[Jtgolden]

I am losing range, about 3 miles per day or 1% of capacity, for each day my R1T is sitting in the garage not plugged in. Is this normal? Seems to be pretty consistent. Right now, it has to sit for about 2 weeks while I am out of town and it seems I will see quite a drop in range over that time. Fortunately, I left it at 70% charged.

Are others seeing this as well?

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

Yes, lot's of reports of some drain while sitting. Honestly, your 1% drain is better than some of the other reports.

I believe there is a "shipping" mode you can put the truck into to reduce drain if you're leaving it for a long time.

 

[Jtgolden]

Yes, lot's of reports of some drain while sitting. Honestly, your 1% drain is better than some of the other reports.

I believe there is a "shipping" mode you can put the truck into to reduce drain if you're leaving it for a long time.

Okay, thanks for the response!

 

[lefkonj]

Shipping mode sounds like a great setting for an airport. But I wonder if that turns everything off, like the alarm.

 

[kizamybute']

Ahh, the natural fears from new EV owners! . Welcome to the family! Yes, phantom drain is normal. These cars condition / maintain themselves even while turned off. 3 miles per day actually isn't bad. Pre-warning, because you'll be back asking about it in 3-4 months, battery degradation is also very common. Hence, if you range right now says 300 miles, it will likely be 290 in a few months and will continue to decline very gradually over time. Great vehicles. You'll likely never be able to go back to ICE vehicles now. Enjoy the ride!

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

Shipping mode sounds like a great setting for an airport. But I wonder if that turns everything off, like the alarm.

I would assume "yes".

 

[thebishman]

Ahh, the natural fears from new EV owners! . Welcome to the family! Yes, phantom drain is normal. These cars condition / maintain themselves even while turned off. 3 miles per day actually isn't bad. Pre-warning, because you'll be back asking about it in 3-4 months, battery degradation is also very common. Hence, if you range right now says 300 miles, it will likely be 290 in a few months and will continue to decline very gradually over time. Great vehicles. You'll likely never be able to go back to ICE vehicles now. Enjoy the ride!

This is certainly not true, or at least doesn’t have to be true if a manufacturer takes the care necessary to ensure that ‘Phantom drain’ isn’t a thing.

I can leave my Audi etron parked, locked and unplugged for multiple weeks and suffer perhaps no more than 1%-2% loss over those two weeks.

Current and past Tesla owners are used to the SoC degrading fairly rapidly, but not all EVs suffer from it.

Hopefully Rivian can moderate the SoC loss via OTA upgrades.

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

Current and past Tesla owners are used to the SoC degrading fairly rapidly, but not all EVs suffer from it.

Tesla owner mentality

 

[sciencegeek]

I can leave my Audi etron parked, locked and unplugged for multiple weeks and suffer perhaps no more than 1%-2% loss over those two weeks.

Same here. The I-Pace has negligible phantom drain; one owner recently reported 3% over 4.5 months of inactivity. In fairness, that's because it doesn't have sentry mode, and it stops communicating OTA after ca. 100 hours of being locked.

 

[ColeAK]

Stop checking on the SOC from the app and let the truck stay in sleep mode. I don’t know about a rivian but with my teslas every time you check the car from the app it goes into full wake up mode, turns on the cpus, climate,….

Also why didn’t you leave it plugged in? Going on 8 years with Teslas and I’ve learned to just plug them in whenever they are in the garage.

 

[kizamybute']

Yes, it can be reduced if you turn everything off. Security monitoring. With the Tesla, you can turn off mobile access. and a few other things. I don't know about the other manufacturers. I guess they don't offer the continued security recording or other things maybe? Active features use energy. Shut off all the features, or don't offer them to begin with, and you'll reduce draw from the battery. I know on the Tesla and even my prior Chevy Volt, the car would do some battery conditioning on its own as I could hear it doing something, despite not being used. So OK, I guess it's normal on some cars that offer more access and/or security features and such. The Tesla is active at most times. Being that Rivian is mostly a knock off of Tesla's UI, assuming it will be similar.

I get annoyed by the Tesla fanboi's and have certainly done my fair share of criticizing of their ways. But, also have to respect that we have the EV's we have today because of them. A lone company took it upon themselves to prove that EV's could be appealing and practical. And they, by far, out sell every other EV on the planet. So, as much as they annoy me with a lot of what they do, they really don't care who's annoyed because people keep buying them. Rivian has already followed in many of their footsteps.

 

[Jtgolden]

Stop checking on the SOC from the app and let the truck stay in sleep mode. I don’t know about a rivian but with my teslas every time you check the car from the app it goes into full wake up mode, turns on the cpus, climate,….

Also why didn’t you leave it plugged in? Going on 8 years with Teslas and I’ve learned to just plug them in whenever they are in the garage.

I debated whether to leave it plugged in or not, but I have it set to the recommended 70% max (local travel setting) and since it was at 70%, my thought was that i did not want it to drop to 69% and kick on back to 70% repeatedly for 2 weeks. Maybe that was bad thinking but from reading battery maintenance advice, that would not seem to good for the battery. Therefore, since it was at max, I decided to just unplug it not thinking it would lose so much range just sitting. I have now lost 10% of 4 days. I have only been checking the app once a day to try and understand the phantom drain, but maybe that does have something to do with it. I did not think of that.

I have literally had the truck for a week and it is my first EV, so trying to understand best charging/range management practices on the fly.

Another question, if going to leave it plugged in for an extended time, is it better to trickle charge at level 1 or just leave it on the level 2?

 

[ColeAK]

I debated whether to leave it plugged in or not, but I have it set to the recommended 70% max (local travel setting) and since it was at 70%, my thought was that i did not want it to drop to 69% and kick on back to 70% repeatedly for 2 weeks. Maybe that was bad thinking but from reading battery maintenance advice, that would not seem to good for the battery. Therefore, since it was at max, I decided to just unplug it not thinking it would lose so much range just sitting. I have now lost 10% of 4 days. I have only been checking the app once a day to try and understand the phantom drain, but maybe that does have something to do with it. I did not think of that.

I have literally had the truck for a week and it is my first EV, so trying to understand best charging/range management practices on the fly.

Another question, if going to leave it plugged in for an extended time, is it better to trickle charge at level 1 or just leave it on the level 2?

Not sure what Rivan settings are it when the charge kicks in. With Tesla the car has to drop ~3-4% below the charge level for it to trigger a charge.

What I do now when I leave the Tesla for an extended period I’ll have the battery charged then set the charge lower to 50%, see picture from my app. That way it uses shore power (from the connector) if it wakes or runs for any reason.

Another word of advice with 8 years in teslas, when in doubt plug it in. Also if you live somwhere with winter May want to set to a higher charge in the winter. And if you have moderate summers May want lower. On a daily basis I set my SOC to 60% in the summer, summers in Alaska are mild I only need AC a few days a summer, some summers not at all. In the winter I set it to 70%. When it is going to be very cold (as in highs below -10F, real temps not wind chill) ot when we are forecasted to get snow I set it to 80%. The longer you have an EV the less you will worry about charge, range, and the battery.

 

[Jtgolden]

Thanks for the info ... Very helpful. I do not have a smart charger, just the Rivian supplied portable charger and the only settings I see are to stop at 70%, 85% or 100% and those are in the car system itself. It might be that I just have not figured everything out yet as well.

 

[Adam R1T LE]

I am losing range, about 3 miles per day or 1% of capacity, for each day my R1T is sitting in the garage not plugged in. Is this normal? Seems to be pretty consistent. Right now, it has to sit for about 2 weeks while I am out of town and it seems I will see quite a drop in range over that time. Fortunately, I left it at 70% charged.

Are others seeing this as well?

yes, it's more like 10 miles in warm weather with gear guard active
Tesla is the same … "parasitic" or "vampire" losses … adds up to a real cost per year and a real logistics factor for transportation (Rivian has two modes to reduce losses while non-op.)

 

[EaglesPDX]

is it better to trickle charge at level 1 or just leave it on the level 2?

Either. Leave plugged in and set to 85% charge is simplest and easy on the battery. If it needs to warm battery or other internal checks, it can do them and replace the energy used.

Should be something in Rivian manual providing guidance of leaving it plugged in for extended period of no use but everyday, just plug in, set to 85% and fuggetaboutit.

Interesting to know the energy drain uplugged though so thanks for posting it. Low or high temps can trigger battery preserving energy use...hopefully if Rivian has those good features. If you have to leave it for extended period like at airport for two weeks, you'll have some idea of what charge state to leave it at. I don't like to use the airport chargers, leave them for folks who have a long drive and need a charge.

 

[sciencegeek]

On a related note, it's not detrimental to battery life to keep charging in the mid range.

In "standard" environmental conditions (excluding temperature extremes), the worst thing you can do to battery arrays such as those that are used in modern EVs is noodle it down to no charge. Good battery management systems will prevent that from happening, but the issue is that there is variation in the cells that make up the pack, and you can kill individual cells by draining them too aggressively too many times; then they're out of sync with the rest of the pack and eventually don't contribute any more.

Storing at 100% for long periods of time in the heat is also not so great. Also not great is to constantly stress the charge/discharge rate by heavy acceleration and deceleration, or to always charge at fast chargers.

I usually drive down to 20%, then charge to 80% or to full. Rarely I go down to 5% SoC, no lower, to give the cells a nonlethal workout.

 

[WhereItsAt]

Can you speak to the battery degradation and how often you charge and to what percentage? Oh and what level of EVSE (2/3 and percentage of each for total number of charges)?

Stop checking on the SOC from the app and let the truck stay in sleep mode. I don’t know about a rivian but with my teslas every time you check the car from the app it goes into full wake up mode, turns on the cpus, climate,….

Also why didn’t you leave it plugged in? Going on 8 years with Teslas and I’ve learned to just plug them in whenever they are in the garage.

 

[ColeAK]

Can you speak to the battery degradation and how often you charge and to what percentage? Oh and what level of EVSE (2/3 and percentage of each for total number of charges)?

I’ve never charged on level 3. Prior to December 2021 my closest super charger was 2100 miles away from my house. Now there is one SC in Alaska, Soldotona ~150 miles from Anchorage. I almost always charge at home on my Tesla wall connector at 32a. On the road charge on 30a or 50a at campgrounds on RV hookups.

I had a model S from 2014 to 2018, sold it summer of 2018 for almost what I paid new to buy a 3. Given it’s shorter range charged it to 80 or 90% in the winter and 70% in the summer. Plugged it in every day and left it plugged in at all times. Sold it in 2018 with ~40k miles. No meaningful battery degradation, could still easily get 230-240 miles out of a 100% charge.

2018 LR AWD 3. Got it September of 2018, I’m fairly sure one of the first AWD in AK. I’m at 38k miles and can easily drive 300 miles on 100%. On a daily basis I set my SOC to 60% in the summer, summers in Alaska are mild I only need AC a few days a summer, some summers not at all. In the winter I set it to 70%. When it is going to be very cold (as in highs below -10F, real temps not wind chill) or when we are forecasted to get snow I set it to 80%. I plug it in every day when I get home.

 

[thebishman]

I’ve never charged on level 3. Prior to December 2021 my closest super charger was 2100 miles away from my house. Now there is one SC in Alaska, Soldotona ~150 miles from Anchorage. I almost always charge at home on my Tesla wall connector at 32a. On the road charge on 30a or 50a at campgrounds on RV hookups.

I had a model S from 2014 to 2018, sold it summer of 2018 for almost what I paid new to buy a 3. Given it’s shorter range charged it to 80 or 90% in the winter and 70% in the summer. Plugged it in every day and left it plugged in at all times. Sold it in 2018 with ~40k miles. No meaningful battery degradation, could still easily get 230-240 miles out of a 100% charge.

2018 LR AWD 3. Got it September of 2018, I’m fairly sure one of the first AWD in AK. I’m at 38k miles and can easily drive 300 miles on 100%. On a daily basis I set my SOC to 60% in the summer, summers in Alaska are mild I only need AC a few days a summer, some summers not at all. In the winter I set it to 70%. When it is going to be very cold (as in highs below -10F, real temps not wind chill) or when we are forecasted to get snow I set it to 80%. I plug it in every day when I get home.

I have left my etron plugged in the vast majority of the over 2.25 years I’ve owned it, with the SoC set at either 80% Summer or 90% Winter. I have experienced zero battery degradation but, and this is important, my car has never been on a Level 3 charger, only my Chargepoint Flex running at 32a on a 40a circuit. I really believe that excessively charging a BEV on a Level 3 charger, especially up to 100% SoC is far, far more likely to cause battery degradation than anything I do to the battery on my Level 2 setup. Granted the etron has a fantastic battery management system built in, (which is one reason that the etron can maintain charge rates of over 100kWh even above an 80% SoC).