Vampire Drain Analysis

[Tim-in-CA]

Here is Vampire drain test #3 (Latest)
11 days Vampire drain


Since summer of 2023 to Christmas of 2023, all 3 EVs had numerous OTA updates in 6 months. After 11 days of refrain from checking car status from mobile apps, here are the LATEST RESULTS…

Lucid AirGT 79% -> 74%
Rivian R1S QuadM 82% -> 77%
Polestar PS2 LR 89% -> 89%


Air GT lost 5%
112kWhx-5% = -5.6 kWh

R1S lost 5%
135kWhx-5% = -6.75 kWh

Polestar 2 lost 0%
78kWhx-0% = -0 kWh

Relative energy loss
Lucid Air GT=-5.6kWh/99.68kWh= -5.6%
Rivian R1S =-6.75kWh/110.7kWh= -6.0%
Polestar 2 LR=-0 kWh/69.42kWh= -0%

VERDICT:
Least drain winner: Polestar2
Most OTA improvement to drainage: R1S

Lucid Air GT maintained the same drainage rate.

Interesting data. I’m actually now seeing almost 0 vampire drain on my Air, but am losing 2.5kwh/day on my Rivian .. both are garaged, garage temp 65deg. I have PAAK disabled for both vehicles, fobs in a faraday pouch and gear guard off on the Rivian. Using Electrafi on the Rivian, I can see that the vehicle sleeps for 2 hours and wakes for an hour consistently. Electrafi doesn’t wake the vehicle to get its data per the developer

I know some people on the forums don’t see 2.5 kWh VD as a big deal, however, that’s about 10% of my home’s daily usage. If I use my local electric and gasoline prices that extrapolates out to an ICE vehicle, losing 6.5 gallons of gasoline per month. I don’t think any consumer would stand for that. I do support data sharing, but it makes absolutely no sense to share data while vehicles are motionless, data should be shared only during a drive in my opinion

 

[DeaneG]

... it makes absolutely no sense to share data while vehicles are motionless, data should be shared only during a drive in my opinion

I've noticed that while my Air used up upload a large amount of data every few hours whether I drove it that day or not, it doesn't anymore. Large uploads now occur mostly only after a drive.

 

[Darax]

At what point do we admit the Mercedes has a start button because the ICE equivalent car it was based on has a Start button?

If legacy auto makers ever get around to actually designing an EV from the ground up, a Start button will not enter the conversation.

Engines need to be turned on. Electric motors do not.

Turning things not in use ‘off’ is perfectly reasonable, irrespective of the power source. The lucid is always on, I believe, to mask its long boot time.

 

[joec]

Turning things not in use ‘off’ is perfectly reasonable, irrespective of the power source. The lucid is always on, I believe, to mask its long boot time.

No computer starts up instantly from an “off” state. Which is why modern computers with batteries almost never get turned off. I can close the lid on my laptop and leave it in its sleep state for months without the battery fully draining. Because sleep costs almost no power.

Similarly to the car, there’s no reason to press a Start button on my laptop, either. I just open the lid and it’s ready to go. The power button on a modern laptop is for emergency reboots only.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Nice experiment. However, you likely picked the worst draining vehicle to compare against. FWIW... Anecdotally, I ask everyone I meet at the charging stations how much they lose overnight and Mercedes and Porsche owner almost always say zero.

Lastly, just because some other vehicle may lose more, that does not solve the problem or make it any better!

Always zero doesn’t necessarily saying it’s superior. I don’t know Mercedes and Porsche mobile app or communicate with server with location and other services to comment this.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Was your garage cold? I'm wondering because my Air lost about 0.25% per day on an 12-day absence (3% over 12 days) in the summer. I though that was quite reasonable.
Our Volvo, similar to your Polestar, does not have any phantom drain.

I’m not sure if my garage is insulated enough, I do have heat shield sheathing at garage door. While I was away in Switzerland, having local temperature at -9C ~ 6C (15F~42F), I did noticed at from weather app Houston was at 40F~65F range.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Most people don't even know it can be an issue to look out for. I think the normal person assumes the battery will stay fully charged unless they drive the vehicle. My car uses the LVB to handle walk up unlocking, PaaK and other features. It is something the legacy car companies got right, IMO.

I’m not sure legacy autos really do it right. Polestar2 update and notification and their mobile app is not as smooth and functional as Lucid and Rivian. Yes, they may have open/close, remote climate, but takes longest to wake up car remotely and not as rich features as Tesla/Lucid/Rivian in that regard.

Some Rivians have been reported to lose up to 8% per day, sitting there. Some people don't even use that much electricity at their home during the same time period. Small home, of course, but still it is a lot of power for the car to just be sitting there doing nothing.

The vampire drain in the Lucid seems manageable, but it should be zero. I don't want to come back from a trip, get in my car at the airport, and find out I no longer have enough range to make it home. Or worse yet, not enough range to make it to a charger.

8% per days was probably with Gear Guard on. I have GearGuard off geofenced to my garage. And over time I’ve seen Rivian tweaking in OTA improving gradually. It was about 2-3% now too .5%, which is ver my acceptable and most improvement out of 3 EVs for me.

I personally don’t like to park EV at airport. I use Uber, cheaper and peace of mind leaving car outdoor that long in public area doesn’t feel quite safe for me. And besides, even at 1 month away at most 10~15% loss is not killing range. Lucid has tremendous range to yield and Rivian R1 is adequate.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Agreed. This is a fabricated “issue”. I see no impact to usability.

I do series of test from time to time to check performance improvement. These are irrelevant impact, but relevant stats to me. There is no chance I will go out of town 1/2 a year straight and expect to come back home to see 60% loss. Since I park in my garage, cars are protected. Rivian with Gear Guard constantly motion sensor trigger recording all surround camera video can do serious drain to battery. I wouldn’t want to park to airport extensively to find out. I only check Gear Guard when I go to mall or overnight hotel to check car to for any suspicious activities or dent and dink. It’s good feature to have, but it does DRAIN!

I also noticed since I have Lucid widget at my iPhone first page, I don’t see any noticeable drain, but I also don’t click on widget to inquisitive of details. And during last 4 days of being away, I saw the number on widget accelerated and went to 77% to 74%. Then when I got home, I notice that dot of OTA 2.1.47 was ready to download and might have caused more pinging from Lucid server.

I concluded all 3 EVs vampire drain are within specs.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Interesting data. I’m actually now seeing almost 0 vampire drain on my Air, but am losing 2.5kwh/day on my Rivian .. both are garaged, garage temp 65deg. I have PAAK disabled for both vehicles, fobs in a faraday pouch and gear guard off on the Rivian. Using Electrafi on the Rivian, I can see that the vehicle sleeps for 2 hours and wakes for an hour consistently. Electrafi doesn’t wake the vehicle to get its data per the developer

I know some people on the forums don’t see 2.5 kWh VD as a big deal, however, that’s about 10% of my home’s daily usage. If I use my local electric and gasoline prices that extrapolates out to an ICE vehicle, losing 6.5 gallons of gasoline per month. I don’t think any consumer would stand for that. I do support data sharing, but it makes absolutely no sense to share data while vehicles are motionless, data should be shared only during a drive in my opinion

Have you tried to turn off Gears Guard? I noticed turn Gears Guard off has most drastic drain reduction improvement.

 

[phantomias]

I have similar data for my Air Touring after parking it for 44 days. I had charged the car to 80% before I left and i lost in total %34 until my return. I checked my app 3-4 times a week and i also did .43 and .47 updates at the car.

 

[Tesla2.0]

I have similar data for my Air Touring after parking it for 44 days. I had charged the car to 80% before I left and i lost in total %34 until my return. I checked my app 3-4 times a week and i also did .43 and .47 updates at the car.

So you lose power during both OTA updates. Lucid does mention you need at least 20% SOC to update car. Updating can take 10 min to an hour. So your -34% in 44 days + 2 OTA update is within specs.

Remote Aces’s is such modern luxury.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Have you tried to turn off Gears Guard? I noticed turn Gears Guard off has most drastic drain reduction improvement.

Yes, it’s off as stated in my post. The next Rivian update is supposed to have a fix for some cases of VD

 

[Darax]

No computer starts up instantly from an “off” state. Which is why modern computers with batteries almost never get turned off. I can close the lid on my laptop and leave it in its sleep state for months without the battery fully draining. Because sleep costs almost no power.

Similarly to the car, there’s no reason to press a Start button on my laptop, either. I just open the lid and it’s ready to go. The power button on a modern laptop is for emergency reboots only.

I turn my laptop and phones off all the time, and they each boot much faster than the lucid infotainment.
I’ve worked on software teams for consumer operating systems. Assuming ‘warm boot’ is regularly used as a reason to not optimize ‘cold boot’ times. I’d be willing to bet Lucid’s infotainment could boot in less than 30 seconds with some analysis and optimization.

 

[Bobby]

I turn my laptop and phones off all the time, and they each boot much faster than the lucid infotainment.
I’ve worked on software teams for consumer operating systems. Assuming ‘warm boot’ is regularly used as a reason to not optimize ‘cold boot’ times. I’d be willing to bet Lucid’s infotainment could boot in less than 30 seconds with some analysis and optimization.

I'm not sure what you were talking about. The car boots instantly upon opening the door.

 

[Sid432]

I turn my laptop and phones off all the time, and they each boot much faster than the lucid infotainment.
I’ve worked on software teams for consumer operating systems. Assuming ‘warm boot’ is regularly used as a reason to not optimize ‘cold boot’ times. I’d be willing to bet Lucid’s infotainment could boot in less than 30 seconds with some analysis and optimization.

lol. I park my Lucid in garage and I have passive unlock turned off. Ready ? Push the door handle, car unlocks, sit in car and drive(cameras turn on instantly as soon as I put in D). Takes less than 30 seconds.

If you think your phone boots faster than Lucid then I would like to see video comparison of it.

 

[joec]

I turn my laptop and phones off all the time, and they each boot much faster than the lucid infotainment.
I’ve worked on software teams for consumer operating systems. Assuming ‘warm boot’ is regularly used as a reason to not optimize ‘cold boot’ times. I’d be willing to bet Lucid’s infotainment could boot in less than 30 seconds with some analysis and optimization.

Why in the world would you turn off a laptop, though? I don't care if it boots in 30 seconds (which I doubt) that's still more than <1 second.

If you've worked on software teams, you should know you have no idea what it would take to optimize the startup time on a Lucid without actually looking at the current state of the code. You'd also have to have at least some understanding of the hardware, since we're talking about dozens of computers to wake up, not one.

Furthermore, "shutting down" a car's software completely would be a pretty silly thing to do, given at that point, there'd be no way to wake it up remotely to download updates, respond to commands from the app, the fob, and on and on. Off means off. When your laptop is off, it ain't going to be grabbing your latest emails.

You never want a modern car to be "off." You'd be missing most of the benefits of OTA, while gaining the extra burden of having to press a start button just to get your AC to start running.

There's no downside to keeping your car's computer in a sleep state. The teeny bit of battery loss is a very small price to pay for a massive bump in convenience and features.

 

[borski]

There's no downside to keeping your car's computer in a sleep state. The teeny bit of battery loss is a very small price to pay for a massive bump in convenience and features.

Moreover, there is a difference between sleep and hibernate. I know because I recall spending months fixing stupid ACPI code in the Linux kernel to get it working on my machine a decade or two ago.

 

[Darax]

I'm not sure what you were talking about. The car boots instantly upon opening the door.

Do a soft reset.

 

[xponents]

Do a soft reset.

There is simply no way your laptop is faster than that. You are thinking of just pressing the power button, which puts it to sleep. In my experiences with M1 Macs, iPhones, and i7 laptops, none boot faster than the car from a reset when ACTUALLY shut down.

 

[Darax]

Rather than running the whole system, a small component could run to check for updates. The whole system doesn’t need to be on.

I had to soft reset because the software hung. The software hang is more likely if the system never reboots and thus never reclaims leaked memory and stops zombie threads. Someone might even miss an update if the update process hangs.