Rivian Customers Cry Foul As 'Vampire Drain' Sucks Battery Life

Rivian Automotive Inc RIVN customers have raised concerns about their batteries draining when the vehicles are left idle, a phenomenon known as vampire or phantom drain. 

What Happened: Recently, a Reddit user compared the battery drain of their Rivian with a Kia EV6 that was also left idle in the garage for two weeks. 

The user noticed that while the Kia’s state of charge only dropped by 1%, the Rivian’s state of charge fell by 20%. 

According to the user, the Kia consumed 800 watt-hours of electricity during that time period, whereas the Rivian consumed 27 kilowatt-hours.

Autoevolution reported on the issue earlier this week.

Fix Coming? In response to the user’s concern, Wassym Bensaid, Vice President of Software Development at Rivian, acknowledged that the battery drain observed in the particular case was “clearly above the average” for their fleet. 

He reassured the user that Rivian would investigate the issue.

Optimizing power drain is a key priority for Rivian, as mentioned by Mina Jafari, who leads the team responsible for optimizing power drain at Rivian, in an Instagram Q&A with Bensaid published in April. 

The company aims to minimize the impact on user experience and ensure reliability when the vehicle is awakened by shutting down the components that have the greatest impact on power drain.

Rivian did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment on the issue.

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