsolar]

Um…..that’s interesting. Do you have any seat belts buckled or something sitting on a seat? I saw someone else had issues because of these causes. If not, then that is very interesting.

I thought I had seen something to this effect someplace else (but can't find it now) about the vehicle not completely going to sleep at night because of something sitting on the seat. If that is the case that is bad news. When we travel our rear seats are almost always full of stuff, not passengers. Many times we have a cooler sitting in the back that may weigh 40-50 pounds alone.

 

[Dark-Fx]

One R1T would increase my family of 7 (3700sq ft home) electric bill by 11% just sitting in the driveway to vampire drain. I take efficiency and consumption seriously and this is really really not good.

Rivian needs to address this as a priority. It goes against the sustainable ethos of their brand and many of the buyers who are their target consumers. Some are comparing the phantom drain to past Teslas but this is much worse than even the worst Teslas. Comparing percent drain is misleading as the R1T is much less efficient per mile. No Tesla in the past ever consumed 4+ kwh/day to phantom. Ever.

Think about it on a fleet size. 100K Rivians would need 450 MW / day to sit idle. This is a mid-size power plant. We have three reservations and own $RIVN but the fan boys saying it's not a big deal should be ignored.

Not sure who is saying it isn't a big deal.


Got my truck back from Rivian last night, they didn't apply the update while it was in service. A little annoyed but hopefully it'll be waiting for me to install after work.

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