# Excessive vampire drain while parked?



## pdp1 (Nov 8, 2018)

I just charged my car last night, drove about 10 miles, and parked and sat in the car for about 1 hour. Climate control was off for the majority of the time, and when it was on, only the fan was on; I turned off the A/C and set the temperature 🤒 very low, 62, so the heater wasn’t on either. I did not even have the radio or headlights on for the 1 hour parked. When I started driving again, I checked the energy app and looked at the “Park” and “Since Last Charge” stats and it said I used 6.8 miles! That would mean I used almost 2kWh while sitting in the car for 1 hour doing almost nothing. This seems kind of excessive.

I also noticed while parked at work recently for 8 hours, when I returned to my car, over 15 miles was docked off the estimated miles (around 4kWh). I know cabin overheat control was not active because it was a very mild ~60 degree day and I have my sun shield on my front window. Usually I only lose a few mile at most when parked at work.

Any idea what might be going on with my car?


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

Quite a few threads on this lately.

First, turn off sentry mode, it draws quite a bit and doesn't let the car go to sleep.
And sitting in the car doesn't let it go to sleep either.


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## pdp1 (Nov 8, 2018)

Ed Woodrick said:


> Quite a few threads on this lately.
> 
> First, turn off sentry mode, it draws quite a bit and doesn't let the car go to sleep.
> And sitting in the car doesn't let it go to sleep either.


It’s definitely not Sentry Mode. I haven’t changed any settings recently so I’m not sure why my car all of a sudden is using more power when not driving. I know it doesn’t sleep when I’m sitting in the car, but drawing almost 2kW while just sitting there seems excessive. Plus, I can’t explain why when in standby, it seems to be using up 2 miles per hour. Just again this afternoon, the car was parked for a little more than 4 hours and the estimated mileage dropped by 9 miles.

Is this a recent firmware issue? Or I was thinking is it my 12V battery going bad and the car is trying to charge it?


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

Something different might be going on. My wife parked her 2021 MY at the airport this week. We DEFINITELY have all potential power drains disabled. In the first 12 hours, 11 miles of range were lost. In the subsequent 4 days, only 3 miles were lost. I have checked in via the app 3 times...at 12 hours, 2 days, and 4 days.


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## NR4P (Jul 14, 2018)

Are you sure 2kw is a lot of power for one hour? What is your reference point? 2000 watts may not be a lot. You are sitting in your car, the infotainment system is on, and all cameras and cpu's are running. 

For reference find an ICE vehicle, do the same thing with accessory mode on, engine off and have an ammeter measure the current draw from the 12v battery. I suspect it will be some significant power too. Might be a good.test.


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## pdp1 (Nov 8, 2018)

NR4P said:


> Are you sure 2kw is a lot of power for one hour? What is your reference point? 2000 watts may not be a lot. You are sitting in your car, the infotainment system is on, and all cameras and cpu's are running.
> 
> For reference find an ICE vehicle, do the same thing with accessory mode on, engine off and have an ammeter measure the current draw from the 12v battery. I suspect it will be some significant power too. Might be a good.test.


2000W is quite a bit. I find it hard to believe some CPUs and cameras can consume that much on their own. If I had the stereo on full blast, it might come closer to 2000W, but even then, I don’t think so. 2000W off 12V is 166A

Anyway, 2000W was just a guess based on how much mileage was lost during the hour 1 sat in the car yesterday morning. But since the car reported I lost about 9 miles during 4 hours of “sleep” later that same afternoon, which comes out to about somewhere between 2-3kWh, I still thinking something odd is going on. It’s as if it’s not going to sleep when it should be, but I can’t think of anything different I’m doing recently to cause this.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

I wouldn't worry about just a single hour. The car doesn't even enter a low power mode that quickly.


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

pdp1 said:


> It’s definitely not Sentry Mode. I haven’t changed any settings recently so I’m not sure why my car all of a sudden is using more power when not driving. I know it doesn’t sleep when I’m sitting in the car, but drawing almost 2kW while just sitting there seems excessive. Plus, I can’t explain why when in standby, it seems to be using up 2 miles per hour. Just again this afternoon, the car was parked for a little more than 4 hours and the estimated mileage dropped by 9 miles.
> 
> Is this a recent firmware issue? Or I was thinking is it my 12V battery going bad and the car is trying to charge it?


Have you received a software update? Have you verified that Sentry is NOT on?


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## PaulK (Oct 2, 2017)

I just returned from a 10 day trip. 2018 LR (RWD) with 50k miles. 

Car parked in my garage, plugged in charged to 60% (182 miles). Charge set point left at 50%. Sentry off. Garage temperature consistent and around 53 degrees. 

After 4 days I opened the app: 171 miles (loss of 11 miles)

I then did not open the app again until I got home today: still at 168 miles. (Loss of only 3 miles in 6 days!?)


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## PaulK (Oct 2, 2017)

pdp1 said:


> Any idea what might be going on with my car?


I agree with the other replies, a 1 hour period is too short and there are too many variables. I’ve noticed a change in temperature can cause swings in displayed range. Sometimes it goes up magically by 10 miles in a matter of hours between drives. 

One thing I find consistent, while being driven using navigation, the estimated battery condition at destination displayed is very reliable and you can easily manage it by adjusting your speed. Makes all this concern about “vampire drain” kind of a non-issue.


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## pdp1 (Nov 8, 2018)

Ok, about the 1 hour period, that was just one example I had. There have been several multi-hour periods where my car was off, for sure in standby, or should have been in standby, with no app access, cabin overheat enabled (but definitely not active because it's been at most 60F outside lately), and sentry mode off. During those times when I noticed a large drop in estimated range, I was losing on average 2-3 miles per hour. For example, I was at work one day unplugged for about 8 hours and I lost 16 miles of range. Another example, I parked my car at home for just over 4 hours, unplugged, it lost 9 miles of range.

And here's another data point, last night I had my car plugged in, it finished charging at about 4:45am with an estimated range of 229 miles according to my phone notifications. When I got in the car this morning at 7:45am, and yes, still plugged in, it had an estimated range of 220 miles. So even plugged in, it dropped 9 miles in about 3 hours. And in the energy app, I looked at the "Parked" tab, "Since Last Charge" stats, and it said I used 8.9miles since last charge.

I'm not sure what to make out of this, but I know up until about a month ago, in the 4 years I've had the car, it's never behaved like this before, I would typically see range drops like @PaulK mentioned in his last post. I'm not concerned about the health of the HV battery, I just want to know what's running and draining the battery when parked.

I got another software update just today, maybe that will help.


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## amendale (Dec 2, 2018)

I have recently noticed excessive battery drain as well. Everything is turned off (climate, sentry..etc). The energy usage app shows around 8% battery drain while in park as "Vehicle Standby", in only 8 hrs while parked at work. Ambient temperatures around 5C.


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

pdp1 said:


> I just want to know what's running and draining the battery when parked.
> 
> I got another software update just today, maybe that will help.


Is the car going to sleep? Or more easy, is that car having to wake up when you open the door?

With the car taking temperature into consideration, it may just be the temperature change ramifications that you are seeing.


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

No, something different is afoot. Our Model Y spent 6 days at the Atlanta airport last week. We have ABSOLUTELY NO energy drain options active. Upon parking at the airport, 190 miles of range. 8 hours later, 178 miles. 5 1/2 days later still 178. Something has changed.


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

FRC said:


> No, something different is afoot. Our Model Y spent 6 days at the Atlanta airport last week. We have ABSOLUTELY NO energy drain options active. Upon parking at the airport, 190 miles of range. 8 hours later, 178 miles. 5 1/2 days later still 178. Something has changed.


At ATL, I'd suggest using Peachy Parking. Not much more $$, but inside and with a lot of 120V plugs for keeping it topped off.


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

Ed Woodrick said:


> At ATL, I'd suggest using Peachy Parking. Not much more $$, but inside and with a lot of 120V plugs for keeping it topped off.


Exactly where we park. But I don't charge there because I'm unwilling to risk my charging equipment and the charge is unnecessary for us.


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## pdp1 (Nov 8, 2018)

Ed Woodrick said:


> Is the car going to sleep? Or more easy, is that car having to wake up when you open the door?
> 
> With the car taking temperature into consideration, it may just be the temperature change ramifications that you are seeing.


That’s a good point, I’ll pay more attention to if the car wakes up the next time I observe this. But I’m pretty sure that one time it lost ~9miles while plugged in, it was asleep because I remember it going through the “motor sound…clunk” noise sequence when I pressed the mobile connector handle button to wake it up. But then again, it could have consumed the 9 miles in the first 1 or 2 hours after charging finished and went to sleep sometime in the 3rd hour before I unplugged it 🤷🏻‍♂️


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## pdp1 (Nov 8, 2018)

It happened again, my car finished charging at 2:33am this morning at 188miles/65%. While still plugged in, I got in my car at 7:50am and the screen said the car was at 174miles/60%, the Energy App showed 14 miles lost while in standby. Again, this is while my car was plugged in! Also, the car was alseep at 7:50am because I heard the "whirrr" and "ka-chunk" sound when I woke it up at 7:50am, therefore, assuming it was awake and draining the battery sometime last night, it went to sleep again sometime before 7:50am.

I messaged Tesla customer service a few days ago and they suggested I turn off cabin overheat, which I thought was kind of ridiculous because the temps have been hovering between 40-50F all week and there is no way in hell cabin overheat would activate. Nevertheless, I turned it off anyway last night and the drain still happened.

Anyway, I'm grasping at straws now, Tesla CS hasn't been very helpful so far, so if you guys have any more ideas, I'd appreciate it. Losing 10-20 miles for no good reason while parked for a few hours is starting to add up in terms of electricity.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

That does seem excessive.

Do you have a charging timer configured?

Whether or not you find any of this useful, I suggest turning all of this off until we determine the cause of your excessive drain. Sure, things like cabin overheat protection might not actually run, but it can still prevent the car from sleeping.



garsh said:


> There's a whole list of things to prevent battery drain.
> 
> Turn off smart summon standby (picture)
> Turn off sentry mode
> ...


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## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

pdp1 said:


> Anyway, I'm grasping at straws now


… here is something that may sound crazy. Get into your WiFi router and block your car. I have had intermittent problems with excessively high drain on my model X, and this was recently the trick that seemed to resolve it. It didn’t work to turn off WiFi from the car, I had to block the car from the router.

My model 3 has not historically had many phantom drain problems. I have to say, tho, when we were putting on the winter tires the other day that she was noisier than I ever heard her. I even checked once to see if I inadvertently had her in camp mode or something.


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