Engine battery drain - "charge by driving"

Ruddster · Feb 24, 2026

Hi all - I have an odd issue on my 2024 T6.1 Beach.

The van isn't used a lot as we have another car and mainly use the Cali for longer trips and camping. However when left for a while we get a message on the dash when starting the van along the lines of "12V battery low - charge by driving."

I assume this is the engine battery but that would surprise me as we got the message having driven up from the Alps to Calais when starting the van to board the Eurotunnel. I would assume the battery (including leisure battery) would have been charged fully after 12 or so hours of the van running along the autoroute and down the mountains.

Has anyone seen anything similar to this? Is there anything obvious that I should check or should I raise it with VW?

Thanks in advance

Adam

Alexlex85 · Mar 10, 2026

Definitely one to raise with vw.

CC44853 · Mar 11, 2026

Something left plugged into a 12v socket? Dash-cam perhaps?

brcas64 · Mar 11, 2026

I had this a couple of weeks ago and it was the leisure batteries. Charge at home at least once a month. Check the leisure battery voltage and hours on the control panel. It stumped me for a few minutes before I realised.

vbk1975 · Mar 12, 2026

Ruddster said:
Hi all - I have an odd issue on my 2024 T6.1 Beach.

The van isn't used a lot as we have another car and mainly use the Cali for longer trips and camping. However when left for a while we get a message on the dash when starting the van along the lines of "12V battery low - charge by driving."

I assume this is the engine battery but that would surprise me as we got the message having driven up from the Alps to Calais when starting the van to board the Eurotunnel. I would assume the battery (including leisure battery) would have been charged fully after 12 or so hours of the van running along the autoroute and down the mountains.

Has anyone seen anything similar to this? Is there anything obvious that I should check or should I raise it with VW?

Thanks in advance

Adam

When waiting for the tunnel did you have keys in ignition and/or in an out of the van whilst waiting? These type of situations can be heavy on power use if the van is awake but not running and esp if you are in opening / closing doors or have key in ignition barrel as the van won’t go into low power sleep mode or if it doesn’t it takes a lot longer than say if the van is locked by the remote.

The messages also tend to be triggered based to depletion rate as well as battery SOC, so again the van being awake will see a higher depletion rate than if locked and thus the software thinks the battery is going to end up flat sooner.