No Cruise Control when pulling a trailer, WTH

[Tlohrenz]

I've been pulling trailers since the late 70s. And my R1T says cruise control is unavailable when trailer connected. Every Truck or SUV I've had since 1980 allow cruise control when pulling a trailer.

Why does Rivian not allow cruise control when pulling a trailer? The little things I took for granted when buying the R1T.

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[Thedude]

You still have cruise control, just not adaptive cruise control.

 

[COdogman]

 

[Tlohrenz]

You still have cruise control, just not adaptive cruise control.

That's what I noticed when the truck was getting too close to the car in front of me. Do the radars and cameras stop functioning. I liked my adaptive cruise control on my Mercedes when pulling a trailer.

 

[zefram47]

Dumb/manual cruise works just fine while towing...did a 1000 mile trip with a trailer earlier this month.

 

[Spaceball1]

Like others said we are unfortunately limited to dumb cruise while towing.

There’s really no reason they can’t allow adaptive cruise while towing. It makes no sense to make the vehicle less safe when towing a trailer!

Full drivers + would be great (like Ford and others can do). Gotta believe it will come in a software update….s00n

 

[josh0]

It makes a lot of sense for adaptive cruise control to be disabled when towing. The computer does not know, when you’re pulling a trailer, what your stopping performance is going to be like. It does not know by how much it needs to adjust your following distance. It does not know how much of the weight being towed might turn out to be dynamic at high acceleration. It simply cannot safely operate.

It is up to you, the driver, to ensure you’re operating safely at all times. ACC, under normal circumstances, is pretty safe, but you should still be paying attention and ready to take over at any time. When towing, it far too easily provides a sense of false security, and can result in you ending up in an unsafe situation that you (ideally) would have avoided if you were paying more attention. ACC reduces safety when towing.

 

[josh0]

Also, it’s worth pointing out that studies performed strongly suggest that ACC does not increase driver safety. It is a convenience technology, not a safety one.

 

[Spaceball1]

It makes a lot of sense for adaptive cruise control to be disabled when towing. The computer does not know, when you’re pulling a trailer, what your stopping performance is going to be like. It does not know by how much it needs to adjust your following distance. It does not know how much of the weight being towed might turn out to be dynamic at high acceleration. It simply cannot safely operate.

It is up to you, the driver, to ensure you’re operating safely at all times. ACC, under normal circumstances, is pretty safe, but you should still be paying attention and ready to take over at any time. When towing, it far too easily provides a sense of false security, and can result in you ending up in an unsafe situation that you (ideally) would have avoided if you were paying more attention. ACC reduces safety when towing.

But the truck does know your trailer weight now with the updates we had a year ago. Surely if Ford can safely do it, Rivian can. They could even limit it to the last couple of distance settings for additional safety factor.

I’d be interested in the studies you mentioned. Perhaps adaptive by itself is neutral for safety but the AEB portion of it I would think would still be a positive.

 

[josh0]

But the truck does know your trailer weight now with the updates we had a year ago. Surely if Ford can safely do it, Rivian can. They could even limit it to the last couple of distance settings for additional safety factor.

I’d be interested in the studies you mentioned. Perhaps adaptive by itself is neutral for safety but the AEB portion of it I would think would still be a positive.

The truck knows your trailer weight, but it doesn’t know the performance of your trailer breaks. It doesn’t know if part of that weight is a couple dozen gallons of liquids that will slosh around. It doesn’t know enough to be able to compensate fully for all the variables that a trailer introduces. I don’t know about Ford’s system, but it’s possibly they’ve simply made a different liability decision being a much larger company, or that they’ve got some interesting relevant technologies or experience from their extensive history.

I’ll see if I can find the link, but there was an article about the ACC safety issue recently. You are absolutely correct that they determined that AEB improved safety.

 

[emoore]

I've been pulling trailers since the late 70s. And my R1T says cruise control is unavailable when trailer connected. Every Truck or SUV I've had since 1980 allow cruise control when pulling a trailer.

Why does Rivian not allow cruise control when pulling a trailer? The little things I took for granted when buying the R1T.

You didn’t have adaptive cruise control in the 80s. You have had manual cruise control which is what Rivian has.

 

[josh0]

This is not the article I was thinking of, but it gets at the same idea. I’ll keep looking.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/24/23414578/adas-car-technology-safety-traffic-crash-research

 

[josh0]

Also, I had a 2014 RAM 2500 with ACC, and I’m pretty sure it also disabled ACC when I was towing. Fairly certain my 2014 Cherokee does not disable ACC. Don’t recall what my Chevy Colorado did.

 

[COdogman]

Cruise control in the 80s was scary AF.

 

[Spaceball1]

May not be perfect, nothing is, but if competition is doing it, Rivian can. I agree they likely just don’t want the liability at this time.

Ram offers adaptive cruise while towing

Ford offers adaptive cruise, lane keep, and blind spot monitoring for even the trailer. Looks like they added full on Blue Cruise too.

GM offers the full on Cruise while towing

All the autopilot-like systems (except famously Teslas) are very conservative already. They could easily add another level after measuring trailer weight. It’s always up to the driver to use the systems safely and there are many situations where using any type of cruise is not advised (with or without a trailer).

If you have trailer brakes, Rivian allows adjustments for them which should be tuned for proper drivability regardless if you want to use any cruise or not. The truck could also sense the trailer weight and adjust with not very difficult algorithms when using adaptive cruise (if that’s even necessary, since the truck should still brake the same regardless of trailer brake setup).

If the trailer doesn’t have trailer brakes, I could see it being more of a concern. Though again the system can use the trailer weight to estimate any adjustments or additional restrictions, if that’s even necessary (perhaps just trying to CYA or protect people from doing dumb things).

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