Driver+ experience and observations: room for improvement

[dleepnw]

I’ve had my R1T for about a year. I use Driver+ as much as possible to try to help Rivian gather as much driving data as they can in the hopes it’ll help them make improvements. And bottom line is it needs to improve. A lot. You have to have confidence in the system if you want folks to use it and mines 50/50 right now.

Adaptive cruise control - works well but response time to reengage due to changes in speed/traffic is slow.
Highway assist - needs a lot of work. It’s inconsistent at best. It drifts in the lane a lot and has trouble with curves, so much so it feels unsafe at times. I’ve had three different Rivian loaners and each responded differently on the exact same stretch of highway. The best experience I had was in an R1S. It drifted a lot less and jangles the curves much more smoothly. In my R1T I have to disengage it at times because it doesn’t feel like it’s going to stay in the lane. In the other two R1T loaners there was mixed results. Again all on the exact same route.
Lane change assist - can be very jerky at times reengaging. Again inconsistent
Forward collision warning - seems to work well but isn’t always consistent at what distance it warns. Maybe it’s evaluating the conditions and there’s other factors besides distance and speed. Feels inconsistent.
Automatic braking and brake assist - I can’t recall this ever engaging. Maybe I’ve just never been in a situation where it needed to but feel like there were some close calls without it doing anything.
Blind spot warning works week. To me that’s the most consistent and reliable safety feature of Driver+.
Lane keep assist and departure warning - I don’t like this in any car I have so I turn it off.

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[Marchin_MTB]

I agree with you about the lack of consistency. Hope they can keep improving it and aren’t limited by the existing hardware.

 

[R1Thor]

Interesting take.

This is my n=1.
It's significantly better than my wife's 2018 Forester.
It's notably worse than my previous (sold to make room for my R1T) 2018 Volvo V60.

I think the BIGGEST issue is that it doesn't begin to accelerate the moment you start to pass. This holds up the traffic on roads I frequent TERRIBLY. That said, I can just...override the system by pushing on the accelerator myself.

I think at this juncture, they're probably playing it super conservative (safety-wise). I hope it continues to improve with time (I think it has already, and that's all I can ask for).

In summary:
1- Keep what works (lane keep on Highway Assist keeps me pretty centered on MAPPED roads without construction).
2- Allow for unmapped road lane assist (my Volvo did this very well; in fact, I never had the concept of 'mapped vs unmapped' roads as it worked on all roads all the time).
3- PAY attention to construction (mine tends to almost plow into traffic cones during lane shifts and jogs at the last minute to re-center. Too often I freak out at the last second and just...move over myself.).
4- ACCELERATE immediately upon making a lane change to overtake.
5- Remove the nonsense where you slow down for turns. If I'm set at 70, I'm taking that turn at 70. You make the people behind you VERY mad when you're suddenly doing 66 and traffic is doing 70. There are no highway curves that are so drastic they require a reduction in speed--at least in my neck of the woods. They're wide, sweeping turns probably purpose built for highway speeds. AND to wit, I am capable of, and do, hold those speeds through those corners when it's just in adaptive cruise mode or driving manually).

Now, the points you've made about it being inconsistent in different vehicles--that definitely shouldn't be so...for sure.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Adaptive cruise control - works well but response time to reengage due to changes in speed/traffic is slow.

I feel like this might be somewhat intentionally slow to respond to accelerating traffic so it doesn't have to slam on the brakes. Bumper to bumper traffic tends to expand and contract a lot, could probably lead to feeling carsick for a lot of people if it were more aggressive. Easy enough to assist with the accelerator if you feel like it's too slow to follow.

Lane change assist - can be very jerky at times reengaging. Again inconsistent

It sounds like this is getting improved in the next update.

Forward collision warning - seems to work well but isn’t always consistent at what distance it warns. Maybe it’s evaluating the conditions and there’s other factors besides distance and speed. Feels inconsistent.

I don't get this warning enough to determine consistency in it. Forward facing radar is capable of reading speed differential several vehicles forward of the one in front of you, so could be a contributing factor for your observation. Two or three cars up could be slamming on their brakes and the guy in front of you hasn't done it yet.

Automatic braking and brake assist - I can’t recall this ever engaging. Maybe I’ve just never been in a situation where it needed to but feel like there were some close calls without it doing anything.

It works, but IMO it's not tuned to prevent accidents. It's tuned to minimize them. I think if it were tuned to prevent accidents it would feel way too aggressive and happen too frequently. It's a "well, you were warned that you needed to brake and you're not doing it" kind of thing.

 

[JamuJoe]

I’ve had my R1T for about a year. I use Driver+ as much as possible to try to help Rivian gather as much driving data as they can in the hopes it’ll help them make improvements. And bottom line is it needs to improve. A lot. You have to have confidence in the system if you want folks to use it and mines 50/50 right now.

Adaptive cruise control - works well but response time to reengage due to changes in speed/traffic is slow.
Highway assist - needs a lot of work. It’s inconsistent at best. It drifts in the lane a lot and has trouble with curves, so much so it feels unsafe at times. I’ve had three different Rivian loaners and each responded differently on the exact same stretch of highway. The best experience I had was in an R1S. It drifted a lot less and jangles the curves much more smoothly. In my R1T I have to disengage it at times because it doesn’t feel like it’s going to stay in the lane. In the other two R1T loaners there was mixed results. Again all on the exact same route.
Lane change assist - can be very jerky at times reengaging. Again inconsistent
Forward collision warning - seems to work well but isn’t always consistent at what distance it warns. Maybe it’s evaluating the conditions and there’s other factors besides distance and speed. Feels inconsistent.
Automatic braking and brake assist - I can’t recall this ever engaging. Maybe I’ve just never been in a situation where it needed to but feel like there were some close calls without it doing anything.
Blind spot warning works week. To me that’s the most consistent and reliable safety feature of Driver+.
Lane keep assist and departure warning - I don’t like this in any car I have so I turn it off.

Bear in mind that those features are Driver+, not minus Driver. Not having full control of your vehicle is a recipe for an accident. Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road (not a phone), feet ready for action.

 

[Feetdry]

Wow, after reading what the author says about Drivers +, I just have to comment. We must be driving entirely different R1Ts here in WA. His experience and mine are vastly different. I ordinarily drive 95 per cent of my driving on cruise control. To date most of my Driver + has been on I-5 from Seatac to the Canadian border. After Rivian's latest updates, I like the lane change feature even more. I did have an argument recently while driving in the HOV lanes and came upon a right-hand exit for transit vehicles. Driver+ turned itself off because I didn't react fast enough by singling that I didn't want to take that exit. It told me that it would not turn itself back on until my next drive. Well, I worked over to take a nearby exit where I could stop on a side street, put the truck in park and start back up again. All was good again.

I have to say that I was not comfortable with the navigation system in this truck until I moved my Garmin DriveCam 76 on the windshield. My Garmin gives me so much more road info than my native Rivian nav system. I have had a Garmin either on my dash or windshield in last 2 million miles of my driving here in the NW. I have owned every Garmin automotive GPS since they started selling automotive Garmins. Up until about 7 years ago I was driving 60K a year in the 4 NW states, year-round. I appreciate my Driver + and look forward to its ability to enhance its features and navigate move paved highways.

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