My Rivian completely dead from ~40% vampire drain after a month long vacation

[Dark-Fx]

I'd like to see your comments after you've owned a Rivian for a few months.

I'd like to see yours when you've owned it for nearly a year, buddy.

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[SlaterGS]

I'd like to see yours when you've owned it for nearly a year, buddy.

 

[SANZC02]

Thanks for the thoughts from some dude who drove a Rivian for 45 minutes.

Landcruisers, LXs, and Range Rovers are TRUCKS that don't have the tradeoffs that the R1S has wrt build quality and comfort.

I'd like to see your comments after you've owned a Rivian for a few months.

I have had mine for nearly 2 months. Picked it up in IL and did a 5k mile 17 day trip home. Much of that trip was in snow and rain. Vehicle absolutely handled it like a champ. I did 33 charges in 23 states with no issues so charging is nowhere near as bad as the antagonist want people to think.

Seats and interior of the R1S are far superior to my Model S.

Model S is quieter and has a better navigation especially when it comes to traffic awareness.

Vampire drain between the 2 are almost identical losing 1 or 2 miles the first 24 hours, less after.

Efficiency as expected is better in the smaller lighter Model S but not that much, I get 3 mile per kw in the Tesla, 2.2 in the R1S.

When I leave my house there is no doubt that I’m taking the R1S.

This is just one opinion from someone that has both sitting in the driveway.

 

[Zoidz]

Thanks for the thoughts from some dude who drove a Rivian for 45 minutes.

Landcruisers, LXs, and Range Rovers are TRUCKS that don't have the tradeoffs that the R1S has wrt build quality and comfort.

I'd like to see your comments after you've owned a Rivian for a few months.

You're quite welcome for my thoughts after driving 45 minutes in a Rivian. I'll be sure to post my thoughts again after I take delivery.

Range Rover and Land Rover have been synonymous for years with terrible build quailty.

"98% of all Land Rovers are still on the road. The other 2% actually made it to their destination."

 

[rpo]

I have another data point. My Model X has just sat at the service center (again) since 2/27 and I am picking it up tonight. 87% charge on 2/27 as per a screenshot I took of the app that day, and now it is at 20%. Sentry is turned off. It's literally sat with no activity for 15 days...and lost 67%. That's 5-6% a day.

 

[White Shadow]

I left my phone on the table and did not use it and it was at no power after a few days. The phone sucks.

I actually did that, no joke. Over the last Thanksgiving day holiday, I went to my brother's lake house for three days and I forgot my phone on my kitchen counter when I left my house. I didn't realize it until I was about 2 hours into the drive to the lake house. I had my work phone with me, so I decided that it wasn't too important to have my primary phone.

When I got back home, my phone was at 92% state of charge after sitting idle on the counter for just over 3 days. That's a Samsung S20 5G phone, so not the newest model anymore. I'm surprised it didn't lose more than 8%.

 

[av8or]

When we take delivery of our trucks, there’s a few things about communication and privacy and data transmission that we all have to agree to or toggle them off. If people here complaining said yes to allow their truck to communicate with the mothership, then I don’t understand why this isn’t expected.

Just so everyone here knows……….a lithium ion battery attached to nothing will eventually go dead over time.

It’s probably Rivian’s fault. ?‍

Complainers (I’m one) will be complaining.

 

[NY_Rob]

Just so everyone here knows……….a lithium ion battery attached to nothing will eventually go dead over time.

Standard Li-Ion battery sitting loss from non-use is generally 1-2% per month over a year's time. Rivian has 1-2% loss per day- it's not a battery chemistry issue.

From what I've personally experienced with my other EV's... BMW did it right with the i3.
When you get to your destination and exit the vehicle, it sends it's remaining range, SOC and vehicle location to their cloud and then it turns off 99% of the electronics in the vehicle so there is literally no vampire drain even after sitting for a week or longer. Since it sent it's last range and SOC numbers to the BMW cloud and then shut down everything... when you open the app on your phone it doesn't wake the vehicle to check range or SOC because it always has the data from when the car was last shut off. BMW leaves just enough running (think cell phone level current drain) to run the 4G modem and wake the vehicle for pre-conditioning if requested, but there aren't multiple computers running sending all sorts of telemetry data back to the Rivian cloud like a SpaceX capsule in orbit 24/7.

 

[Zoidz]

Standard Li-Ion battery sitting loss from non-use is generally 1-2% per month over a year's time. Rivian has 1-2% loss per day- it's not a battery chemistry issue.

From what I've personally experienced with my other EV's... BMW did it right with the i3.
When you get to your destination and exit the vehicle, it sends it's remaining range, SOC and vehicle location to their cloud and then it turns off 99% of the electronics in the vehicle so there is literally no vampire drain even after sitting for a week or longer. Since it sent it's last range and SOC numbers to the BMW cloud and then shut down everything... when you open the app on your phone it doesn't wake the vehicle to check range or SOC because it always has the data from when the car was last shut off. BMW leaves just enough running (think cell phone level current drain) to run the 4G modem and wake the vehicle for pre-conditioning if requested, but there aren't multiple computers running sending all sorts of telemetry data back to the Rivian cloud like a SpaceX capsule in orbit 24/7.

It sure sounds like BMW did it right! This touches on my thoughts about how Rivian might wake up their devices. Depending on how Rivian architected this, it's possible they are hardwired to just wake up a bunch of devices on a particular bus, as opposed to individually. That would limit their ability to reduce vampire drain. I hope not....

 

[White Shadow]

When we take delivery of our trucks, there’s a few things about communication and privacy and data transmission that we all have to agree to or toggle them off. If people here complaining said yes to allow their truck to communicate with the mothership, then I don’t understand why this isn’t expected.

Just so everyone here knows……….a lithium ion battery attached to nothing will eventually go dead over time.

It’s probably Rivian’s fault. ?‍

Complainers (I’m one) will be complaining.

Every battery (lithium nor not) will go dead over time. It might take a really long time, but eventually they all go dead.

That said, I have a few battery packs that came with my EGO yard equipment. They generally get put away in late November and don't get used again until April. The batteries have a feature where they self-discharge to 30% state of charge if left unused for too long (I don't remember how long is considered too long), so even if I put them away for the winter fully charged, they'll all be at 30% come spring. Well, one of the batteries must be broken because it doesn't self discharge over the winter months. I put it away in November fully charged and it's still fully charged in the spring. It loses almost nothing over four months in storage. And FWIW, that doesn't seem to have shortened it's life at all or reduce it's run time.

 

[White Shadow]

Standard Li-Ion battery sitting loss from non-use is generally 1-2% per month over a year's time. Rivian has 1-2% loss per day- it's not a battery chemistry issue.

From what I've personally experienced with my other EV's... BMW did it right with the i3.
When you get to your destination and exit the vehicle, it sends it's remaining range, SOC and vehicle location to their cloud and then it turns off 99% of the electronics in the vehicle so there is literally no vampire drain even after sitting for a week or longer. Since it sent it's last range and SOC numbers to the BMW cloud and then shut down everything... when you open the app on your phone it doesn't wake the vehicle to check range or SOC because it always has the data from when the car was last shut off. BMW leaves just enough running (think cell phone level current drain) to run the 4G modem and wake the vehicle for pre-conditioning if requested, but there aren't multiple computers running sending all sorts of telemetry data back to the Rivian cloud like a SpaceX capsule in orbit 24/7.

Very similar set up to my Jeep (purely ICE) whereas the vehicle sends all the data (fuel level, oil life, tire pressures, odometer reading, oil life, geo location, any potential faults, etc...) upon shut down and it's available on the app. The Jeep then goes to sleep. I can view all that info from the app without waking the vehicle. But if I request an update, the vehicle does wake up again for a period of time. I've tested this in my garage and actually watched the vehicle wake up to send all the data again.

 

[Sacagawea]

I took off an vacation parking my Rivian R1T in my apartment parking complex and came back to a completely dead battery. The 12V battery looks to be dead as well completely. The car wouldn't unlock any doors or ports and nothing seems to work at all. It completely drained the full 40% to 0% within a month (FYI, I live in Bay Area where the winter is not too bad)

I have to access to a charging point in my parking spot and I've underestimated the much dreaded vampire drain that's plaguing the Rivians. I know I should have done something about it while I was away but I had to extend my trip for a week longer than what I have planned for due to some last minute family emergency and couldn't make any arrangement.

I'm kinda bummed to see this happen although I know about the vampire drain. Did any one have any similar experience happen to them?

I've reached out to service center and they suggested the easiest option is to tow the vehicle to them for them to work on it. The estimate for the service given as $1270 . Price have to pay for bad software optimization and vampire drain!

Please suggest if you have any comments and suggestions on this!

One thought would be to use a Battery Tender. I use one on my motorcycle during the winter months. It's not cumbersome, easy to use and keeps my battery operable once the first nice weather comes along and I want to ride. It could be put on the 12v when you're away on vacation that doesn't include your Rivian. Secondly, we have a car that does sit for weeks at a time. When the battery doesn't want to start the car we have a NOCO GB40 Boost Plus Jump Starter. You don't need another vehicle for the jump, just this device. We have used it a couple of times now and it's worked great.

 

[ohseedee]

Is the drain caused by a draw on the 12volt battery? and the HV battery then drains to keep the 12volt charged? If so, I could totally see a solar tonneau cover being used to trickle charge the 12volt.

I've been playing with the idea of taking some equipment I already have for a small solar generator and install ~300 watts of solar on top of a DIY tonneau cover. with a battery, inverter, charge controller in the bed. The thinking was I'd use it for camping use-cases (with expandable solar). However, maybe I could wire up a trickle charger to keep the 12v battery charged. I'm personally seeing about 1% drain per day.

*Not a Rivan apologist. Just a guy looking for solutions to problems. I'm sensing some emotional landmines in this thread that I'm not interested in stepping on

 

[SwaziCAR]

*Not a Rivan apologist. Just a guy looking for solutions to problems. I'm sensing some emotional landmines in this thread that I'm not interested in stepping on

I'm sorry; you're far too mature to post here.

 

[praneeth91]

**Update on the issue**
I've got my R1T towed to the service center and both the 12 V had to be replaced. Total cost out of pocket ~$1000. I did trying to the service center and see what they could do about this issue but they said they cant do anything about it as it was within the expected vampire drain guideline. Also, did push for to add in a note to Software team on prioritizing a deep sleep mode on reddit. This thread was intended more to spread awareness on the do's and don'ts while away and Rivian can help by adding general awareness to customers on shipping mode/others to help alleviate the vampire drain when not in use. Appreciate all your comments on the thread although there were much heated convos on what was intended to.

Reddit feature request post for reference:

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