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

[Tim-in-CA]

I just found out the extension cable caused issues, the car seems to not sleep as long and staying in idle state , took out the extension cable and everything went back to normal (long period sleeps and brief idles), might have to do with the gauges of the flat extension wires? not really sure why the extension cable didn't work, sorry for the wrong suggestion

Mine comes today. I’ll report if I get the same result

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[SPITmadFIRE]

I've finally caved and put my R1S on a NOCO 2A battery tender through the OBD2 port. I can't go another day with a ridiculous 2.4 kWh of phantom battery drain.

 

[mudito]

Mudito, Thanks. Makes good sense. I’ll try these things, starting with shipping mode, then maybe the tender as well.

FYI,

I'm away from home and traveling and I left my truck at home with Shipping mode enabled and after 72hrs my preliminary observations are pretty good actually:

- After exactly 72hrs, my battery went from 78.3% to 77.59% according to ElectraFi
- Truck sleeps for cycles OVER 24hrs (It did 26.5hrs on the first day and it's over 23hrs at this moment) and woke up for ~3hrs.

- I know both of my 12V batteries are in top condition as I ran a re-charge/re-condition a couple of weeks back if I recall correctly. I'm assuming that Single Battery vehicles and/or a poorer 12V condition might render shorter sleep Cycles.

So far, a huge difference from the last time when I was loosing 1% a day also with great 12V health (had brand-new batteries then).

 

[Tim-in-CA]

I just found out the extension cable caused issues, the car seems to not sleep as long and staying in idle state , took out the extension cable and everything went back to normal (long period sleeps and brief idles), might have to do with the gauges of the flat extension wires? not really sure why the extension cable didn't work, sorry for the wrong suggestion

Update : I've been using the cable since Sunday and my Battery Tender / OBD2 solution is still working. I have seen even before the introduction of the extension that with the latest 2025.06 update, that the vehicle will still wake up about once a day and stay awake for 2 to 3 hours for NO reason whatsoever. Pretty frustrating, but at least my VD is still being kept in check. Perhaps your cable was defective, you should try another one.

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

I've finally caved and put my R1S on a NOCO 2A battery tender through the OBD2 port. I can't go another day with a ridiculous 2.4 kWh of phantom battery drain.

Well, I was a bit disappointed when the first couple days went by and I was still burning around 1.6-1.9kWh a day after putting it on the 2A battery maintainer, but maybe today is the first day the battery got fully topped off without interruption? Today's graph shows an almost non-stop state of sleep, only waking up for brief moments that coincide with when I walked by the vehicle to leave the house. So far it's showing 0.00% loss, which makes sense as the vehicle hasn't been awake for more than a minute or two at a time all day.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Well, I was a bit disappointed when the first couple days went by and I was still burning around 1.6-1.9kWh a day after putting it on the 2A battery maintainer, but maybe today is the first day the battery got fully topped off without interruption? Today's graph shows an almost non-stop state of sleep, only waking up for brief moments that coincide with when I walked by the vehicle to leave the house. So far it's showing 0.00% loss, which makes sense as the vehicle hasn't been awake for more than a minute or two at a time all day.

That appears to be my observation as well. I use a 3A charger, but still see 1 to 2 events every other day where the vehicle wakes up and stays awake for 2 to 3 hours without any PAAK or fob waking up the vehicle. Still frustrating, but at least my VD is being somewhat kept in check.

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

That appears to be my observation as well. I use a 3A charger, but still see 1 to 2 events every other day where the vehicle wakes up and stays awake for 2 to 3 hours without any PAAK or fob waking up the vehicle. Still frustrating, but at least my VD is being somewhat kept in check.

I put it on the 2A battery tender on Sunday, and Monday and Tuesday didn't seem to change much; still had multiple wake events for a couple hours each day. Today is the first day I haven't seen a wake event *knocks on wood*.

I'll settle for one wake event every couple days if that's where my vehicle is at now, but only time will tell

 

[MikeWilliams_R1T]

I wonder if WiFi being on effects the frequency of random wake ups for an hour or two. I know sometimes our trucks can upload several hundred GB of video data from time to time.

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

I wonder if WiFi being on effects the frequency of random wake ups for an hour or two. I know sometimes our trucks can upload several hundred GB of video data from time to time.

I'm parked about 10 feet below my router, I'd be surprised if there's a better possible config for a WiFi connection other than duct taping an access point to the windshield.

Either way, 2 kWh of _anything_ is a ridiculous amount of power consumption when the vehicle is just sitting still

 

[MikeWilliams_R1T]

I'm parked about 10 feet below my router, I'd be surprised if there's a better possible config for a WiFi connection other than duct taping an access point to the windshield.

Either way, 2 kWh of _anything_ is a ridiculous amount of power consumption when the vehicle is just sitting still

I agree that’s a big draw for what can be done by one module in a low power mode.
My theory (and it is just that) is that the truck wakes up once in a while and it’s idle state is 1 or 2 KW since it’s booting up probably every module and cycling the HVAC to heat or cool the battery pack… just so it can upload its logs and large video files for the central Driver+ algorithm. There is another thread somewhere here that mentions the massive upload part.
Even with gigabit internet and a good signal, it can take at least a few minutes. I’ve been keeping my WiFi off unless there is an update pushing and have had very few wake ups at home since the last 2024 update.

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

I agree that’s a big draw for what can be done by one module in a low power mode.
My theory (and it is just that) is that the truck wakes up once in a while and it’s idle state is 1 or 2 KW since it’s booting up probably every module and cycling the HVAC to heat or cool the battery pack… just so it can upload its logs and large video files for the central Driver+ algorithm. There is another thread somewhere here that mentions the massive upload part.
Even with gigabit internet and a good signal, it can take at least a few minutes. I’ve been keeping my WiFi off unless there is an update pushing and have had very few wake ups at home since the last 2024 update.

My car hasn't moved in over a week. Whatever it's doing to burn all that energy is entirely unnecessary and useless. The vehicle should be smart enough to know when the vehicle hasn't been driven and thus has no Driver+ data to upload, if that's even the root cause.

 

[bigsky]

With the battery tender and my R1S i camp mode with power shut off, the best it can do on vampire drain is cut it to 2 miles per day from 6. It was one mile daily loss for a while, not sure what has changed.
No way I would disconnect 12 V battery, much less the battery pack just to save a few pennies.

 

[James Worden]

BigSky, That's what I originally wanted to do, disconnect the 12V battery or better yet, disconnect the loads from the 12V battery instead of try to feed it to stave off the losses. I was hoping to have no losses when the truck sits for a month at a time un-used. I loose 20% when it sits for 30 days which is insanely lossy. Smart people on the forum have determined that the loss is mostly from the truck waking up and running all of its energy-sucking computers just to fire up the DCDC to charge the battery. My thought was if I can kill the load on the 12V battery, it won't need to wake up and charge the 12V battery. However, if I disconnect the loads on the 12V battery, I don't want to have a big process to restart the truck when it needs to operate again. (I really wish Rivian would fix this for real!)

 

[mudito]

BigSky, That's what I originally wanted to do, disconnect the 12V battery or better yet, disconnect the loads from the 12V battery instead of try to feed it to stave off the losses. I was hoping to have no losses when the truck sits for a month at a time un-used. I loose 20% when it sits for 30 days which is insanely lossy. Smart people on the forum have determined that the loss is mostly from the truck waking up and running all of its energy-sucking computers just to fire up the DCDC to charge the battery. My thought was if I can kill the load on the 12V battery, it won't need to wake up and charge the 12V battery. However, if I disconnect the loads on the 12V battery, I don't want to have a big process to restart the truck when it needs to operate again. (I really wish Rivian would fix this for real!)

Try Vehicle Shipping mode. Read more here from my test which finished today

 

[James Worden]

Yes, I heard this on the forum and I am running a 2-week test in this mode now. I put in shipping mode, locked the truck and closed the app (swiped off phone). Its in about a 40degF location.

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