Weekly Rivian Responds + Roundup: Configuration Updates, Truck Bed Camera, and More! [8/25/2023]

[SASSquatch]

From Our friends over at reddit.

Confirming that CY and 20" Brights are RIP. Weirdness with Rivian excluding FG color combinations, and maybe the vegan leather dash is not dead after all?

Rivian R1T bed camera control coming soon - so is a clock in the dash!

Also - video streaming maybe coming soon!

Enjoy...


Weekly Rivian Responds
Special Edition! Configuration Updates
This week, there was a good amount of confusion surrounding discontinued configuration options and delivery timelines. Candidly, the messages were pretty confusing as we tried to piece together emails from different folks. We went to go talk to Rivian directly to figure out exactly what was going on. Here are the facts:

• Compass Yellow is discontinued. RIP.
• 20" All Terrain Bright Wheels are discontinued.
• The ability to take delivery of Red Canyon combined with Forest Edge Interior has been discontinued (not the individual colors)
• The ability to take delivery of Rivian Blue combined with Forest Edge Interior has been discontinued (not the individual colors)
• There will be an update to vegan leather dashboard options in mid-September that will affect delivery timelines and require preorder holders to make updates to their configuration. We don't know what these changes are yet, the impact they'll have, or which preorder holders are impacted.
  • We (and the community) previously believed that the vegan leather dash options were being discontinued. That's not the case apparently.

Rivian Responds
Phew! Now let's get into the questions from last time. Please note that there will be a delay for the next Rivian Responds, but we can ask up to ten questions this time. Make them good ones!
To get your questions answered, comment below within 48hrs of this post going up.
Please remember that Rivian is a publicly traded company, so you may not get the detail you want about upcoming product, feature, or software timelines. Of course always ask what's most important, but for more detailed answers, try to ask questions about vehicle capability, choices already made (eg, design), or about the company in general.

• What's the status of hands free highway assist and lane change assist that have long been shown on the website as driver+ features?
  • These features are still in development – no details to share on timing quite yet.
• What’s the latest on thermal throttle during DC fast charging? Do we think existing models are ever going to get a software update to allow them to handle 220+ kw for a sustained period of time? Or is this as good as it gets until new physical battery cooling improvements are implemented?
  • Our 2023.30 OTA noted some recent improvements we’ve made to our thermal management systems. We’ll continue to optimize the fast-charging performance of our vehicles over time.
• Any chance of getting the option to switch the rear camera view to the bed camera on the R1T? It would be great to have that option when using a hitch bike rack, when driving with the tailgate down, or when you want to check on cargo in the bed.
  • Owner access to the R1T bed camera will be enabled in the upcoming months!
• When are we going to see improvements to the apps like Alexa, Spotify, Tidal, Netflix, Apple Music etc? And when will we see more apps?
  • We’ll improve existing apps over time – we’re also in the process of adding video streaming capabilities to our vehicles. We’ll launch video streaming as soon as it meets our standards for performance, stability and user experience.
• Is it possible to get a compass and clock displayed on the driver screen in future updates?
  • We’re currently exploring similar functionality for the driver and center display, as well as other customization for our owners. More to come here.

Lastly, I wanted to quickly acknowledge the questions we keep receiving about the tonneau cover fix. We... know. Rivian knows too. The latest update is "Summer 2023" which continues through the end of September.

Rivian Roundup

• Service delays and continued time in the shop hit a chord in the community this week. One user asked for help about Lemon Laws and what to do.
  • Note: This week I passed along a lot of the community's feedback to the service folks given that my truck was in the shop for 3.5 weeks. I was unhappy and I wasn't the only one who experienced this. No news to share other than I communicated that the community is feeling pretty aggravated when it comes to service and that a miss on tonneau fixes would result in some lost support.
• Two cents on the R1S drove (get it? please clap) a bunch of discussion. Super fair feedback!
• So long, Compass Yellow. We love you. We will miss you. BUT! Congratulations to everyone with another special color! Launch Green owners welcome you with open arms.
• Okay, Amish kids checking out the R1T wasn't on my list of things I needed to see, but turns out I did. They're fascinated by it.
• Navigation complaints (and support) is a trending topic seemingly every week! People seem to agree that it's getting better, but still isn't all the way there when it comes to route planning.
• The price comparison of the R1S to the Model X makes the R1S seem very, very worth it.
• One more Compass Yellow post.

RIP. via u/Humble_Finding_7346

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[Marchin_MTB]

Bed camera access can’t come soon enough.

 

[Eeyore]

SOOOO looking forward to a clock I can READ in the driver's screen

 

[Golfer04]

SOOOO looking forward to a clock I can READ in the driver's screen

My tonneau was delivered broke (without them telling me first). If it gets fixed I will spend a week just opening and closing it in amazement?. 14 months and 43,000 miles is a long time without something I paid for. Asked for a refund 11 times. They won't fix it and won't refund my money. Hmmmm. At what point is it theft?

 

[SASSquatch]

SOOOO looking forward to a clock I can READ in the driver's screen

Sometimes it's just the simple things, isn't it?

 

[SASSquatch]

My tonneau was delivered broke (without them telling me first). If it gets fixed I will spend a week just opening and closing it in amazement?. 14 months and 43,000 miles is a long time without something I paid for. Asked for a refund 11 times. They won't fix it and won't refund my money. Hmmmm. At what point is it theft?

What it may turn out to be is a class action lawsuit. I hate saying that, because I'm a Rivian stock holder (one who is already burned by investing in the IPO) so the last thing I want to have happen is Rivian having to pay out a huge sum for something like that when they are hurting for cash as it is.

That said, I am also an early reservation holder who STILL has not taken delivery of their R1T because I refuse to do so without a power tonneau that I can never get if I take delivery without it.

So, while I sympathize - at least you have a truck even if your tonneau isn't working and they have at least given you *a timeline* even if it is likely to slip.

They have told all of us poor souls just waiting on our order to pound sand. No timetable for the power tonneau entering production.

 

[Eeyore]

My tonneau was delivered broke (without them telling me first). If it gets fixed I will spend a week just opening and closing it in amazement?. 14 months and 43,000 miles is a long time without something I paid for. Asked for a refund 11 times. They won't fix it and won't refund my money. Hmmmm. At what point is it theft?

That really sucks. I'm one of the lucky ones whose tonneau works. In 14 months and 33K miles, I think I've used it less than 20 times because it's fragile.

 

[Riviot]

That really sucks. I'm one of the lucky ones whose tonneau works. In 14 months and 33K miles, I think I've used it less than 20 times because it's fragile.

18 months and 34k, I open/close at least once a week. Every time I do it, I pray and make a sacrifice to a different god. Gentle touches and kind words go a long way.

 

[GTodd]

From Our friends over at reddit.

Confirming that CY and 20" Brights are RIP. Weirdness with Rivian excluding FG color combinations, and maybe the vegan leather dash is not dead after all?

Rivian R1T bed camera control coming soon - so is a clock in the dash!

Enjoy...


Weekly Rivian Responds
Special Edition! Configuration Updates
This week, there was a good amount of confusion surrounding discontinued configuration options and delivery timelines. Candidly, the messages were pretty confusing as we tried to piece together emails from different folks. We went to go talk to Rivian directly to figure out exactly what was going on. Here are the facts:

• Compass Yellow is discontinued. RIP.
• 20" All Terrain Bright Wheels are discontinued.
• The ability to take delivery of Red Canyon combined with Forest Edge Interior has been discontinued (not the individual colors)
• The ability to take delivery of Rivian Blue combined with Forest Edge Interior has been discontinued (not the individual colors)
• There will be an update to vegan leather dashboard options in mid-September that will affect delivery timelines and require preorder holders to make updates to their configuration. We don't know what these changes are yet, the impact they'll have, or which preorder holders are impacted.
  • We (and the community) previously believed that the vegan leather dash options were being discontinued. That's not the case apparently.

Rivian Responds
Phew! Now let's get into the questions from last time. Please note that there will be a delay for the next Rivian Responds, but we can ask up to ten questions this time. Make them good ones!
To get your questions answered, comment below within 48hrs of this post going up.
Please remember that Rivian is a publicly traded company, so you may not get the detail you want about upcoming product, feature, or software timelines. Of course always ask what's most important, but for more detailed answers, try to ask questions about vehicle capability, choices already made (eg, design), or about the company in general.

• What's the status of hands free highway assist and lane change assist that have long been shown on the website as driver+ features?
  • These features are still in development – no details to share on timing quite yet.
• What’s the latest on thermal throttle during DC fast charging? Do we think existing models are ever going to get a software update to allow them to handle 220+ kw for a sustained period of time? Or is this as good as it gets until new physical battery cooling improvements are implemented?
  • Our 2023.30 OTA noted some recent improvements we’ve made to our thermal management systems. We’ll continue to optimize the fast-charging performance of our vehicles over time.
• Any chance of getting the option to switch the rear camera view to the bed camera on the R1T? It would be great to have that option when using a hitch bike rack, when driving with the tailgate down, or when you want to check on cargo in the bed.
  • Owner access to the R1T bed camera will be enabled in the upcoming months!
• When are we going to see improvements to the apps like Alexa, Spotify, Tidal, Netflix, Apple Music etc? And when will we see more apps?
  • We’ll improve existing apps over time – we’re also in the process of adding video streaming capabilities to our vehicles. We’ll launch video streaming as soon as it meets our standards for performance, stability and user experience.
• Is it possible to get a compass and clock displayed on the driver screen in future updates?
  • We’re currently exploring similar functionality for the driver and center display, as well as other customization for our owners. More to come here.

Lastly, I wanted to quickly acknowledge the questions we keep receiving about the tonneau cover fix. We... know. Rivian knows too. The latest update is "Summer 2023" which continues through the end of September.

Rivian Roundup

• Service delays and continued time in the shop hit a chord in the community this week. One user asked for help about Lemon Laws and what to do.
  • Note: This week I passed along a lot of the community's feedback to the service folks given that my truck was in the shop for 3.5 weeks. I was unhappy and I wasn't the only one who experienced this. No news to share other than I communicated that the community is feeling pretty aggravated when it comes to service and that a miss on tonneau fixes would result in some lost support.
• Two cents on the R1S drove (get it? please clap) a bunch of discussion. Super fair feedback!
• So long, Compass Yellow. We love you. We will miss you. BUT! Congratulations to everyone with another special color! Launch Green owners welcome you with open arms.
• Okay, Amish kids checking out the R1T wasn't on my list of things I needed to see, but turns out I did. They're fascinated by it.
• Navigation complaints (and support) is a trending topic seemingly every week! People seem to agree that it's getting better, but still isn't all the way there when it comes to route planning.
• The price comparison of the R1S to the Model X makes the R1S seem very, very worth it.
• One more Compass Yellow post.

RIP. via u/Humble_Finding_7346

Would love to see from Rivian real statistics based on model year... #R1T, #R1S, #of color/model, #Color/Interior/model, #Color/Interior/Rim choice/model...be nice to know how rare or popular your selection was. Corvette releases these type of statistics every year, and it's great information for a car buff.

 

[drivetorun]

• The ability to take delivery of Red Canyon combined with Forest Edge Interior has been discontinued (not the individual colors)
• The ability to take delivery of Rivian Blue combined with Forest Edge Interior has been discontinued (not the individual colors)

Can someone explain why they would remove certain combinations but keep the individual options overall? Assuming that they aren't doing "batch" production anymore (which I thought I read before), I don't get the efficiency gain of doing this given you have all the parts available. I could understand not pairing certain combinations if these were being built "on spec" without a specific customer order, but I'm assuming I'm missing something.

 

[RoadTripFan]

Truly, the navigation is bad and needs some work (or just let us use one of the others out there that works? BUying ABRP raised everyone's hopes - but most people with a longer EV ownership history are using their phone to navigate multistop road trips.
Please add off roading app? All trails? onXoffroad?
TEXTING SOLUTION FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Text is a reality of everyday life.
App functionality solutions for music and streaming would be good too.
Anything that makes the massive screens more than inside lights while driving would be AWESOME - (Time you can read, Tripmeters that are not buried, Compass, Weather, theres a good sized list and most of them would *seem* to be simple programming fixes)

 

[PappaBolt]

Can someone explain why they would remove certain combinations but keep the individual options overall? Assuming that they aren't doing "batch" production anymore (which I thought I read before), I don't get the efficiency gain of doing this given you have all the parts available. I could understand not pairing certain combinations if these were being built "on spec" without a specific customer order, but I'm assuming I'm missing something.

Batching? I can’t imagine the Santa combo of red and green are popular year-round. There are a few…

 

[PappaBolt]

My tonneau was delivered broke (without them telling me first). If it gets fixed I will spend a week just opening and closing it in amazement?. 14 months and 43,000 miles is a long time without something I paid for. Asked for a refund 11 times. They won't fix it and won't refund my money. Hmmmm. At what point is it theft?

Or 12 months and waiting on a compact spare. Honestly, how long does it take to source and deliver these?

 

[SoCal Rob]

Can someone explain why they would remove certain combinations but keep the individual options overall? Assuming that they aren't doing "batch" production anymore (which I thought I read before), I don't get the efficiency gain of doing this given you have all the parts available. I could understand not pairing certain combinations if these were being built "on spec" without a specific customer order, but I'm assuming I'm missing something.

I suspect it’s because if someone had that combo built and did not take delivery, then Rivian could have a very hard time finding a buyer for those color combos compared to others.

 

[Theprezodent]

18 months and 34k, I open/close at least once a week. Every time I do it, I pray and make a sacrifice to a different god. Gentle touches and kind words go a long way.

And LOTS of WD40 dry lube every weekend and so far so good! Thank you to The tonneau gods! LOL

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