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

[Tim-in-CA]

Mine still wakes up 1 to 2 times a day for about 2.5~3 hrs with the tender attached losing about 0.8 - 1% battery a day. Maybe 1 to 2 times a month it will wake and stay awake for 5-8 hrs. I've calculated I waste about 400 kWH per year due to the wasted battery drain.

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[sacramentoelectric]

Mine still wakes up 1 to 2 times a day for about 2.5~3 hrs with the tender attached losing about 0.8 - 1% battery a day. Maybe 1 to 2 times a month it will wake and stay awake for 5-8 hrs. I've calculated I waste about 400 kWH due to the wasted battery drain.

This makes me crazy. What an insane waste.

 

[More Juice Please]

New R1T owner here - just picked up on 12/30. I’ve read this thread and others on the topic and greatly appreciate the education. I have been an EV owner since 2021 and am getting to know the quirks of the Rivian. A few questions if folks have answers/insights:

- I haven’t signed up for ElectraFI yet. Is the usage data in the Rivian App accurate? Last 8 hours shows .5 kWh for system use and last 24 hours shows 1.4 kWh. (Gear guard off, proximity on (at home too), wifi and Bluetooth on)).

- when using a tender that has a maintainer function, like the Battery Tender brand does, will the sulfate benefit work with OBD2 connection or only if directly connected to the 12v?

- I saw a post about an attempt to wire the tender through a the 7 way hitch plug. I did not see a follow up to this, and may have missed it. Does anyone know of a successful example of this?

Thank you.

 

[MikeWilliams_R1T]

New R1T owner here - just picked up on 12/30. I’ve read this thread and others on the topic and greatly appreciate the education. I have been an EV owner since 2021 and am getting to know the quirks of the Rivian. A few questions if folks have answers/insights:

- I haven’t signed up for ElectraFI yet. Is the usage data in the Rivian App accurate? Last 8 hours shows .5 kWh for system use and last 24 hours shows 1.4 kWh. (Gear guard off, proximity on (at home too), wifi and Bluetooth on)).

- when using a tender that has a maintainer function, like the Battery Tender brand does, will the sulfate benefit work with OBD2 connection or only if directly connected to the 12v?

- I saw a post about an attempt to wire the tender through a the 7 way hitch plug. I did not see a follow up to this, and may have missed it. Does anyone know of a successful example of this?

Thank you.

The 7 way plug charge line is switched… so you cannot charge the 12v that way. Best bet is to add an SAE connector to the battery directly and hook up your battery maintainer that way.

 

[mudito]

New R1T owner here - just picked up on 12/30. I’ve read this thread and others on the topic and greatly appreciate the education. I have been an EV owner since 2021 and am getting to know the quirks of the Rivian. A few questions if folks have answers/insights:

- I haven’t signed up for ElectraFI yet. Is the usage data in the Rivian App accurate? Last 8 hours shows .5 kWh for system use and last 24 hours shows 1.4 kWh. (Gear guard off, proximity on (at home too), wifi and Bluetooth on)).

- when using a tender that has a maintainer function, like the Battery Tender brand does, will the sulfate benefit work with OBD2 connection or only if directly connected to the 12v?

- I saw a post about an attempt to wire the tender through a the 7 way hitch plug. I did not see a follow up to this, and may have missed it. Does anyone know of a successful example of this?

Thank you.

Register at Rivian Roamer, his dashboard is 2nd to none in terms of how information is presented.

If you do so, you can use my referral link https://rivianroamer.com/join?with=mudo

Here's in my example from day from the Rivian Roam Dashboard:

More info with my opinions on your questions:
- Data from the Energy Monitor of the vehicle seems accurate to me. Rivian Roamer pulls everything directly from the API so includes more details
- Don't know about desulfatation (is that a word?) of the battery would work from the OBD, but there are likely some fuses in the middle so I know you're restricted on how many amps can the tender provide using that method (I have a Gen1 Dual battery and I do battery maintenance going directly to both batteries with 2x 5amps Noco tenders)
- Don't use the hitch pigtails for anything other than an emergency. Those are NOT directly connected to the 12V batteries, and they are 100% limited on the current input.

I would say OBD if you have a Gen2 (12v Battery under the passenger seat) or direct to the Battery on Gen1.

And.... again... this are workarounds useful only if:
a) you're paranoid like I am.
b) you're parking your R1 for EXTENDED periods and would like to maintain battery health
c) because you're just a nerd like plenty of us are as well.


Another "trick" you can do is charging your R1 VERY slowly with L2 charger (sometimes I set it to 20-24amps). When you're doing L2 charging, the vehicle tops-odd the 12V as well so that will give the low voltage battery several hours of charge.

 

[More Juice Please]

Register at Rivian Roamer, his dashboard is 2nd to none in terms of how information is presented.

If you do so, you can use my referral link https://rivianroamer.com/join?with=mudo

Here's in my example from day from the Rivian Roam Dashboard:

More info with my opinions on your questions:
- Data from the Energy Monitor of the vehicle seems accurate to me. Rivian Roamer pulls everything directly from the API so includes more details
- Don't know about desulfatation (is that a word?) of the battery would work from the OBD, but there are likely some fuses in the middle so I know you're restricted on how many amps can the tender provide using that method (I have a Gen1 Dual battery and I do battery maintenance going directly to both batteries with 2x 5amps Noco tenders)
- Don't use the hitch pigtails for anything other than an emergency. Those are NOT directly connected to the 12V batteries, and they are 100% limited on the current input.

I would say OBD if you have a Gen2 (12v Battery under the passenger seat) or direct to the Battery on Gen1.

And.... again... this are workarounds useful only if:
a) you're paranoid like I am.
b) you're parking your R1 for EXTENDED periods and would like to maintain battery health
c) because you're just a nerd like plenty of us are as well.


Another "trick" you can do is charging your R1 VERY slowly with L2 charger (sometimes I set it to 20-24amps). When you're doing L2 charging, the vehicle tops-odd the 12V as well so that will give the low voltage battery several hours of charge.

Thank you! I did read about Rivian Roamer too and thanks for the tip.

I don’t do a ton of extended storage, but a couple times a year it will sit for 7-12 days. I’m more interested in maintaining battery health given the increased number of cycles the 12 V appears to experience and the smaller battery size. While a replacement would be covered under warranty for a while, it seems like a practice that I need to make a habit.

Does using an L1 charger achieve the same result as an L2 charge at lower amperage?

 

[mudito]

Thank you! I did read about Rivian Roamer too and thanks for the tip.

I don’t do a ton of extended storage, but a couple times a year it will sit for 7-12 days. I’m more interested in maintaining battery health given the increased number of cycles the 12 V appears to experience and the smaller battery size. While a replacement would be covered under warranty for a while, it seems like a practice that I need to make a habit.

Does using an L1 charger achieve the same result as an L2 charge at lower amperage?

I am not sure about L1 since you're limited to 1800w ... probably not ideal to use some of those watts to charge the 12v up... So, I wouldn't keep my hopes up

I do agree that it's a good habit for these 12V to keep them healthy. I do once every month of two like a full 24/48hrs connected to the Noco tenders. Normally I can see longer sleep times for weeks after doing that due to a healthier/fuller LV Battery.

FYI: I've stored my R1T for periods between 7 and 21 days, and what gave me the best result in terms of battery drain, was to enable Vehicle Shipping Mode as it reduces the wake times considerably, to the point that in my tests (granted my 12V battery health seems to be ideal) that in two back to back trips I've made of about 12days each, with and without the battery tender connected, the difference in High Voltage battery drop was 1% (also, both times with shipping mode enabled).

So, a good healthy 12V + shipping mode = Worry-less long-term storage for the R1

(at least in my case with my own experience)

 

[More Juice Please]

To state the obvious, it’s been super cold lately. Asking for some perspective on a data point from today.

It’s been between -1° and 13° outside and my R1T is parked outside during the workday. Based on the energy tab in the app, 2.7kWh was used for systems in the last 8 hours - basically the time it’s been parked outside.

Is this a normal experience in these temps? Is most of this energy used for 12 V recharging from the HV, or for other systems?

I come from using other EV’s prior to the R1T and it’s been an eye opener as to how much HV drain there is in these temperatures, it seems to be far more than the Ford products or even Kia, but perhaps it’s just a matter of what kind of data is being displayed to me and not the actual result.

 

[mudito]

To state the obvious, it’s been super cold lately. Asking for some perspective on a data point from today.

It’s been between -1° and 13° outside and my R1T is parked outside during the workday. Based on the energy tab in the app, 2.7kWh was used for systems in the last 8 hours - basically the time it’s been parked outside.

Is this a normal experience in these temps? Is most of this energy used for 12 V recharging from the HV, or for other systems?

I come from using other EV’s prior to the R1T and it’s been an eye opener as to how much HV drain there is in these temperatures, it seems to be far more than the Ford products or even Kia, but perhaps it’s just a matter of what kind of data is being displayed to me and not the actual result.

Sounds about normal for extreme cold. Most of that energy most likely went into maintaining some heat into the battery.

 

[Budman]

To state the obvious, it’s been super cold lately. Asking for some perspective on a data point from today.

It’s been between -1° and 13° outside and my R1T is parked outside during the workday. Based on the energy tab in the app, 2.7kWh was used for systems in the last 8 hours - basically the time it’s been parked outside.

Is this a normal experience in these temps? Is most of this energy used for 12 V recharging from the HV, or for other systems?

I come from using other EV’s prior to the R1T and it’s been an eye opener as to how much HV drain there is in these temperatures, it seems to be far more than the Ford products or even Kia, but perhaps it’s just a matter of what kind of data is being displayed to me and not the actual result.

Is your vehicle sleeping?

mine just went through a phase of not sleeping for days at a time. I concluded the frunk latch sensor did not fully close one time when I used the frunk at -10F. That was keeping it awake. I had to cycle the frunk and do soft/hard resets to get the vehicle to sleep again

There is a whole thread on this topic from a couple years ago.

 

[More Juice Please]

Thankfully, yes it is sleeping.

 

[More Juice Please]

Sounds about normal for extreme cold. Most of that energy most likely went into maintaining some heat into the battery.

Thank you. Just something to get used to, I guess. It’s been interesting to see 20% of HV use for my commute of 30mi (round trip) with preconditioning in the morning. It’s just too darn cold!

 

[mudito]

Thank you. Just something to get used to, I guess. It’s been interesting to see 20% of HV use for my commute of 30mi (round trip) with preconditioning in the morning. It’s just too darn cold!

EVs and cold don't get too well together... Some do better than others .

If you van leave your R1 plugged into an L2 charger, then doing a schedule departure heating with energy from the charger will make a ton of a difference, FYI

 

[Supratachophobia]

After following advice of posters on these forums as well as this youtube I was able to solve phantom/vampire battery drain easily.

I got a 12 volt battery tender, and an OBD3 port adaptor off amazon and leave it plugged in while the car is at home.

Instead of losing nearly 1.5kwh a night, the tender draws .16kwh.

Photos show the setup in my garage, the drain before and after from ElectriFi and a screenshot of my smart plug that measures throughput.

(The TL;DR reason is folks have found is is the 12 volt battery is too small to keep the rivian asleep all night so it drains and dies, then the rivian wakes up and runs all its electronics and computers out of sleep mode to recharge the 12 volt for 3 hours.)

Oh geez. You are killing me with that tp link extender.....

 

[Bob S]

I’m a recent R1T 2023 owner. I bought her last November directly from Rivian. I guess I fall into the nerd category. Can you get information on your vehicle’s sleep from the Rivian app? Searching the app I did find my L2 charging is set for 18amps. Must have been set by Rivian. I have got in the habit of plugging in when home. Max battery. I requested her service history and see the 12v battery was replaced April 2024

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