Tesla is taking aim at a common pain point for electric vehicle owners - phantom drain, the gradual decrease in battery life that occurs when a car is parked.
A recent mobile app update aims to significantly reduce this energy loss.
Understanding Phantom Drain
Phantom drain, also known as vampire drain, refers to the energy an electric vehicle loses while stationary and unused. Several factors contribute to this phenomenon, including the battery's thermal management system and the car's various connectivity features.
This problem has been bugging EV drivers for a long time. Aside from the fact that it's annoying, it's simply time-consuming since they will charge the vehicle after finding out that its battery is drained.
Tesla vehicles, known for their extensive connectivity, are particularly susceptible. Whenever these features receive a signal (or "ping"), they wake up the entire car, draining battery power - a significant issue for unplugged vehicles.
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Addressing the Issue: Sentry Mode Update and Mobile App Improvement
Earlier this year, Tesla addressed phantom drain by updating Sentry Mode, the feature notorious for the highest energy consumption. This update reportedly reduced Sentry Mode's energy usage by 40%.
Now, Tesla is taking the fight against phantom drain a step further with a mobile app update. Version 4.35.0 of the Tesla app implements a key change: the app no longer wakes up the car upon opening.
"To conserve the vehicle's battery, the app only wakes it when you send a command," the American automaker writes.
Previously, simply accessing the app triggered the car to activate, draining battery life.
The Power of Small Changes
While the individual impact of this update might seem insignificant, the cumulative effect across Tesla's vast fleet is substantial. Even a small weekly saving of 0.5 kWh per car translates into gigawatt-hours of energy saved annually across the entire fleet, as Electrek wrote in its report.
Aside from Tesla owners, Rivian owners also experienced the phantom drain issue before. However, with the latest updates, things started to ease up for them.
As reported by Autoevolution, it appears the vampire drain has finally subsided. Rivian's software chief Wassym Bensaid encouraged users to update their cars not only to avoid the problem but to conserve more energy for their future trips.
The same report said that about 1 to 3 percent of the battery SoC was lost even if the Rivian EV was parked. Bensaid found out that there have been several complaints about this on Reddit. He confirmed that the team finally put an end to the "major outliers in the current drain."
Elsewhere, a Tesla Cybertruck was vandalized in Germany. The climate activists threw paint on the electric pickup truck during the presentation at the Tesla Center Hamburg-Wandsbek.
The group believed that the automaker had been consuming a tremendous amount of energy. For them, this was a "senseless waste" against climate change.
