Gen 1 Vampire Drain (Possibly) Solved (or Hacked)

[Nixapatfan]

Thanks for the quick response
Have you noticed that one battery is still the primary/ discharges and there therefore needs charging at a higher rate?

For others interested

I pulled the trigger on the Lensun a few days ago
I'll be wiring it straight to the batteries
I have a dual battery charge controller that will go to both batteries simultaneously
Should help with direct sun VD.

Thinking out loud:
May be smarter to build the system around a third battery, to cover the intermittence of solar/ night cycles
Already considering an auxiliary floating battery to run my radio, lights, and fridge full time, maybe it would be smarter to just have that battery set up for a small DC to DC lead to the truck 12v

Oh well, this will be a basic proof of concept for sub niche of those solely interested in the VD issue and 2 battery solutions

Have you considered replacing the batteries and see how the VD is before coming up with an eloborate bandaid? I was also thinking of ideas on how to keep batteries topped up but after they were replaced the VD on mine went from 3% to less than 0.5% daily without any other changes.

It appears the bulk of the VD is caused by dying battery that hasn't triggered the battery fault yet, which the high voltage battery keeps trying to top off which in turn causes the battery conditioning circuit to run so the vehicle rarely sleeps and uses a ton of power.

Would be interesting to see others' results after battery replacement.

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[HighVoltOverland]

Have you considered replacing the batteries and see how the VD is before coming up with an eloborate bandaid? I was also thinking of ideas on how to keep batteries topped up but after they were replaced the VD on mine went from 3% to less than 0.5% daily without any other changes.

It appears the bulk of the VD is caused by dying battery that hasn't triggered the battery fault yet, which the high voltage battery keeps trying to top off which in turn causes the battery conditioning circuit to run so the vehicle rarely sleeps and uses a ton of power.

Would be interesting to see others' results after battery replacement.

Nah

My elaborate bandaid is actually a side effect of me building out a vehicle I sleep, cook, work, and play out of every day.

I already am working on a more integrated "house battery" set up to power my 50w radio, fridge, oven, induction burners, starlink, cell booster, off-road lights, emtb recharging, and whatever else I may come up with eventually.

I'm just here to have fun and maybe it'll help someone else out

 

[Kunzene]

Would be interesting to see others' results after battery replacement.

My truck is a February 2022 build. My 12 volts were replaced in August when the alert came on, so I got right at 2.5 years out of them.
I noticed an improvement in vampire drain and long sleeps on Electrafi as soon as the new ones were replaced, but it also coincided with a software update so I couldn’t be sure.

 

[Riviot]

I'm assuming that the extra downtime put an extra toll on it and it didn't hold too long. HAVING said that, I heard from the SC that they see them dying between 2 and 3 years. I just hope they are installing an upgraded unit that might last longer.

Mine is in for service now, it's a January 2022 build which puts me nearing 3 years... VD has normally been a couple miles a night, but recently I've noticed it lose like 5 miles between ending charge at 3am and me driving at 8am. I'm debating asking them to replace it while it's in, but I feel like this can't be that hard, I've replaced plenty of 12v batteries. How much did they charge for the labor?

 

[mudito]

Mine is in for service now, it's a January 2022 build which puts me nearing 3 years... VD has normally been a couple miles a night, but recently I've noticed it lose like 5 miles between ending charge at 3am and me driving at 8am. I'm debating asking them to replace it while it's in, but I feel like this can't be that hard, I've replaced plenty of 12v batteries. How much did they charge for the labor?

Mine is still under warranty (3 yrs) so I expect it to be replaced at no cost. You might very well ask them to review the health of the 12V battery as a precaution indicating lost range overnight

 

[Tim-in-CA]

I managed to find a different brand OBD2 to 12V adapter and started testing this afternoon. My preliminary testing so far is VERY promising. My R1S wouldn't stay asleep for more than 30 min without waking up for 15. Now it has slept for 2 hrs. When I plugged in my 3 amp BT, the LED came on to indicate that it was charging, then about 15 min later, it went sold green to indicate charged. Looking forward to see if my VD is decreased, but this is promising. I'll see how the VD looks by morning. For those that garage park this is the easiest method to charge the 12V battery.

The adapter I purchased is https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Y38WRSI .. it is pretty long and honestly is kinda loose in the OBD2 port. Not sure if the Battery Tender branded one is more snug.

Update : since connecting the OBD2 Battery Tender, my vehicle has slept for about 4 hours and continues to sleep. From the capture below, you can see the constant sleep/wake cycling prior to the tender connection followed by a well deserved long sleep! hopefully it will get more rest and less VD!

24 Hour update : According to Electrafi data, my vehicle (single 12V battery using OBD2 to 3A Battery Tender) has slept for an entire 24 hours! I woke the vehicle by unlocking, depressing the brake pedal, then relocked To confirm that there was no power loss. This method may be the way to resolve VD once and for all. I’ll test for about a week, then will test again without the Battery Tender connected.

 

[usulio]

24 Hour update : According to Electrafi data, my vehicle (single 12V battery using OBD2 to 3A Battery Tender) has slept for an entire 24 hours! I woke the vehicle by unlocking, depressing the brake pedal, then relocked To confirm that there was no power loss. This method may be the way to resolve VD once and for all. I’ll test for about a week, then will test again without the Battery Tender connected.

That's great. Have you measured how much power the 12V recharge is taking?

 

[Tim-in-CA]

That's great. Have you measured how much power the 12V recharge is taking?

No I have not, but house power consumption is not spiking at all through the day according to Tesla Solar app. I believe that once the 12V battery charged, no additional power was needed as the car slept continuously

 

[Yossarian]

No I have not, but house power consumption is not spiking at all through the day according to Tesla Solar app. I believe that once the 12V battery charged, no additional power was needed as the car slept continuously

I know that this is all anecdotal, but these experiments strongly suggest that the key to controlling VD is to keep the 12v system fully charged. I don't have an EE or coding background, so this may be naive, but that kind of change would seem to be a relatively simple thing to accomplish.

So why hasn't Rivian done so?

Could it be the case that the change is not simple at all, and is something so complex and costly that Rivian has determined that the fix is not economically justifiable? This may be so if the actual numbers of vehicles affected by high drain is not as extensive as this thread makes it appear. I suppose it could also be the case that simply keeping the 12v system fully charged is not really related to lower parasitic drain levels, that it's just coincidence.

What dissapoints me most is that Rivian does not seem to be treating the issue as all that important. Yes, owners are told that they can put service tickets in for apparent high levels of parasitic drain, but the official Rivian line is that up to a 5% daily loss can be considered acceptable. That really should not be the case and no company, let alone one that claims to be trying to be environmentally responsibile, should be content with a product that results in such a large and needless waste of energy.

 

[shap]

I know that this is all anecdotal, but these experiments strongly suggest that the key to controlling VD is to keep the 12v system fully charged. I don't have an EE or coding background, so this may be naive, but that kind of change would seem to be a relatively simple thing to accomplish.

So why hasn't Rivian done so?

Could it be the case that the change is not simple at all, and is something so complex and costly that Rivian has determined that the fix is not economically justifiable? This may be so if the actual numbers of vehicles affected by high drain is not as extensive as this thread makes it appear. I suppose it could also be the case that simply keeping the 12v system fully charged is not really related to lower parasitic drain levels, that it's just coincidence.

What dissapoints me most is that Rivian does not seem to be treating the issue as all that important. Yes, owners are told that they can put service tickets in for apparent high levels of parasitic drain, but the official Rivian line is that up to a 5% daily loss can be considered acceptable. That really should not be the case and no company, let alone one that claims to be trying to be environmentally responsibile, should be content with a product that results in such a large and needless waste of energy.

Rivian just does not care. The problem that I see with Rivian is ignorance and a bit of disarray. Wassym may tell one thing, then support will tell another thing - there is no clear sync between executives and the people downstream. (Wassym says 1 miles per 24 hours, support claims 5% (!) is normal).

For example, a drive cam that stops working every other day and requires a soft reset or disconnect/reconnects of USB storage - some Rivian SC acknowledge the problem and say it will be fixed in the future updates, and some say it is a first-time they hear about it and want to send a mobile service.

Being in software and management for a long time, these are all red flags. If they do not fix it soon, it will affect their business in a hard way as such problems are not limited to software glitches only.

 

[mudito]

Rivian just does not care. The problem that I see with Rivian is ignorance and a bit of disarray. Wassym may tell one thing, then support will tell another thing - there is no clear sync between executives and the people downstream. (Wassym says 1 miles per 24 hours, support claims 5% (!) is normal).

For example, a drive cam that stops working every other day and requires a soft reset or disconnect/reconnects of USB storage - some Rivian SC acknowledge the problem and say it will be fixed in the future updates, and some say it is a first-time they hear about it and want to send a mobile service.

Being in software and management for a long time, these are all red flags. If they do not fix it soon, it will affect their business in a hard way as such problems are not limited to software glitches only.

Let's give this a think from a corporate perspective.

I'll be assuming that Rivian knows ALL this (VD related to 12V charging, Guard Drive, etc.). Now they go out and say, "Yes, we are aware that 12V top-off of our AGM batteries is causing higher-than-normal drain from the main battery SoC, and we are working on ways we can avoid this in the future."

That will just elevate the crap out of Service requests just by stating this comment and will overload an already maxed-out Service Center network.

Continuing with the assumption that they are aware of it and maybe working on avoiding this for future cars, once they are deemed solved for newer units they might develop a back-porting strategy for older vehicles and release a Service Bulletin to fix those.

At least, I think that's how they would react. Personally, I would do it differently, but corporate America is weird sometimes. I think that going from dual-12V to single-12V has a lot to do with this and other issues, and they might already be starting to tweak their 12V BMS to further improve this.

Also, in order to avoid dying cars due to 12V failure (like what happened to me last week), they can simply add another very small emergency DC-to-DC circuit that bypasses the 12V battery, and when Active it can read "SERVICE IMMEDIATELY, 12V battery Failure, please leave the vehicle plugged in and charge when not in use to avoid bricking your beautiful R1T/S".

But again, that cost money

 

[shap]

Let's give this a think from a corporate perspective.

I'll be assuming that Rivian knows ALL this (VD related to 12V charging, Guard Drive, etc.). Now they go out and say, "Yes, we are aware that 12V top-off of our AGM batteries is causing higher-than-normal drain from the main battery SoC, and we are working on ways we can avoid this in the future."

That will just elevate the crap out of Service requests just by stating this comment and will overload an already maxed-out Service Center network.

Continuing with the assumption that they are aware of it and maybe working on avoiding this for future cars, once they are deemed solved for newer units they might develop a back-porting strategy for older vehicles and release a Service Bulletin to fix those.

At least, I think that's how they would react. Personally, I would do it differently, but corporate America is weird sometimes. I think that going from dual-12V to single-12V has a lot to do with this and other issues, and they might already be starting to tweak their 12V BMS to further improve this.

Also, in order to avoid dying cars due to 12V failure (like what happened to me last week), they can simply add another very small emergency DC-to-DC circuit that bypasses the 12V battery, and when Active it can read "SERVICE IMMEDIATELY, 12V battery Failure, please leave the vehicle plugged in and charge when not in use to avoid bricking your beautiful R1T/S".

But again, that cost money

Good points. But I think you give Rivian too much credit for forward-thinking

They just recently published a few tech bulletins (HVAC noise and Suspension squeaking over bumps) that will create a flow of SC requests (much more than announcements about software issues with the Drive Cam and Navigation screen IMHO).

The 12V problem is more serious indeed, and they probably try to play very safe here. But the biggest question - why did the 12V drain occur in the first place? What module? Main ICU? They do not want even to look at this (or deliverably ignore it).

Like you said - corporate America thinks differently ...

 

[Nixapatfan]

Good points. But I think you give Rivian too much credit for forward-thinking

They just recently published a few tech bulletins (HVAC noise and Suspension squeaking over bumps) that will create a flow of SC requests (much more than announcements about software issues with the Drive Cam and Navigation screen IMHO).

The 12V problem is more serious indeed, and they probably try to play very safe here. But the biggest question - why did the 12V drain occur in the first place? What module? Main ICU? They do not want even to look at this (or deliverably ignore it).

Like you said - corporate America thinks differently ...

The problem doesn't appear to be an actual excessive drain issue as replacing the 12v or just trickle charging solves the VD issue. Solution would be to replace the 12v battery with a larger battery with higher capacity and longer life cycle but seeing as they chose a tiny battery they don't have many options to retrofit something better in that space.

As a business decision Rivian probably doesn't want to replace these batteries proactively as it's just going to happen again as they age. This is like the BMW V8 battery issue where they were treating it as a consumable and recommending replacing at every oil change.

 

[shap]

The problem doesn't appear to be an actual excessive drain issue as replacing the 12v or just trickle charging solves the VD issue. Solution would be to replace the 12v battery with a larger battery with higher capacity and longer life cycle but seeing as they chose a tiny battery they don't have many options to retrofit something better in that space.

As a business decision, Rivian probably doesn't want to replace these batteries proactively as it's just going to happen again as they age. This is like the BMW V8 battery issue where they were treating it as a consumable and recommending replacing at every oil change.

Yep, the BMW V8 battery issue was epic! (I think it was not resolved, right? Still should be replaced every 10k miles on these V8 twin turbo-charged old cars).

I wonder if Ohmmu batteries will hold better. I see people on this forum running them, but it is not enough time to say if they are better or not.

 

[shap]

The problem doesn't appear to be an actual excessive drain issue as replacing the 12v or just trickle charging solves the VD issue. Solution would be to replace the 12v battery with a larger battery with higher capacity and longer life cycle but seeing as they chose a tiny battery they don't have many options to retrofit something better in that space.

BTW, do you know what battery is used in GEN2? Is it the same one? 18AH?

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