First R2 trim will be Dual Motor AWD Launch Edition. Production & delivery on track for first half 2026

[AlphaSnowbordergirl]

My 2014 LEAF lost 2% (500 Wh) sitting in the cold for five days this week. Rivian has a long ways to go to be “best in class.””

I'm sorry are we considering class to be EVs or do we mean large SUV/Trucks. BEcause when I hear best in class, I'm thinking large SUV or Truck depending on R1S or R1T. Not this vs a Leaf or crossover.

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[mkhuffman]

I'm sorry are we considering class to be EVs or do we mean large SUV/Trucks. BEcause when I hear best in class, I'm thinking large SUV or Truck depending on R1S or R1T. Not this vs a Leaf or crossover.

I consider the "best in class" quote to be referring to BEVs in general, since Rivian has struggled to get vampire drain under control. It took Tesla years to figure it out. But somehow, the legacy car companies have already figured it out. I initially blamed Gear Guard, but even with that off there is significant vampire drain.

The Gen1 issue was so significant to me that I was not willing to get one with that much drain. It still bothers me somewhat that my Gen2 drains, but it ends up being less than 1% per day if it sits for a long time.

If I park my truck at the airport with 65% charge and return with it at 60%, I can still get home. In some situations, I can see that drain being a bigger issue. But for me, it has not been.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Yeah, our iX drains so little, sometimes I wonder if the app is updating. I'm talking nothing over a week, maybe a 1% over 7-10 days (though FL weather and in a garage).

The old so-glad-it's-gone Tesla was mostly good, though it had a couple of updates where some background process went bonkers (preventing consistent sleep) and it was draining like 2-3% per day, that got resolved in a few weeks, and fortunately we weren't in a situation where it was sitting unattended for a long period.

 

[Dave Cundiff]

Our Bolts have ZERO vampire drain, but they're also not exchanging data with the mothership when not operating.

At least some drain is the cost of updates. As long as it's reasonably predictable, which it is for us, I don't mind it.

Others' opinions will obviously differ. Best to all!

 

[VSG]

ALL my ICE vehicles have vampire drain. If I leave them sitting around for a month or two, the 12V goes dead.

As Dave Cundiff said above, the Rivian is actually waking up and doing things, which is what causes most of the battery usage. I personally define "vampire drain" differently than most, since I consider it to be just the parasitic loss that you get from most electronics (eg your USB chargers etc.) when they are plugged in but not in use because they have power regulators etc. which are constantly using a small amount of power. Defined this way, "vampire drain" is a very small fraction of this daily use, and the rest is deliberate power consumption while idle. Feeding the Driver+ AI data, for instance, health telemetry, updating software (some of which is done outside the normal update process), gear guard, battery maintenence, etc. What you *don't* want is to get into your vehicle which has been using 0 energy for the past few days then find out you have to wait 10 minutes before you can drive the vehicle so that "windows update" can run - it's much better if the vehicle performs these housekeeping tasks on a continuous basis when idle.

My Gen 1 R1T loses less than 1% a day. That's like a 40W light bulb being on all the time. Not nothing, but not unreasonable for a large computer which is essentially on all the time.

In that context, have you ever calculated your home "vampire drain" from all the devices you normally have plugged in? TVs, cable box, router, modem, charging pads, dimmer switches, smart plugs, thermostat, laptops/desktops, garage door opener, microwave, security system, doorbell camera, irrigation controller, etc. All of these use power all the time when plugged in. Even a Starlink connection will use just as much as your Rivian. Do you have Christmas lights on your house? An outdoor porch light you leave on? Security cameras?

Sure Rivian should work on reducing energy usage when idle, but in the grand scheme of things this is only a tiny portion of most people's "always on" budget.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Sure Rivian should work on reducing energy usage when idle, but in the grand scheme of things this is only a tiny portion of most people's "always on" budget.

And to add, Rivian has worked on it... endlessly. Reduce consumption: the proximity responsiveness mob assembles. In response to that, they made the vehicle more awake/aware: the anti-vampire drain mob assembles and hose them with holy water. Back and forth. There's no winning for them, even after they revamped the entire architecture to have less wiring and fewer CPUs. There's also a general misunderstanding by consumers who don't pay enough attention to understand nuances. All 12V batteries have a service life. It's the number of cycles that kill them (just like your laptop and cellphone batteries). The problem with gen 1 is that some have two, to the tune of $300+ each, and Rivian is not making DIY replacement easy, for now.

 

[SSteveEV]

...

My Gen 1 R1T loses less than 1% a day. That's like a 40W light bulb being on all the time. Not nothing, but not unreasonable for a large computer which is essentially on all the time.
...

The difference for me is that I know how to turn off a lightbulb if I'm going away for a long time. If I'm walking in and out of the room to get a snack I leave it on.
I'd complain a lot less if Rivian provided the "deep sleep on/off" button I've always wanted to we have a choice over responsiveness vs drain.

(I'm not going to bother doing the math on how quickly an R1 would drain an ICE 12v battery, that's the wrong comparison. The drain is better compared to an ICE leaking a quarter gallon of gas per week)

 

[VSG]

I think you missed my entire point about the distinction between parasitic drain and deliberate power consumption. A lightbulb being ON is deliberate power consumption. A wireless charger is parasitic drain when you're not actively charging. A 12V battery on an ICE vehicle goes dead from parasitic drain, because that ICE vehicle is probably doing *nothing* when it's turned off.

The difference for me is that I know how to turn off a lightbulb if I'm going away for a long time. If I'm walking in and out of the room to get a snack I leave it on.

It's not a question of leaving a lightbulb or any other device ON - most of your devices use energy even when they're OFF. You don't unplug all your TVs and cable/satellite equipment, unplug all your kitchen appliances, turn off your security system/cameras, etc. when you go away do you? And how do you charge your phones? Do you have a wireless charger you leave plugged in? Do you disconnect your internet services and Wi-Fi router? What about your heating/cooling? Do you leave the heat off all the way and let your pipes freeze? Do you really flip the main breaker to turn your house off entirely when you leave for a long time? Some of these are little drains, some of them are big, but they all add up. If you read your meter before you leave then again when you get back you'll get some idea of what your house's "vampire drain" is so you can discuss this in context.

 

[mkhuffman]

The difference for me is that I know how to turn off a lightbulb if I'm going away for a long time. If I'm walking in and out of the room to get a snack I leave it on.
I'd complain a lot less if Rivian provided the "deep sleep on/off" button I've always wanted to we have a choice over responsiveness vs drain.

(I'm not going to bother doing the math on how quickly an R1 would drain an ICE 12v battery, that's the wrong comparison. The drain is better compared to an ICE leaking a quarter gallon of gas per week)

I think you missed my entire point about the distinction between parasitic drain and deliberate power consumption. A lightbulb being ON is deliberate power consumption. A wireless charger is parasitic drain when you're not actively charging. A 12V battery on an ICE vehicle goes dead from parasitic drain, because that ICE vehicle is probably doing *nothing* when it's turned off.


It's not a question of leaving a lightbulb or any other device ON - most of your devices use energy even when they're OFF. You don't unplug all your TVs and cable/satellite equipment, unplug all your kitchen appliances, turn off your security system/cameras, etc. when you go away do you? And how do you charge your phones? Do you have a wireless charger you leave plugged in? Do you disconnect your internet services and Wi-Fi router? What about your heating/cooling? Do you leave the heat off all the way and let your pipes freeze? Do you really flip the main breaker to turn your house off entirely when you leave for a long time? Some of these are little drains, some of them are big, but they all add up. If you read your meter before you leave then again when you get back you'll get some idea of what your house's "vampire drain" is so you can discuss this in context.

The PaaK on my Mach-e was practically flawless (once they got the bugs worked out), and the car was never too fast asleep to be responsive to my approach. It received lots of OTA updates and I could monitor the status of the car with an app, just like I can do with my R1T.

The Mach-e has zero drain. Zero. It is possible for Rivian to do the same thing. So I disagree with your defense of the drain issue.

That said, I don't think it is a serious issue for Gen2 owners. At least for me.

Others have valid complaints especially those using solar power where every wasted kW matters. And I do think the drain is waste. I see zero benefit from losing 5% SoC over 7 days. Zero.

 

[VSG]

I disagree with your defense of the drain issue.

To be clear, I am not defending Rivian's drain, I am just trying to explain it and put it in perspective. There are two parts, one of which is parasitic drain, which is small in all cases including ICE vehicles. Even your MME has a small parasitic drain, but it comes out of the 12V so you will not see that reflected in your HV battery SoC unless your MME wakes up periodically to top off the 12V like a Rivian does. But if you leave your MME sitting by itself long enough the 12V *will* drain. Just like an ICE battery will drain.

The real issue is the deliberate energy usage when not being driven. That is a CHOICE that Rivian is making. You may disagree with that choice, but it is what it is. Rivian is choosing to perform tasks while your vehicle is idle. Ford is choosing not to. I mentioned downloading telemetry and mapping and performance data - there is a LOT of data being sent back to the mothership, and you need to wake up the vehicle to run a computer and an internet connection in order to download that data. I doubt your MME is doing that.

It's a tradeoff, and Rivian has been modifying that tradeoff for years, but we're at about the point where the only way to decrease "vampire drain" is to stop deliberately doing things when the vehicle is idle. But if they do that, I guarantee there will be complaints from many because, for example, streaming music won't work so well while driving if all the collected performance data (gigabytes) is being downloaded over the same internet connection while you're driving rather than while the vehicle is idle. That's part of the tradeoff.

Regardless, the bulk of that energy is not really wasted, it's used, and to do all the things Rivian wants to do you're going to use that energy anyway, whether you use it while driving or use it while idle.

I do think the drain is waste. I see zero benefit from losing 5% SoC over 7 days. Zero.

Again, the bulk of that is used for specific tasks, not just thrown away as heat.

 

[mkhuffman]

To be clear, I am not defending Rivian's drain, I am just trying to explain it and put it in perspective. There are two parts, one of which is parasitic drain, which is small in all cases including ICE vehicles. Even your MME has a small parasitic drain, but it comes out of the 12V so you will not see that reflected in your HV battery SoC unless your MME wakes up periodically to top off the 12V like a Rivian does. But if you leave your MME sitting by itself long enough the 12V *will* drain. Just like an ICE battery will drain.

The real issue is the deliberate energy usage when not being driven. That is a CHOICE that Rivian is making. You may disagree with that choice, but it is what it is. Rivian is choosing to perform tasks while your vehicle is idle. Ford is choosing not to. I mentioned downloading telemetry and mapping and performance data - there is a LOT of data being sent back to the mothership, and you need to wake up the vehicle to run a computer and an internet connection in order to download that data. I doubt your MME is doing that.

It's a tradeoff, and Rivian has been modifying that tradeoff for years, but we're at about the point where the only way to decrease "vampire drain" is to stop deliberately doing things when the vehicle is idle. But if they do that, I guarantee there will be complaints from many because, for example, streaming music won't work so well while driving if all the collected performance data (gigabytes) is being downloaded over the same internet connection while you're driving rather than while the vehicle is idle. That's part of the tradeoff.

Regardless, the bulk of that energy is not really wasted, it's used, and to do all the things Rivian wants to do you're going to use that energy anyway, whether you use it while driving or use it while idle.

Again, the bulk of that is used for specific tasks, not just thrown away as heat.

I agree with your points but I see no value in the energy they are using when the truck is idle. So to me, it should be zero. They should communicate with the mother ship when the truck is on, or by using the LVB.

The Mach-e is yet another BEV with LVB issues. You are correct about how they manage it. When the LVB drops below 50% SoC, it is supposed to recharge from the HVB. It works but it took a while for Ford to dial it in and eliminate most of the LVB failures.

Mine never failed, BTW. I replaced it at the three year mark, because that is what you need to do. R1s also. At 3 years, replace it or suffer the consequences.

 

[Carscott]

There are lots of reports of people being able to hear it - but I'm not one of them (2023 Gen 1 Dual R1T owner). I'm not afraid to use the go pedal and I can't recall ever hearing a "clunking" sound from behind me. Maybe I just don't know what to listen for?

I’m on third motor. And now I do not hear it engage. The third motor is dialed in. To be clear 1st failed. Replacement sounded clunky and I complained. Third dialed.

 

[tivoboy]

I would like to get rid of my model 3 but the efficiency and lack of vampire drain keeps it in my garage. Meanwhile my R1s looses a few kWh everyday.

That does seem like a lot.. I’ve gotten used to my 2018 M3 LR losing maybe 1-2 miles A WEEK when parked in the garage.. it’s certainly very manageable. Hmm, will have to really consider this when clicking BUY on the upcoming R2

 

[VandalSibs]

That does seem like a lot.. I’ve gotten used to my 2018 M3 LR losing maybe 1-2 miles A WEEK when parked in the garage.. it’s certainly very manageable. Hmm, will have to really consider this when clicking BUY on the upcoming R2

My Gen1 R1T doesn't lose any significant amount of power when it's unplugged at work for 9+hours a day with Gear Guard on... and I park in a spot where people walk by the truck all the time, so it's making recordings pretty often.

Maybe I'm just lucky?

 

[DuoRivian]

That does seem like a lot.. I’ve gotten used to my 2018 M3 LR losing maybe 1-2 miles A WEEK when parked in the garage.. it’s certainly very manageable. Hmm, will have to really consider this when clicking BUY on the upcoming R2

Are you really not going to buy an R2 which could be superior in many ways if it lost 1-2 miles a day? And that is worst case speculation, I would expect with the new vehicle even lower and class competitive vampire drain.

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