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

[Attesan997]

Good and honest review that sets the table for expectations.

OTA updates are a cornerstone of EVs, but I expect more from Rivian. They've had a lot of extra time to get things right at the cost of deliveries. To give them a pass for being early in the game is not OK. Fit and finish seems to continue to surface is reviews here on the Forum and in YouTube videos. Is this OK with early production cars . . . absolutely not. Each truck/SUV should be going through a QA process with all gaps being gauged. If they fail, they go back to assembly for correction, and staff are retrained. It's simple business. Put poor quality on the road and you get poor customer reviews, which drives away sales unless you're smitten with a name.

Rivian like all new companies has one chance to get this thing right. The car and truck rags have given them glowing marks, but actual owners will provide the day to day insights they can't. This review is a window into what to expect. If you can live with sub-optimal quality and tech, then the vehicle is a no brainer for purchase, but . . . if these items are a challenge many consumers will sit on the sidelines until things get better. Remember Hyundia . . . their quality was awful and look at them 15 years down the road. Rivian needs to figure this out sooner than later to stay on top.

Great points, I'd just add it'll be good to wait until there's a sample size greater than a handful. There's simply not enough data out there from owners to see a trend.

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[CarterGee]

Hey everyone,

Carter here, one of the mods of r/Rivian. I've read through some (not all) of this thread, but let me explain a little bit more about what happened here.

An employee took delivery of their Rivian. These employee trucks get internal-only OTA updates, have build / software issues only employees should know about (that may not reflect the final customer experience), and have restrictions on them about what family / friends can share. A redditor made it look like they were the owner of this particular truck to us mods and sent photos of internal release notes, etc to prove that they owned the truck.

Well, turns out they didn't own the truck. The truck belonged to their friend who is Rivian employee. This person broke the trust of the employee by posting what they did to our sub (which is reposted here). The employee was threatened with termination. The information shared in the review and in the photos we were provided contained confidential and internal only information.

What that redditor did is, in truck culture, considered a dick move.

The employee messaged us and asked us to delete the 2mo review and comments. The OP deleted his Reddit account, ironically named LeeksNotLeaks. We felt that the right thing to do was to remove the post to protect the employee. I know some people will disagree with that decision because we're all so hungry for information, but I don't think is worth anyone losing their job. We don't have a leak policy on r/Rivian other than the fact that we will remove content when the owner of that content asks us to. More here.

In full transparency, I messaged the admins of this forum with this information and asked if they would remove this thread as well. That's obvi up to the admins of this place, not me.

Hope that helps clear any questions up

 

[crashmtb]

What that redditor did is, in truck culture, considered a dick move.

FTFY. Mans that person is a moron. What motivates people to pretend like that? Bizarre.

 

[ads75]

FTFY. Mans that person is a moron. What motivates people to pretend like that? Bizarre.

Internet “likes”/upvotes are a powerful thing…to some.

 

[Bobthebuilder352]

Hey everyone,

Carter here, one of the mods of r/Rivian. I've read through some (not all) of this thread, but let me explain a little bit more about what happened here.

An employee took delivery of their Rivian. These employee trucks get internal-only OTA updates, have build / software issues only employees should know about (that may not reflect the final customer experience), and have restrictions on them about what family / friends can share. A redditor made it look like they were the owner of this particular truck to us mods and sent photos of internal release notes, etc to prove that they owned the truck.

Well, turns out they didn't own the truck. The truck belonged to their friend who is Rivian employee. This person broke the trust of the employee by posting what they did to our sub (which is reposted here). The employee was threatened with termination. The information shared in the review and in the photos we were provided contained confidential and internal only information.

What that redditor did is, in truck culture, considered a dick move.

The employee messaged us and asked us to delete the 2mo review and comments. The OP deleted his Reddit account, ironically named LeeksNotLeaks. We felt that the right thing to do was to remove the post to protect the employee. I know some people will disagree with that decision because we're all so hungry for information, but I don't think is worth anyone losing their job. We don't have a leak policy on r/Rivian other than the fact that we will remove content when the owner of that content asks us to. More here.

In full transparency, I messaged the admins of this forum with this information and asked if they would remove this thread as well. That's obvi up to the admins of this place, not me.

Hope that helps clear any questions up

Asking this thread to be deleted is absurd. Would be like asking the news media to refuse to cover Stormy Daniels in 2016. The CA is between the employer and employee not us as general population. Now if prop source code had been posted then that reasonably would be subject to censorship but that’s not the case here.

 

[IHScout]

Asking this thread to be deleted is absurd. Would be like asking the news media to refuse to cover Stormy Daniels in 2016. The CA is between the employer and employee not us as general population.

Comparing a promiscuous relationship from the former president, and the subsequent payoff to this situation seems absurd.

 

[GaryL]

I get the fact that the employees job was at risk and Reddit did what they thought is right but and its a big but this is Jan 9 2022, if Rivian is still enforcing NDAs and we are told to expect "3rd party" retail deliveries in 60-90 days well all I can say is good luck and $78 IPO price here we come.

 

[CarterGee]

Asking this thread to be deleted is absurd. Would be like asking the news media to refuse to cover Stormy Daniels in 2016. The CA is between the employer and employee not us as general population. Now if prop source code had been posted then that reasonably would be subject to censorship but that’s not the case here.

Lollll what? Sorry, but you're absurd for that comparison.

Listen, moderation is hard and nuanced. The best we can do is be principled and transparent about why we make the decisions we do.

The fact is that these employee trucks have confidential software on them and are a build quality that may not be the final customer experience. Of course there are going to be restrictions on what employees can share / post. I work at Google. Android has been out for many, many years. I will get in trouble if I show a friend my internal builds and especially if they leak my device. That's how it works.

 

[Bobthebuilder352]

Comparing a promiscuous relationship from the former president, and the subsequent payoff to this situation seems absurd.

Why? *both* were under a paid CA which applied between two specific parties.

 

[CarterGee]

I can already tell that it is not worth trying to explain that to you lol.

 

[Bobthebuilder352]

Lollll what? Sorry, but you're absurd for that comparison.

Listen, moderation is hard and nuanced. The best we can do is be principled and transparent about why we make the decisions we do.

The fact is that these employee trucks have confidential software on them and are a build quality that may not be the final customer experience. Of course there are going to be restrictions on what employees can share / post. I work at Google. Android has been out for many, many years. I will get in trouble if I show a friend my internal builds and especially if they leak my device. That's how it works.

Panel gaps and non-working rear climate control isn’t proprietary info when these deliveries are being counted by the manufacturer as customer deliveries.
Source code, of course. If there were M-plate mules yes too. But as customer vehicles, no and in any event a CA is between two parties, not a third party as in this case.

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

The fact is that these employee trucks have confidential software on them and are a build quality that may not be the final customer experience. Of course there are going to be restrictions on what employees can share / post. I work at Google. Android has been out for many, many years. I will get in trouble if I show a friend my internal builds and especially if they leak my device. That's how it works.

Sounds like a pretty good reason for why these early employee trucks should NOT be considered "production deliveries"

 

[crashmtb]

Panel gaps and non-working rear climate control isn’t proprietary info when these deliveries are being counted by the manufacturer as customer deliveries.
Source code, of course. If there were M-plate mules yes too. But as customer vehicles, no and in any event a CA is between two parties, not a third party as in this case.

They may have shown software features that are not in a public build yet, things of that nature. Panel gaps and the like are observable by someone walking down the street.

 

[Attesan997]

Sounds like a pretty good reason for why these early employee trucks should NOT be considered "production deliveries"

Think its fair to say anyone adamant or passionate employee deliveries should count as customer deliveries had incentive to do so. Whether that incentive was a lovely IPO price that subsequently rallied pretty much immediately or pride/internet points. Most were indifferent. Not to say that's not the norm in this space. A certain billionaire just tweated the price of his company's FSD software is about to go up 20%. I'm sure that's just only as an FYI and in no way will have financial benefits.

 

[Iwantatesla]

Hey everyone,

Carter here, one of the mods of r/Rivian. I've read through some (not all) of this thread, but let me explain a little bit more about what happened here.

An employee took delivery of their Rivian. These employee trucks get internal-only OTA updates, have build / software issues only employees should know about (that may not reflect the final customer experience), and have restrictions on them about what family / friends can share. A redditor made it look like they were the owner of this particular truck to us mods and sent photos of internal release notes, etc to prove that they owned the truck.

Well, turns out they didn't own the truck. The truck belonged to their friend who is Rivian employee. This person broke the trust of the employee by posting what they did to our sub (which is reposted here). The employee was threatened with termination. The information shared in the review and in the photos we were provided contained confidential and internal only information.

What that redditor did is, in truck culture, considered a dick move.

The employee messaged us and asked us to delete the 2mo review and comments. The OP deleted his Reddit account, ironically named LeeksNotLeaks. We felt that the right thing to do was to remove the post to protect the employee. I know some people will disagree with that decision because we're all so hungry for information, but I don't think is worth anyone losing their job. We don't have a leak policy on r/Rivian other than the fact that we will remove content when the owner of that content asks us to. More here.

In full transparency, I messaged the admins of this forum with this information and asked if they would remove this thread as well. That's obvi up to the admins of this place, not me.

Hope that helps clear any questions up

Mad props to you for explaining on this forum when you didn’t have to. Also mad props for babysitting Reddit.

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