R1T phantom drain and possible work around

[TeslaCoil]

I have one of the higher phantom drains of reports I've read on this site, about 5 to 10 Kw h per day. Rivian support was not too helpful, telling me among other things non specific, that 10 kwH is within range. After trying everything I could think of(camp mode, transport mode, removing all Bluetooth keys, and removing battery from FOB) and seeing no noticeable difference I tried disconnecting the battery.

I found that there are 7 or 8 large gauge wires on the b+ side of the 12v battery, but only 1 ground wire so I disconnected it and waited 24 hours.

After 24 hours the reading before was 55% battery charge and after was 56%, so I did not loose any range in this 24 hours! A big improvement!

A few other things I noticed, it looks like there are 2 batteries but the passenger side one seems to be a capacitor(similar to a lightening cap) possibly there to protect the battery from large A.C. ripple caused by the turning on and off of these large loads( each of these wires is stamped with 80 or 100 amp!) that is something like 500 amps of low voltage capacity!

After disconnecting the battery there was still b+ measured from chassis, so there is a separate parallel 12 v power supply that never seemed to shut off completely.

Immediately after disconnecting ground, the truck acted normal, the screen was still on and though I didn't try to put it in drive, nothing seemed to be effected.

After a few hours my phone indicated to red icons in the top right stating: unable to connect to your car and data not available( or something like that).

I'd consider this initial finding to be a success and worth further investigating.

I think that my next step will be to install a traditional master battery switch under the hood, and try for a week or two and see if my efficiency improves.

I tracked my efficiency from time of purchasing the truck and this is what I came up with:

My total charging at home is 952.4 kwH measured on the a.c. side. Additionally I estimate 100 to 125 kwh of charging away from home.
That makes my total efficiency 1.68 miles per kwH or 593 watts per mile.

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[Amy]

That is insane for a $100k vehicle to be doing that, and for you to be troubleshooting it. Rivian should pay you 40 ish dollars a month for the electricity loss.

 

[shimps1]

How is everyone able to track their phanton drain? The Rivian app doesn't share much info that would show that. If I leave the car plugged in, where would I see how much energy was "lost," outside of the stuff used to charge to the set limit?

 

[HimuraMOdo]

I would not recommend doing this to save a few KWh due to the phantom drain issue.

Having the chassis ground terminal removed could possibly cause low voltage circuit reliability issue. Even though you can still measure the battery voltage between the chassis and the positive terminal doesn't mean it has a low impedance route back to the battery. In other word, having the low impedance ground terminal cut from the battery will result in the needed ground current to go through some other unintended current path causing issues down in the future.

IMHO, it's not worth the saving/risk.

By the way, the design used to have dual 12V batteries and (I remember?) the passenger side battery always get drain first thus there is a recent design change to replace the passenger side battery to a super capacitor to improve the life time of the battery.

 

[darren1f]

Try putting it in service mode. That will shut down the connectivity and the cameras. Something to test.

 

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

By the way, the design used to have dual 12V batteries and (I remember?) the passenger side battery always get drain first thus there is a recent design change to replace the passenger side battery to a super capacitor to improve the life time of the battery.

This is correct. Well documented in the forum. Somewhere after the 19xxx build VIN's (in the R1T), or roughly around March of this year they switched from dual batteries to one battery + capacitor.

Not sure how much documenting we ever got on this from Rivian, but iirc the theory was that the cap will help with "quick" loads, and may have even been the original intended design (they just went with the dual batteries as it was what they could get at the time). There's a few photos and videos floating around, I know you can't just switch from one to the other by replacing a battery (or cap). There was a change made to the wiring, as well.

Good on OP for testing this but I wouldn't do it, personally. As someone else said, try service mode. Good luck!

 

[Dark-Fx]

Your usage means the vehicle isn't going into sleep at all. Used to be more that would cause that but the only thing I'm aware of that's "functioning as normal" today is when the front passenger belt is kept buckled.

 

[shrink]

Try putting it in service mode

As someone else said, try service mode.

Do you mean Shipping Mode?

I think Service Mode was just referenced in the .46 release notes and is for service technicians. Some used to able to access it with the old RIDE code.

 

[BeanEW]

Since you tried pretty much everything, I'm sure you had looked into this. The biggest drain I have experienced was connected the passenger side seatbelt without a person in the seat overnight. This kept the car awake and drained pretty fast overnight. Maybe there is some kind of sensor problem that keeping the car awake.

 

[DTown3011]

How is everyone able to track their phanton drain? The Rivian app doesn't share much info that would show that. If I leave the car plugged in, where would I see how much energy was "lost," outside of the stuff used to charge to the set limit?

Reset the trip odometer to zero and it will track energy usage in kWh while the vehicle is sitting and not in motion. This is actually the only reliable way to track drain, too many people track it by % or miles lost, which is a guess-o-meter and really not indicative of actual energy usage. I wish we would get away from it.

 

[darren1f]

Do you mean Shipping Mode?

I think Service Mode was just referenced in the .46 release notes and is for service technicians. Some used to able to access it with the old RIDE code.

yes. My bad. It’s under the service tab.

 

[Mobius1]

Reset the trip odometer to zero and it will track energy usage in kWh while the vehicle is sitting and not in motion. This is actually the only reliable way to track drain, too many people track it by % or miles lost, which is a guess-o-meter and really not indicative of actual energy usage. I wish we would get away from it.

TeslaFi.com has tracking for Rivians through ElectraFi.

 

[Millertimr]

How is everyone able to track their phanton drain? The Rivian app doesn't share much info that would show that. If I leave the car plugged in, where would I see how much energy was "lost," outside of the stuff used to charge to the set limit?

Electrafi.com

 

[CrazyOne]

Since you are going down the rabbit hole, consider using a thermal camera to understand where the power is lost. They can be rented relatively cheaply at HD. Maybe there is a switch/relay stuck on?

 

[Herb]

I trying camping mode for first time tonight to see if that minimizes phantom drain. Camping mode seems to power the truck down immediately.

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