Phantom / Vampire Drain Solution Works! Using 12v Battery Tender

[mudito]

The battery tender I bought from Costco says “not for electric vehicles”. I wonder why?

Not sure. But as long as you know it does support AGM batteries, it should be OK to connect to Rivian's 12V batteries.

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[DayTripping]

Lucky you. I'm losing $400/year in electricity to phantom drain. It's incredible this phantom drain problem still exists. It should be high on Rivian's list to address.

That sucks, and is more than I spend for an entire year to feed my Model 3. I thought $100 was pretty wasteful.

 

[Nixapatfan]

The battery tender I bought from Costco says “not for electric vehicles”. I wonder why?

It's a warning for the really inept ones thinking it will charge their high voltage battery.

 

[bigsky]

Thank you for sharing this information.
In storage since November, my R1S has eaten up 118 kWh "sleeping" so far, typical 2% daily VD. That's just over $8. Will cost me roughly $32 by the time it comes out of mothballs.
Cost of this hardware is $48. It will pay for itself in about a year. Will look into this.
The OBD port approach seems straight forward and not intrusive. Definitely worth looking into it.

 

[zgStevieD]

So I followed the OG thread with shrink and NY_Rob 's groundbreaking experimentation on this, but it always confused me a bit. Glad to see a straightforward explanation that's working for owners.

For you smarter folks out there... in theory would this work plugged into a 1kW EcoFlow, which is in turn being charged by a 200w solar panel? i.e. for say a long term, open air parking situation

 

[NY_Rob]

..in theory would this work plugged into a 1kW EcoFlow, which is in turn being charged by a 200w solar panel? i.e. for say a long term, open air parking situation

If you charge the 12V batt via the OBD2 port it "should" work. Others are successfully charging their 12V batts via the OBD2 port. You just need to limit the current passing from the EcoFlow to the OBD2 port. Using a low amperage trickle charger connected to the EcoFlow should address that. Just don't connect the 12V output of the EcoFlow directly to the OBD2 port adapter, it can supply more current than the OBD2 port can handle.

 

[zgStevieD]

If you charge the 12V batt via the OBD2 port it "should" work. Others are successfully charging their 12V batts via the OBD2 port. You just need to limit the current passing from the EcoFlow to the OBD2 port. Using a low amperage trickle charger connected to the EcoFlow should address that. Just don't connect the 12V output of the EcoFlow directly to the OBD2 port adapter, it can supply more current than the OBD2 port can handle.

All makes sense… thanks for your input! ?

 

[mpshizzle]

I am still a newbie to Rivian; my R1T almost has 2,000 miles on it. I have been watching various threads about the 12v batteries going dead and was wondering how they could put such vehicles on the road with this obvious a problem. Glad there is some monitoring going on.

You need not worry about this with your 2025. All of the 12v issues have been in regards to gen 1 vehicles. They changed how the 12v system works in gen 2 and thus far I've seen no reports of 12v failures on gen 2. Seen no signs of trouble on mine either, but of course still relatively early on in life

 

[Nixapatfan]

You need not worry about this with your 2025. All of the 12v issues have been in regards to gen 1 vehicles. They changed how the 12v system works in gen 2 and thus far I've seen no reports of 12v failures on gen 2. Seen no signs of trouble on mine either, but of course still relatively early on in life

25's are seeing similar vampire drain so this fix will help with that. As for that battery we'll see next winter if it really is any better that's about the time frame most of the gen 1 started showing issues.

 

[mpshizzle]

25's are seeing similar vampire drain so this fix will help with that. As for that battery we'll see next winter if it really is any better that's about the time frame most of the gen 1 started showing issues.

I can't say that I've experienced this level vampire drain on a day to day basis with mine. Though I have experienced it when parked for over 3 days with gear guard on in a busy lot. It seems to have little to no drain for the first 2 days or so

But that is a fair assessment on battery health. It may be to early to tell. Fingers crossed, but I have high hopes

 

[zgStevieD]

Apologies for another layman question:
Will a 12v plug to SAE function the same as the OBD2? (For those of us that have them in the cab)

 

[mudito]

Apologies for another layman question:
Will a 12v plug to SAE function the same as the OBD2? (For those of us that have them in the cab)

I've mine wired directly to the battery leads like @NY_Rob did HERE

If you can access your battery directly, it's definitely an option. OBDII will limit at 3A (more than enough TBH), I have 2x5A Noco battery tenders.

 

[James Worden]

It’s an innovative way to keep feeding energy into the vampire load but guys (and gals), we are talking about an $80,000-$100,000 state of the art high tech electric vehicle (I had thought I bought), can Rivian please do an update for sleeping that is at least similar to Tesla (that came out well over a decade ago)!!! I love my R1T but it has 6-7x the vampire drain per week or per month as a Tesla Model 3 or Y! It has 87x the vampire drain of a 1999 Solectria Sunrise EV!

 

[mudito]

It’s an innovative way to keep feeding energy into the vampire load but guys (and gals), we are talking about an $80,000-$100,000 state of the art high tech electric vehicle (I had thought I bought), can Rivian please do an update for sleeping that is at least similar to Tesla (that came out well over a decade ago)!!! I love my R1T but it has 6-7x the vampire drain per week or per month as a Tesla Model 3 or Y! It has 87x the vampire drain of a 1999 Solectria Sunrise EV!

At this moment, I doubt that this can be solved with a software update... Seems like in order to top-off the 12V, a full "computer wake" is required and maybe that requires a hardware fix rather than just a software one.

 

[James Worden]

Why would Rivian’s 2024 on board computers use more than Tesla’s 2015-2021 onboard computers? I would think a decade newer design would be smarter, better faster, better for low energy sleeping. Is the design that much worse? I’d like to recommend this great truck to many other people I know but this vampire load is far more than any gas or electric car I’ve ever known by a huge amount.

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