It happens with Gen 2 as well. I hope that the engineers at Rivian are aware of these issues and are going to roll out a major OTA on it. It's light years away from P to P.
I had the chance to drive a R1S Gen 2 and my R1T Gen 1 back to back yesterday on the highways of Iowa (Gen 2 loaner from Rivian while the truck
I saw an interview with RJ in which he proudly pointed out that the car slows when next to a big truck - I guess he was thinking that that’s what we want. In fact, I often try to speed up to get by it, and also get over to the far side of the lane. The Riv also doesnt really clock a car in front until it’s fully in the lane, meaning there are some serious braking events when you’re passing an on ramp or you have a lane changer in front. I would think these are doable fixes - my Y handles these all correctly.
was being repaired).
R1S:
R1T
We had strong crosswinds the entire day, and I really appreciated having the Highway Assist feature on both vehicles. The Assist was driving the vehicle better than I could with the buffeting winds. Other than the lane changing ability of both vehicles, the big difference I noticed the most was that when passing an 18-wheeler, on the Gen 2 I could put pressure on the steering wheel to pull the Rivian vehicle away from the 18-wheeler and place it closer to the edge of the road. That's possible on the Gen 2 but impossible on the Gen 1 without the system disengaging. When you try to do this on the Gen 1, the system releases the steering, and you have full manual steering control. On the Gen 2, you gently force the vehicle to the left of the lane until you pass the big truck and release the wheel when you clear the truck to go back to the center of the lane.
On Ford Blue Cruise (came on my wife's 2025 Mach E), the system automatically senses that you are next to a large truck and does automatically what I would normally do manually -- on its own it moves the Mustang to the left away from the truck. I watched videos on this and understand that Ford discovered this human behavior after studying Blue Cruise data, so they decided to just program this into the system.
I can't tell you how much safer I and may passengers feel by simply moving a few inches to the left when passing a large vehicle. Yesterday, the 18-wheelers were a bit all over the road because of the wind, and the Rivians were happy just sitting in the middle of the lane next to the big trucks regardless of whether the 18-wheelers were encroaching or not. That's not good. It doesn't "feel" safe. Rivian should do just what Ford did and just let the assist direct you safely away from the big trucks you are passing.
This is not at all a complaint; I really appreciated having Highway Assist yesterday. I just hope this note can help to make it better.
I just finished a 6500 mile trip with the Rivian where 99% of it was on cruise control and I think there are three main issues that need to be resolved. Number one when your speed differential in the left lane versus a semi tractor trailer in the right lane is 10 miles an hour or greater the Rivian almost always hits the brakes before you pass the semi. Number two when you are in dusk conditions, but there are still shadows being cast by an overpass bridge onto the highway that you’re traveling on about 20% of the time the Rivian will hit the brakes thinking that there’s something in the road. The Last is number three, which is when someone is passing you in the left lane while you were in the right lane and you put your turn signal on to tell the cruise control not to brake and that you’re intent is to move to the left lane and then increase speed to your cruise control setting the car takes forever to recognize that the car that is passing you in the left lane is going much faster than you and the Rivian just sits in the left lane doing nothing, no acceleration.. Per one of the comments above, I agree that the car also has an uncomfortable acceleration in standing traffic that also has to be addressed. I have a service appointment on Monday and I will let the group know what they say about these things. I have to believe that if more of us enter Service tickets that eventually they will address it. This cruise control functionality is pre 2000’s performance and it’s really embarrassing.
Increase the follow distance gap. On Gen 1 spin the right scroll wheel forward or back while in driver+.
