Rants and Raves after 2 months of Rivian R1T ownership [DISCLAIMER: Unauthorized feedback from non-owner]

[Biturbowned]

Regarding the phantom drain - unfortunately that's 100% consistent with what I've seen in cold weather with a Tesla. Sentry absolutely sucks power, especially if it's alarming a lot, and cold weather in general can easily be a 5+%/day hit. On at least one occasion I've lost close to 10% overnight in very cold weather camping. There may be marginal gains to be made here in software and configuration (e.g. disabling Gear Guard), but it's also important to remember that EVs like to be plugged in and are generally not the kind of vehicle you leave in an airport lot for two weeks.

I must have gotten one of the good ones, on a recent trip, left parked at the airport’s uncovered Parking lot in September in DC, after 11 days, I lost 3% SoC with sentry mode off.

I’ve camped in the car and lost an insignificant amount (less than 5%) with the HVAC at 69 degrees and 24 degrees OAT. I consider that negligible for the work required to keep us toasty, but it‘s not zero.

Sponsored

 

[Jarico75]

That's funny - I have to turn it off in my garage because it will record hundreds or thousands of clips overnight just from shifts in lighting and shadows throughout the day. Likewise I often disable it if I'm parking anywhere outdoors overnight, especially in poor weather, because the lights flashing every time the camera wakes up due to a raindrop will drive my neighbors insane.

In relatively open spaces with good lighting and no weather, it does seem to do well.

Reflectors also trigger it. If a human walks by and the laser triggers, relfectors can keep it in a retriggering loop.

 

[jtshaw]

Some real concerns there. I can only hope the R1T/R1S doesn't go the way of the iPace.. immense early hype, excellent all around car, completely crippled by poor range/charging/software.

Whenever a company says "oh we'll just OTA fix it!" my immediate reaction is "if it's that easy to fix, why'd you sell it broken?"

Also just could be a lemon. I hate to say it but I fully expect 5-15% of LE R1T/R1S cars to be lemon or near lemon status. It's a pretty consistent problem with EVs. See Mach E, Polestar, Taycan, iPace, eTron, etc etc..

The industry has trained you into that response because most legacy automakers are absolutely terrible at building and maintaining software. It doesn’t have to be that way and it’s one of the potential benefits of the Rivian/Tesla style vertical integration and continuous improvement styles of doing software.

 

[Diddy123]

"No auto high beams "
I'm not sure I can honestly interpret this any other way than he doesn't realize they are available ?‍

The poster responded to this question on Reddit:

They just don't work well. Apparently they were on, but they never automatically turned off for oncoming vehicles, so I didn't know they existed]

 

[aw113sgte]

I must have gotten one of the good ones, on a recent trip, left parked at the airport’s uncovered Parking lot in September in DC, after 11 days, I lost 3% SoC with sentry mode off.

I’ve camped in the car and lost an insignificant amount (less than 5%) with the HVAC at 69 degrees and 24 degrees OAT. I consider that negligible for the work required to keep us toasty, but it‘s not zero.

I'm guessing the temperatures were fairly warm? (Warm enough to keep the battery from needing active heating)
This parasitic drain is a huge concern for me. If I can't leave the truck at the airport for 2 weeks in WI winter....it may be a no-go.
The battery will be fine at extremely low temps. I just need a way to turn off the active heating. I worry this company is going to be apple like and lock out basic functionality.
Let me choose if I don't want active heating on and I will have to accept I may have to wait 45 minutes to an hour for the battery to warm up for driving. Although keeping cell signal active would take extremely little power and I should be able to do that remotely so if I'm flying in I can turn on the car.

 

[SeaGeo]

I worry this company is going to be apple like and lock out basic functionality.

Ditto. I've had a feeling for awhile that they may lean more into the apple side of things than I'm comfortable with. That concern had been slowly dissipating, but not much.

 

[mgc0216]

The writer's obliviousness to the existence of high beams gives a certain color to the rest of their comments. Glad they love the vehicle, though. And very glad the updates are coming fast and furious. (cf. 2001-49.2)

He says down in the replies, that the truck has auto high beams, but they are not working properly.

 

[ironpig]

Sounds about like the Model S experience in 2013 and 2014. A lot of the hardware issues were fixed in the model refresh a few years later. But the software was continually improved and it completely different than it was when we got the car.

Anyone who is getting a first year car should expect problems like this. It's inevitable. I am glad people are posting the real issues now so everyone can see what it's like to be an early adopter. It's mostly fun, but sometimes annoying.

 

[SlaterGS]

Just to test the waters, a compromise; What if you never had to pull a key out of your pocket but when you pulled the door handle, it took 1 second before the door unlocked and it took 5 seconds after you sat down for the car to move?

I think I get what you are suggesting and it sounds similar to my Leaf as I don't ever physically use my FOB.
There's a little button on the door handle that allows you to lock the doors when you leave or unlock just the driver door by pressing it once or all doors by pressing it twice.

Video explaining if you really want to sit through it:

 

[dleewla]

big one that stands out to me is lack of battery preconditioning. that is a must for EVs, especially in hotter and colder climates. it better be coming in an OTA update.

 

[Biturbowned]

I'm guessing the temperatures were fairly warm? (Warm enough to keep the battery from needing active heating)
This parasitic drain is a huge concern for me. If I can't leave the truck at the airport for 2 weeks in WI winter....it may be a no-go.
The battery will be fine at extremely low temps. I just need a way to turn off the active heating. I worry this company is going to be apple like and lock out basic functionality.
Let me choose if I don't want active heating on and I will have to accept I may have to wait 45 minutes to an hour for the battery to warm up for driving. Although keeping cell signal active would take extremely little power and I should be able to do that remotely so if I'm flying in I can turn on the car.

Right, mid- to low-70’s. Can’t speak to how much loss it would have been in sub-freezing temps. Also can’t speak to Rivian’s plan for pay-walls, but I also don’t want that.

 

[Max]

I think I get what you are suggesting and it sounds similar to my Leaf as I don't ever physically use my FOB.
There's a little button on the door handle that allows you to lock the doors when you leave or unlock just the driver door by pressing it once or all doors by pressing it twice.

Video explaining if you really want to sit through it:

I like Nissans. Especially the new design of Frontier and Pathfinder.

Not quite what I had in mind. Even in this setup, Leaf is always listening/watching for the intelligent key proximity and command. That means the car never sleeps. My thought was for a car to truly sleep When you lock it. That means all your settings are stored in a Non-volatile memory. The idea is to minimize power consumption when the car is not used. Of course that comes at a cost. Things won’t happen as fast. Just like people trying to wake up in the morning without their coffee., in this kind of setup when you pull the door handle or push the button on it, a subsystem that talks to the intelligent key need to power up and initialize before it can detect your intelligent key near by, which is why I guesstimated it may take up to a second for door to open. Of course in an EV in hot summer or super cold winter, if Battery needs maintenance, it may not be practical for the car to have a truly restful night.

For most people the power loss is a very acceptable cost of convenience. I come from a long line of cheep ass people and just can’t stand waste. And I am a bit paranoid too. I don’t want my car to be awake plotting against me when I am sleep. Didn’t mean to drag you this deep in it.

 

[jtshaw]

big one that stands out to me is lack of battery preconditioning. that is a must for EVs, especially in hotter and colder climates. it better be coming in an OTA update.

Seriously. We are planning a road trip from Seattle -> Maine and back in late June and I’m not sure it’ll be possible without them fixing that.

 

[kizamybute']

This sure isn't like a Tesla site full of fanboi's, where if you criticize even a spec of dirt on the nose, they'll attack you for it.
On flip side, amazing to see so many saying they're willing to delay their delivery or happy that it's later, etc, etc. All based on ONE, owner's experience with a very early release that could very likely be issues with just his / her truck in particular. Chevy, Ford, Mercedes, BMW, etc, etc, etc,....all have delivered cars that had issues on occasion. It happens. Might be smarter to wait and see 100 reviews of the vehicle and see what the percentages are, rather than making decisions based on a 1 out of 1 observation.

 

[SeaGeo]

It'll be interesting to see if @Iwantatesla has had similar experiences.

Sponsored