Do the incident cameras really work?

[LittonLad]

I wanted to bring this up as there have been a few threads recently where there was an incident with an R1 and the vehicle cameras did not record the incident.

Here’s my experience. I got hit on the driver’s side front quarter, perpendicular to my R1T by a guy who drove through a red light and t-boned me. He hit me at around 30mph so a pretty severe impact. His car was instantly totaled. My drive cam worked for all of my journey and all journeys prior, but stopped maybe 10 seconds before I was hit. The incident camera system on the car did not record anything. I thought it was supposed to record the incident and preserve the 30 seconds before and after (I may be inaccurate but along those lines). I was left without any video evidence of the incident.

I contacted Rivian to let them know and see what they could figure out, giving them the time and date of the incident so they can pull telemetry and whatever they can pull from the truck. They can not pull video as that is all local, and after I was hit I obviously had a bunch of error messages. My thumb drive in the vehicle shows everything for months, except the incident and the 10 or so seconds before…the only video I really needed.

Has anyone else had a similar issue? Is this something Rivian needs to be taking a closer look at? I know it’s a tough one to gauge unless you have had a triggering incident.

On a brighter note, I will say that if I had a choice of vehicles to be in when t-boned, the R1 would be at the top of my list. What an amazing vehicle and had I been in something else the outcome may have been different.

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[R1Thor]

Video files are saved in increments. I wonder if the particular episode and all of the chaos caused the file to not be completed and written/finalized.

Would it be worth checking to see if some type of data recovery could find non-addressed files on the drive?

Or is it possible that Rivian keeps everything on board and then writes it to the external storage after each interval is processed?

Just spitballing here, I have limited knowledge of video recording stuffs...

 

[LittonLad]

Good thoughts, thank you. I’ll have try and see if there is anything also on the drive that I can’t see. I thought everything went straight to the external drive, but not my area so I really have zero idea.

 

[Joe Hoffman]

It definitely does not stream the real time video to the external drive. Architecturally that is not how these type of systems work. Therefore, I would guess that this is a problem where the vehicle did not flush the recent video to the external drive perhaps because something catastrophic happened to the vehicle?

it’s really hard to say because we don’t know how severe a catastrophic event it was for your vehicle, and none of us know exactly the software implementation of the external drive flushing logic.

I am curious as to why you need/ want the video. Is there a question of blame? If I was in you, I certainly would want the video and expect that it would be available. Bummer.

I’m sure many of us are curious as to the demise of your vehicle. Pictures? Has it been declared total?

 

[LittonLad]

Front suspension is destroyed and wheel is folded under when moved. Damage back through driver’s side door, under to the motor, and across the hood and frunk. The car that hit me was a terrible mess and totaled, so the Rivian performed brilliantly. As for being totaled, it is still being assessed by insurance, so I’m in limbo.
I’m in the lucky position of not needing the video, but that may not have been the case. The one time I needed the incident footage the system failed. I did try it in car after the collision, and at home on my laptop.
I raised this with Rivian really in case there was something they could learn, and also if there was any telemetry they could recover for the impact etc.

 

[Catsailing]

I love the event cameras. I'm sorry that yours ended up with an issue when it really mattered. I hope you can get it sorted out. I view those cameras like a plane black box. They are rugged but sometimes events can make them unusable. I've had a few near misses which were caught by the event cameras including license plate numbers and the face of the other driver. All that said, the most useful test of the cameras was in the high sierras when I had to serve hard to avoid an obstacle as we were coming around a corner. Passengers weren't happy until I showed them the video. It shows a goose walking out from behind a tree in front of the truck. The goose did not flinch as we swerved and skidded around it. The passengers could not believe that the goose just continues on its wall across the road after all that. Without the cameras no- one would have believed me.

 

[Mobius1]

What does it take to trigger the incident recording? I’ve had mine for 8 months and never had anything record there. First week of ownership, some kid flung his door into my car and nothing recorded. Luckily I was sitting in the car and drive cam was still active. My kids have hit the car with basketball many times and nothing records…. If I’m parked a someone hits my car, that is what I want to see, but instead I get random people walking by or lights flashing, but an actual bump never maybe I’m missing some setup?? Are incidents considered only when the vehicle is in gear?

 

[LittonLad]

I also never had anything recorded. I had two or three events with heavy breaking and swerving actions on my part, with the driver assistance alarms going off, and never a recording. So I am wondering what it takes also.

 

[HaveBlue]

I don't have a drive plugged in the incidents are recorded internally for me and I can play them back. "Incidents" are driving events, not when parked. Mine freaks out and records when it thinks I'm going to rear end someone like if they are making a right turn and will be gone by the time I get there. I think panic stops are recorded too. Off-road it records them too. Maybe accelerometer signals on steep or bumpy sections. A bit random.

 

[LittonLad]

Thanks HaveBlue, that’s what I thought. When my R1T had those same sort of incidents it never recorded. Or perhaps it did but the videos were not showing in the system.

 

[LNTM1681]

I had a very similar experience.

Was pulling out of a Walgreens parking lot heading north. This particular exit is perpendicular to a very busy east/west street, so cars exiting the parking lot must adhere to a traffic light. As I began to approach the intersection, the traffic light was red. As I continued my approach, however, it eventually turned green, so I continued through the intersection. A driver heading east (perpendicular to my R1S) ran a red light and hit me on the driver's side front quarter (similar to LittonLad) going about 35-40 mph. Insurance totaled the vehicle. A few photos here show the damage.

Also similar to LittonLad, the drive cam stopped working a few seconds before I was hit. Fortunately, the drive cam caught just enough--as you can see from the video included, the light changes from red to green just before the video stops. That was enough for me prove to both the police and my insurance that I was not at fault.

 

[TZP123]

Unfortunately, I find myself in a similar situation. On May 23rd my Rivian was hit on the front passenger side, air bags went off and my R1S disabled itself. The body shop recently purchased a 12 volt back up battery to be able to power it back on and there was absolutely no footage of the accident to my dismay. Some nice views of non incidents back in March. I am attempting to retrieve videos if the system worked and attempting to get the telemetry data. No luck so far......So if anyone has had success or other ideas, that would be great.

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