Trailer Assist imminent?

[HyperionMark]

Just did an official Rivian survey and there was a section about Trailer Assist? Could this mean it is due very soon? I feel like I remember they said a few months ago that a big trailer update was coming soon. Definitely needed IMO.

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[Mathme]

Not sure, but if someone can't figure out how to back a trailer, they really shouldn't be towing one...with or without electronic nannies to help. There's lots of tutorials on line and empty parking lots to practice in.

 

[SlaterGS]

Not sure, but if someone can't figure out how to back a trailer, they really shouldn't be towing one...with or without electronic nannies to help. There's lots of tutorials on line and empty parking lots to practice in.

?

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I would think that those nannies would make it harder to backup if you already know how. What I would like is a wireless camera I can put on my trailer to serve as a backup camera. When I'm home sometimes my dogs like to run behind my trailer when I'm backing up. Seeing back there would be nice.

 

[HyperionMark]

Not sure, but if someone can't figure out how to back a trailer, they really shouldn't be towing one...with or without electronic nannies to help. There's lots of tutorials on line and empty parking lots to practice in.

Lots of gray area between knowing how and doing it extremely proficiently. Some tools might be useful to those that only have to do it a handful of times per year.

 

[Rainman]

I don't agree - Ford's Pro Trailer Backup Assist is incredible, and I can backup a trailer old school. It's no different than smart home tools or even cruise control - I can do those things manually, but automation is more consistent and make my life easier. All my perspective.

 

[logan]

I would think that those nannies would make it harder to backup if you already know how. What I would like is a wireless camera I can put on my trailer to serve as a backup camera. When I'm home sometimes my dogs like to run behind my trailer when I'm backing up. Seeing back there would be nice.

You could look at the voyager wireless back up cameras:

https://www.voyagercameras.com/wireless-systems/

That's what came with our airstream. I just put it up on the dash temporarily while towing. It's comforting to know what is back there and even when passing it is reassuring to see the car behind us given the mirrors on the rivian aren't as far out as our old tow vehicle. (Note, I took the picture from a low height from my eye level they only block the view of the hood. Although I'd rather have both displayed on the main screen.)

 

[CharonPDX]

Not sure, but if someone can't figure out how to back a trailer, they really shouldn't be towing one...with or without electronic nannies to help. There's lots of tutorials on line and empty parking lots to practice in.

Whenever my wife or my mom is trying to "help" me back a trailer into a campsite, I do terrible. But I can back my 29' trailer up half a block with vehicles parked on both sides to my house zero problem on the first try.

Hell, the first time I tried backing with the "help" of a trailer-mounted backup camera (with the old truck) I did terrible, because I was misjudging everything compared to just looking down the side of the trailer from the cab.

 

[Eeyore]

I feel like I remember they said a few months ago that a big trailer update was coming soon. Definitely needed IMO.

This is Rivian. Soon can mean a long time.

 

[ironpig]

I back my horse trailer fine, but I don't see any downside to having more tech available.

Ford's Pro Trailer assist is fantastic. And you calibrate it for each of your trailers by size.

 

[Riviaenz]

You could look at the voyager wireless back up cameras:

https://www.voyagercameras.com/wireless-systems/

That's what came with our airstream. I just put it up on the dash temporarily while towing. It's comforting to know what is back there and even when passing it is reassuring to see the car behind us given the mirrors on the rivian aren't as far out as our old tow vehicle. (Note, I took the picture from a low height from my eye level they only block the view of the hood. Although I'd rather have both displayed on the main screen.)

CarPlay is a bigger omission. So many apps and features that would greatly enhance adventuring, driving, charging, and overall traveling experience. It would free Rivian up to focus on car specific SW improvements like trailer assist, Driver+, tow efficiency and tow range estimation, drivetrain performance/drive modes, app features (like journaling and performance telemetry), etc.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I really hope we get the side camera view on lane changes first. That's a feature way more people can use.

 

[Riviaenz]

I really hope we get the side camera view on lane changes first. That's a feature way more people can use.

And ACC while towing. Our 2017 Volvo maintained ACC while towing. It only disabled backup park assist sensors (kept the the side and front) and Pilot Assist. Actually, Pilot Assist was a dramatically better version than Highway Assist+ that didn’t require pre-mapped routes nor cloud access to work. It worked under all conditions even in heavy rain in the dark when I couldn’t see lane markings but Pilot Assist could providing a wonderful additional layer of safety under those conditions. It also works on surface streets and in traffic and never threatened to run anyone or anything over Tesla style either.

 

[theonetruestripes]

CarPlay is a bigger omission. So many apps and features that would greatly enhance adventuring, driving, charging, and overall traveling experience. It would free Rivian up to focus on car specific SW improvements like trailer assist, Driver+, tow efficiency and tow range estimation, drivetrain performance/drive modes, app features (like journaling and performance telemetry), etc.

I’m going to “yes but” you...

Yes, CarPlay is something I want, and CarPlay is something that would give Rivian better maps, better audio presentation of the maps. No more “turn left in 800 feet” leaving you guessing which left that is as opposed to “turn left at the next traffic light”. You would get pausing of audio books/podcasts as opposed to ducking making hard to understand BOTH the directions and missing part of the other audio you were trying to listen to. All sorts of great stuff I would love, but also the bad:

Adopting CarPlay puts a fundamental part of the car experience in someone else’s hands. That big center screen is a huge part of the Rivian experience, and you hand it off to Apple to give you an Apple experience. (which is a good experience, maybe better then Rivian’s experience, but it still takes it out of Rivian’s hands...it means any work Rivian does on any of that stuff is seen by far fewer people!)

Apple Maps’ navigation is also EV unaware, it won’t plan charging stops, so if you “accidentally” use it for a trip far enough away that you will need to charge you get a non-charge route, and will strand yourself. As opposed to getting Rivian’s charge aware route planning that makes use of all that ABRP (or is it PlugShare) rating data that makes reliable choices out of unreliable charge networks.

At a minimum if I were in charge of Rivian’s software I would be unwilling to adopt CarPlay without getting Apple to cough up a way for the truck to influence the routes to make a good charging experience. Which is absolutely possible at a technical level. Apple could make an entitlement gated extension system where maps pushes the route (or endpoints of the route) to the extension, and the extension can add additional stops. Better yet if it can also use UIRemoteView to present some UI inside maps so you could set the driving mode & select a trailer as well as get to a “filter charge networks/adaptors” screen. I mean it is less performance sensitive then PIP, and Apple’s maps already has some plugin support (intended for ride share). It is easily the sort of thing that Apple could do in a single release with a tiny team. Also world wide EVs are popular enough that it would be a good feature for Apple.

...I’m not in charge of software at Rivian, nor at Apple (and even when I worked at Apple I was in charge of very little, like individual projects, not much of anything involving business deals, while plenty of things I worked on ended up being part of the SOU nothing really involving a keynote announcement). So this would be far from a promise, just my idea of what the roadmap _should_ look like.

 

[Riviaenz]

I’m going to “yes but” you...

Yes, CarPlay is something I want, and CarPlay is something that would give Rivian better maps, better audio presentation of the maps. No more “turn left in 800 feet” leaving you guessing which left that is as opposed to “turn left at the next traffic light”. You would get pausing of audio books/podcasts as opposed to ducking making hard to understand BOTH the directions and missing part of the other audio you were trying to listen to. All sorts of great stuff I would love, but also the bad:

Adopting CarPlay puts a fundamental part of the car experience in someone else’s hands. That big center screen is a huge part of the Rivian experience, and you hand it off to Apple to give you an Apple experience. (which is a good experience, maybe better then Rivian’s experience, but it still takes it out of Rivian’s hands...it means any work Rivian does on any of that stuff is seen by far fewer people!)

Apple Maps’ navigation is also EV unaware, it won’t plan charging stops, so if you “accidentally” use it for a trip far enough away that you will need to charge you get a non-charge route, and will strand yourself. As opposed to getting Rivian’s charge aware route planning that makes use of all that ABRP (or is it PlugShare) rating data that makes reliable choices out of unreliable charge networks.

At a minimum if I were in charge of Rivian’s software I would be unwilling to adopt CarPlay without getting Apple to cough up a way for the truck to influence the routes to make a good charging experience. Which is absolutely possible at a technical level. Apple could make an entitlement gated extension system where maps pushes the route (or endpoints of the route) to the extension, and the extension can add additional stops. Better yet if it can also use UIRemoteView to present some UI inside maps so you could set the driving mode & select a trailer as well as get to a “filter charge networks/adaptors” screen. I mean it is less performance sensitive then PIP, and Apple’s maps already has some plugin support (intended for ride share). It is easily the sort of thing that Apple could do in a single release with a tiny team. Also world wide EVs are popular enough that it would be a good feature for Apple.

...I’m not in charge of software at Rivian, nor at Apple (and even when I worked at Apple I was in charge of very little, like individual projects, not much of anything involving business deals, while plenty of things I worked on ended up being part of the SOU nothing really involving a keynote announcement). So this would be far from a promise, just my idea of what the roadmap _should_ look like.

Um… you’re saying EV unaware. This doesn’t look EV unaware to me.

And really love how it uses the same default approach for charging stops giving me an idea of how much of deviation it will be from my route.

And the real advantage is its fully comprehensive database of networks and actually deployed sites. I can’t tell you the number of roadtrips we’ve been on where if we stuck to Rivian Nav we’d never have embarked on it in the first place. From our first R1T roadtrip, for more than 2/3 of it, Rivian nav kept warning we were embarking on a trip we wouldn’t be able to complete. To this day, Rivian Nav has huge charging deserts that don’t exist in real life. We tow a lot and range would be a limiting factor if we only relied on Rivian Nav. Adding better apps like supporting Apple Maps via CarPlay would greatly simplify roadtrips and make them easier to navigate especially when traveling without a co-pilot/navigator.

But if you want Rivian native… how about going direct and using ABRP live, via CarPlay. It’s much better when live, front and center.

And so many more options and functions that improve over Rivian’s oversimplified Nav app that is woefully unaware of thousands of chargers in the wild.

One of many navigation options and settings (all the same ones you access directly via the app on your phone are available via CarPlay).

And then of course there are the countless number of CarPlay apps available besides ABRP and PlugShare. So many that would make Rivian better for everyone that LOVES the Adventurous side with a Rivian.

And it doesn’t put a fundamental part of the car experience in Apple’s hands. You can still choose to use the native Rivian apps just as the manufacturer’s default infotainment experience isn’t usurped. You still keep the same way to change vehicle settings the car manufacturer designed, and all other functions of the car. My guess is you’ve not used CarPlay in an EV or even an ICE with a deep infotainment stack of its own that supports CarPlay.

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