R2 Towed 24 hours In (after charging issues at Tesla Supercharger)

[rvnxyz001]

Don’t be. R2 VINs are now up in the 4000s. This is just two examples. Mathematically that’s 0.05%. No need to turn a grain of sand into a mountain.

Not a single car produced ever has a perfect reliability record. None. The important take away here is how the owners are treated and supported by the manufacturer once failure occurs. Digest all takes you see online. Not just the negative ones and consequently confining yourself in an echo chamber of negativity.

Apply critical thinking and maintain objectivity.

That 0.05% number does not really mean anything. A VIN in the 4000s does not mean 4k customer cars have been on the road long enough to prove they are trouble free, and nobody knows the actual number of failures.

Not every owner joins a forum, Reddit, or YouTube to report every issue. Even Consumer Reports and J.D. Power only capture part of the picture.

Of course no car is perfect. But a brand new 60k vehicle being towed after its first charging attempt, especially with a burning smell (!), is not something I would just dismiss.

Good support is important, but ideally you should not need roadside assistance on day one. It is too early to call the R2 unreliable, but it is also too early to claim a 99.95% success rate...

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[HaveBlue]

Kinda silly all the people commenting about how it's ok but they don't own an R2 to begin with. They'll fix the R2 for the OP for sure but obviously things aren't worked out fully on this vehicle.

Rivian has reliability and build issues if you look at their history. Lots of R1's breaking down out of the gate. Their warranty service has gotten much better for issues but out of warranty there is effectively zero support for getting parts and getting things fixed other than Rivian. Their markup on many parts is 10X. Meanwhile Tesla is basically open source.

Part of it all is Rivian in the same boat as many modern cars with more complex electronics. If you owned an older Toyota and buy a newer one, the chance of failures is higher in the new ones, more costly to fix and more problematic to fix.

 

[emroch]

Kinda silly all the people commenting about how it's ok but they don't own an R2 to begin with. They'll fix the R2 for the OP for sure but obviously things aren't worked out fully on this vehicle.

Rivian has reliability and build issues if you look at their history. Lots of R1's breaking down out of the gate. Their warranty service has gotten much better for issues but out of warranty there is effectively zero support for getting parts and getting things fixed other than Rivian. Their markup on many parts is 10X. Meanwhile Tesla is basically open source.

Part of it all is Rivian in the same boat as many modern cars with more complex electronics. If you owned an older Toyota and buy a newer one, the chance of failures is higher in the new ones, more costly to fix and more problematic to fix.

Kind of disingenuous to compare a company which has made only 5 total model years on 2 vehicles (excluding the R2) over 5 years against one that has had 19 model years of 6 vehicles across 18 years. Rivian hasn't had time to build up the same parts/service network that Tesla has.

Of course Rivian is going to have some production issues. Tesla did too. And GM, and Toyota, and Chevy, etc when they were new. And even legacy automakers have production troubles when they break the mold and try making something new.

Rivian is learning, and it is clear that they applied many lessons from R1 to R2. You cannot realistically expect any manufacturer to hit the ground with 100% success rate, there will always be duds. Some manufacturers are better at finding those before they reach customers, but as long as the incidence rate is low, those customers are taken care of, and the underlying issue is fixed going forward, I don't see any problem here.

 

[windshieldfarmer]

Kind of disingenuous to compare a company which has made only 5 total model years on 2 vehicles (excluding the R2) over 5 years against one that has had 19 model years of 6 vehicles across 18 years. Rivian hasn't had time to build up the same parts/service network that Tesla has.

Of course Rivian is going to have some production issues. Tesla did too. And GM, and Toyota, and Chevy, etc when they were new. And even legacy automakers have production troubles when they break the mold and try making something new.

Rivian is learning, and it is clear that they applied many lessons from R1 to R2. You cannot realistically expect any manufacturer to hit the ground with 100% success rate, there will always be duds. Some manufacturers are better at finding those before they reach customers, but as long as the incidence rate is low, those customers are taken care of, and the underlying issue is fixed going forward, I don't see any problem here.

I might add that a manufacturer can change a parts supplier a few years into production which can cause new problems. Nothing is perfect and initial problems may not be a good predictor of future problems. My current ride is a BMW IX50; a vehicle that has generally been reported as very reliable. I’ve had two problems during the 34 months of my current lease that disabled my car for 11 weeks. Fortunately the dealer treated me well including reimbursement for several lease payments and providing good loaner cars. My concern about Rivian is what service might look like if something similar happens. I hear mixed reviews, which gives me great pause.

On a more positive note, I am encouraged by what I see as a narrow scope of problems…most of which are minor (except for those requiring flat bed services).

 

[HaveBlue]

Kind of disingenuous to compare a company which has made only 5 total model years on 2 vehicles (excluding the R2) over 5 years against one that has had 19 model years of 6 vehicles across 18 years. Rivian hasn't had time to build up the same parts/service network that Tesla has.

Of course Rivian is going to have some production issues. Tesla did too. And GM, and Toyota, and Chevy, etc when they were new. And even legacy automakers have production troubles when they break the mold and try making something new.

Rivian is learning, and it is clear that they applied many lessons from R1 to R2. You cannot realistically expect any manufacturer to hit the ground with 100% success rate, there will always be duds. Some manufacturers are better at finding those before they reach customers, but as long as the incidence rate is low, those customers are taken care of, and the underlying issue is fixed going forward, I don't see any problem here.

Arguably the R2 is the 4th model but never the less, people need to be aware that this problem exists and Rivian is uncooperative in this regard. Legacy manufacturers aren't all blameless either.

 

[VSG]

Of course no car is perfect. But a brand new 60k vehicle being towed after its first charging attempt, especially with a burning smell (!), is not something I would just dismiss.

You guys are assigning waaay too much importance to this one incident. Electronics, if they are going to fail, tend to fail early - a power component (not made by Rivian BTW) tends to fail one of the first times you run 500 amps continuous through it, if it's defective. This has nothing to do with Tesla chargers, design of the charging system, or long-term reliability. And while it could be an assembly problem, that is easily fixed (e.g. change the amount of torque used for the connections). Far more likely a bad component that didn't get caught by the component manufacturer's QC. I'm not sure how much if any testing Rivian does on the charging system post-assembly, but I would bet one road trip is a better test than what they can reasonably do in the factory - can't be spending hours driving and DCFC-ing each individual vehicle multiple times before delivery.

This is exactly how all manufacturing processes are developed. First you eliminate the problems that occur on every item. Then you eliminate the problems that occur on 1 in ten items. Then you eliminate the problems that occur on 1 in every 1000 items, etc., until you reach 6 sigma or whatever your goal is. I guarantee that Rivian is making a huge effort to determine the cause of this failure and to take corrective action to prevent this from happening again (and if it's something that might affect existing vehicles, to address the issue on those vehicles). I also guarantee that the 1 in 10,000 problems probably haven't been seen yet, since Rivian is still far from 10,000 R2 produced.

 

[Mark_AZR1T]

Kind of disingenuous to compare a company which has made only 5 total model years on 2 vehicles (excluding the R2) over 5 years against one that has had 19 model years of 6 vehicles across 18 years. Rivian hasn't had time to build up the same parts/service network that Tesla has.

Of course Rivian is going to have some production issues. Tesla did too. And GM, and Toyota, and Chevy, etc when they were new. And even legacy automakers have production troubles when they break the mold and try making something new.

Rivian is learning, and it is clear that they applied many lessons from R1 to R2. You cannot realistically expect any manufacturer to hit the ground with 100% success rate, there will always be duds. Some manufacturers are better at finding those before they reach customers, but as long as the incidence rate is low, those customers are taken care of, and the underlying issue is fixed going forward, I don't see any problem here.

This is all true, but Rivian has no time to get it right, because they don't have the cash to ride it out.

 

[savethemanual]

You guys are assigning waaay too much importance to this one incident. Electronics, if they are going to fail, tend to fail early - a power component (not made by Rivian BTW) tends to fail one of the first times you run 500 amps continuous through it, if it's defective. This has nothing to do with Tesla chargers, design of the charging system, or long-term reliability. And while it could be an assembly problem, that is easily fixed (e.g. change the amount of torque used for the connections). Far more likely a bad component that didn't get caught by the component manufacturer's QC. I'm not sure how much if any testing Rivian does on the charging system post-assembly, but I would bet one road trip is a better test than what they can reasonably do in the factory - can't be spending hours driving and DCFC-ing each individual vehicle multiple times before delivery.

This is exactly how all manufacturing processes are developed. First you eliminate the problems that occur on every item. Then you eliminate the problems that occur on 1 in ten items. Then you eliminate the problems that occur on 1 in every 1000 items, etc., until you reach 6 sigma or whatever your goal is. I guarantee that Rivian is making a huge effort to determine the cause of this failure and to take corrective action to prevent this from happening again (and if it's something that might affect existing vehicles, to address the issue on those vehicles). I also guarantee that the 1 in 10,000 problems probably haven't been seen yet, since Rivian is still far from 10,000 R2 produced.

Yep, but unfortunately that's the world we live in now. "I saw it on the internet and so that's the gospel", no critical thinking at all anymore.

 

[emroch]

This is all true, but Rivian has no time to get it right, because they don't have the cash to ride it out.

I guess I'm challenging the view that they aren't getting it right (or on a troublesome trajectory). I echo exactly what @VSG said: there is absolutely no evidence that anything is wrong here beyond the normal and anticipated ramp up pains. A handful of anecdotes says nothing about overall reliability.

 

[thrillseeker1234]

Kinda silly all the people commenting about how it's ok but they don't own an R2 to begin with. They'll fix the R2 for the OP for sure but obviously things aren't worked out fully on this vehicle.

Rivian has reliability and build issues if you look at their history. Lots of R1's breaking down out of the gate. Their warranty service has gotten much better for issues but out of warranty there is effectively zero support for getting parts and getting things fixed other than Rivian. Their markup on many parts is 10X. Meanwhile Tesla is basically open source.

Part of it all is Rivian in the same boat as many modern cars with more complex electronics. If you owned an older Toyota and buy a newer one, the chance of failures is higher in the new ones, more costly to fix and more problematic to fix.

This really reminds me of the Tesla in the early days when Model S/X first came out. Just insanely unreliable and build quality was even worse for Tesla than it is for Rivian now.

I feel like Rivian is doing better than Tesla if put on the same timeline. Definitely will need some time to iron out the kinks before maturing. I also don't think Rivian isn't fully ready for mass production of R2, I truly hope they iron out most of the small kinks before rolling out more cars.

I want Rivian to succeed, and i'm saying this as a former Tesla owner of 5 years (2 Ys and 1 3). Kind of a selfish reason but I hope the R2 i'm getting won't make me regret ditching Tesla.

 

[VSG]

Rivian has no time to get it right, because they don't have the cash to ride it out

That's what people have been saying for at least 5 years now. Rivian is supposedly always less than a year from bankrupt. How have those predictions panned out?

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Overreaction. I’ve charged at Supercharger for months. Not a single problem. Lots of others have not had problems. Without knowing exact cause of these R2 failures, it’s irrational to jump to overly broad conclusions. If one looked for it, I’m sure you’d find cases where Tesla cars suffered failure while charging at their own network. And nothing to do with the network, but everything to do with component failure within the car. It’s a machine made up of hundreds/thousands of components that can fail. When your ICE breaks down due to a failed fuel pump, you don’t blame/write-off a particular brand of fuel unless there is evidence supporting that speculation.

This. I've probably charged at superchargers in an R1 a hundred times. They were consistently the most reliable and fastest among charging networks. Whenever my GPS routed me to a Tesla station, I knew I'd get the max charge rate and that plug-and-charge would work without any hassle.

 

[Mark_AZR1T]

That's what people have been saying for at least 5 years now. Rivian is supposedly always less than a year from bankrupt. How have those predictions panned out?

I’m not saying Rivian is going bankrupt. I’m saying the R2 is the make‑or‑break moment, full-stop. They don't have a lot of money, VW or not. It's a math problem. There’s no backup model and no long runway. They have to nail the R2 fast or the story changes.

I’ve been in this since 2018, early reservation holder, multiple Rivian owner and a cost‑averaged investor. Rivian will survive somehow; the real question is whether they survive independent or acquired. And continued dilution of the stock is the only part that makes it personal.

 

[California Gold]

No update yet on my issue and I figured I didn't think they'd even get a chance to work on it. I haven't even gotten a call back from the SC where my car was Towed to. Tried to reach out to Customer Care to receive a call back from the SC a couple of times today but not yet. I know it's only been one day since they've had it, I really just want to be able to go get some stuff out of the R2 that I couldn't take with me on my Uber ride back but haven't been able to get in touch with anyone there and the SC is 1.5 hours away, I just want to confirm they received the vehicle lol. Only the towing company has been the one to tell me they dropped it off at the SC supposedly.

Hoping tomorrow I at least get a call back of acknowledgement that they have the car.

 

[Mark_AZR1T]

No update yet on my issue and I figured I didn't think they'd even get a chance to work on it. I haven't even gotten a call back from the SC where my car was Towed to. Tried to reach out to Customer Care to receive a call back from the SC a couple of times today but not yet. I know it's only been one day since they've had it, I really just want to be able to go get some stuff out of the R2 that I couldn't take with me on my Uber ride back but haven't been able to get in touch with anyone there and the SC is 1.5 hours away, I just want to confirm they received the vehicle lol. Only the towing company has been the one to tell me they dropped it off at the SC supposedly.

Hoping tomorrow I at least get a call back of acknowledgement that they have the car.

This part is one of the unusual factors in owning a direct-to-consumer vehicle. You can't speak to a service advisor for an instant update. Takes some time getting used to that. They will get on it quickly, because it's not only important to you, but also very important to their overall business.

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