Vampire drain competition. Rivian, Lightning and Model 3

James Worden · Apr 25, 2025

Manalishi, don't think the button has too much to do with it versus just good engineering for minimum vampire drain. Any vehicle with a Bluetooth phone connection will obviously have some vampire drain but it can easily be 10x less than Rivian currently exhibits, then none of us would have to be discussing this topic. Rivian just needs to fix the engineering issue, possibly just with software, OTA update, thats my hope, at least to solve the lion's share of the vampire drain. The bluetooth connected 4K cameras with 24-hour motion sensing that I have on the property run 180 days on a tiny battery that's like two 18650 cells! Its all about engineering software (and hardware) to sip energy when not needed to do anything but be triggered into waking up.

Ilovejunebugs · Apr 25, 2025

bbonkk said:
YES, Sentry mode is off at home on both the Rivian and the Ford, I only have my dog as sentry mode but needs treats to keep up her strength.

What do you mean "sentry mode is off on the Ford"- Lightning's don't have this -? My husband has a lightning there is no sentry or gear guard that either of us are aware of...

bbonkk · Apr 29, 2025

James Worden said:
Great to see real data and comparison! Nice job. Amazing that the Ford Lightning did best! With how much my R1-T sits around, I now wish I bought the Ford Lightning. I picked Rivian because it seemed to be more efficient on the road. I never thought that the vampire drain would overshadow the on-road energy use!. I only needed to have the capability to move around and deploy 3000-10,000 boat trailers (which the R1-T does great, but all the GM, Ford, Rivian and Cyber-mad trucks can do) I think my M3 uses less vampire drain than this, I saw about 7-10x less drain than my R1-T. Was the temperature constant throughout the test or at least on the first and last da since some of the vampire drain could be colder battery at end of test period versus beginning of testing, of course of all 3 vehicles were in the same conditions together, they were all treated equally, so your test should be a fair comparison.

All three vehicles were parked in front of my house so they were all in the same environment and temperature. It may not be exact exact but pretty damn close. I might’ve been closer to one vehicle, but I turned off proximity sensors that would lock and unlock. The sentry mode was also off on both vehicles and of course the Ford does not have one.The Ford does not have phone as a key. It’s the old-fashioned key fob that you actually have to press with your thumb. How old-fashioned

bbonkk · Apr 29, 2025

Ilovejunebugs said:
What do you mean "sentry mode is off on the Ford"- Lightning's don't have this -? My husband has a lightning there is no sentry or gear guard that either of us are aware of...

Actually, I do have a sentry mode is called Canopy, which I am testing and that actually did run the battery down previously. I believe it was already dead when I started. If you don’t drive the vehicle, Canopy does not work. I’ve been testing it for the past two months for the company and it’s directly tied to the OBD port. If anything, that may have sucked a little bit of that one percent but very little.