What Do We Want in a Tonneau Cover? My Email to Rivian

[TimJim]

I just sent a copy of the below email to Rivian. If you feel the same or have you own ideas, I suggest you reach out to Rivian and let your voice be heard as well.

Dear Tony,

I am taking you up on your offer to “reach out.” Please do not just pass this email along to my guide who already knows how I feel about these issues but is not capable of responding because she doesn’t know the answers. It would be fantastic to hear back from someone who has some real input over these decisions.

I need some clarification regarding the various tonneau cover options and I would like to share some insight along the way. From the beginning, I will say that I understand the need for a redesign. However you have left too much unclear. We need some idea of when the redesign will be done and when the new powered tonneau will be being delivered on our trucks. My current delivery window is January/February 2023. If the new powered tonneau will be available by the end of April, I would probably be willing to wait. If I had to wait an extra year, I would probably take the truck at the currently scheduled date and await aftermarket options.

Another thing that would make this decision easier would be some information on this manual tonneau cover. Will I be able to access the bed of the truck without dropping the tailgate? Will I be able to use the gear guard cables with the manual tonneau cover on and secured? We still haven’t seen a design of this or know how it would work in actual use.

What I really want, and what I suspect many people loved about the powered tonneau cover is that it retracted. I would love the ability to slide the rails back into the hidden compartment to get stuff out of the bed without dropping the tailgate (especially if I have my hitch mounted bike rack back there… you know adventure gear). I would also like to be able to almost completely close (or better yet, completely close) the tonneau while being able to use the gear guard cables to secure my family bikes to the hitch mounted rack. The fact that the cover was electronically powered is/was super cool, but that is not the main selling point for a person like me, and I think many others like me. The nature of the cover retracting is what made it cool. I don’t need it to have an electric motor; that is far less important than the fact that it retracts. The problem with the purported 4 panel design is that I’m not sure I can still have locked storage while taking adventure gear like bikes or be able to use gear guard cables. The problem is also storage. Yes it will fit in the gear tunnel once removed, but what if I have my future camp kitchen in there? This is an adventure vehicle and Rivian has done a brilliant job getting everything to fit. You have the space for a retractable tonneau, whether powered or manual: I implore you to use it.

Please do not put your loyal customers who have been waiting for a year or more in a position that they got their truck in a window where they couldn’t get what they wanted, but everyone two months before or after them could. I know this is complicated, but I have confidence that you can figure it out. Please deliver trucks that are what we want, even if it is not perfect upon delivery, but can be retrofitted to what we really want. If the redesigned tonneau cover is more expensive than the original, I am willing to pay the added cost when it becomes available. However, it appears that for people who are going to be taking delivery soon our only option is to take a tonneau cover that we know nothing about and be happy with it, and we do not have the option to upgrade to the tonneau cover we want later. If that sentiment reflects reality, that is not a good way to reward a loyal customer base from a new company. It appears that you make a fantastic product and have a great community with great people, but it appears that you are making a large mistake here. Please keep us updated and please give us the options and features we want. Everyone should be able to get as close to the truck that they originally ordered as possible. People should not be treated differently because of the timing in which their number was called.

Sponsored

 

[MrMetlHed]

Yeah, I agree with the "I want to be able to store the Manual Tonneau Cover in the same spot where the powered one would go" bit. Seems odd that space would just be empty when it's obviously the perfect spot to put the thing. And if there are more slats than 4, so what? I don't get why that wasn't the first option as opposed to something that may take up valuable Gear Tunnel space. Of course maybe they've realized this already and just haven't communicated it yet because Rivian.

Incidentally, I mentioned this same thing to my guide earlier today, so hopefully it goes on a list somewhere. It's really annoying to be trapped into a situation that earlier orders and later orders aren't, given that I've just been assigned a guide and will probably have a truck in the next couple of months. Gonna be a large group of people that have these weird orphan R1Ts with an oddball design.

 

[goldburger]

my point to my guide was similar-- it sucks that we can't just get and pay for the broken/locked cover, especially if they are designing a new one that can be retrofit into the existing broken powered cover trucks. i told him how awful it would be to get the truck and miss out on a new version by a month or two or even 6...

 

[goldburger]

What’s the email address you sent this to?

 

[kylealden]

Yeah, I agree with the "I want to be able to store the Manual Tonneau Cover in the same spot where the powered one would go" bit. Seems odd that space would just be empty when it's obviously the perfect spot to put the thing. And if there are more slats than 4, so what? I don't get why that wasn't the first option as opposed to something that may take up valuable Gear Tunnel space. Of course maybe they've realized this already and just haven't communicated it yet because Rivian.

I suspect that asking for a manual cover that retracts into the same spot as the powered cover is a lost cause. The reason the powered cover is so tricky and keeps jamming is a direct function of the extremely high packaging efficiency and the fact that it needs to be nearly perfectly aligned on both sides as it retracts. The tiniest bit of lateral desync due to uneven loading (even from torsion in the rod between gears) is enough to cause it to jam. Even with significant reengineering, I think the tolerances will be too tight to hand-actuate without a high risk of jamming.

It also probably doesn't make financial sense. The electric motor is likely not the majority cost driver for the powered tonneau; it's the full assembly (slats, gearing, motor, stacking assembly, and other hardware). The manual tonneau exists to be cheaper and is cheaper by only being a fraction of the complexity (just a few panels).

All of that to say, your requests for clarity are reasonable, but I don't think there's a world where we get the manual cover stacking in the same location. There just isn't any wiggle room in the packaging without intruding on the gear tunnel, which is an immovable monument at this point (any change there would cascade to a redesign of most major body components on the vehicle).

 

[TimJim]

***UPDATE

I received a response from my guide yesterday. I attempted to give my guide a break by emailing Rivian customer service from the link where Tony suggested that we “reach out.” In his email, the link to “reach out” leads to the general Rivian Support Center. I emailed the “contact us” email which is just [email protected]. Despite my best efforts, it appears that my email was routed to my guide. My guide assured me that she sent it to both Tony and her supervisors. She was very receptive and thanked me for giving honest input and feedback. It seems like they are listening if not acting yet. She did give me some updates regarding the manual tonneau cover.

My guide does not know anything regarding timing but she was able to give me some insight. Even if the redesign were to happen by April, the chances that new trucks would be delivered before the second half of 2023 would be unrealistic. She went so far as to say that, in her opinion, the earliest would be the latter half of 2023 but she noted that opinion was also her own speculation and nothing that the company has told her. I very much appreciated her candor in telling me this.

Also, the manual tonneau cover design is what I feared. It is just 4 slats and it cannot be opened without opening the tailgate. If you want access to the truck bed, you have to drop the tailgate. This is frustrating because even my old snug lid on my 1997 Mazda B2300 and the tonneau cover on my 2006 Subaru Baja had the ability to access the truck bed without dropping the tailgate. My guide also confirmed that we cannot use the gear guard cables with all four of the panels installed. There is no channel or way to thread the cable through the slats. It is possible to install only 3 panels and that would leave a place for the gear guard cable to come out of the bed and attach to the racks to secure gear. This option in my opinion is completely useless and a major design flaw. Why would anyone leave 1/4 of their truck bed exposed to weather and for anyone to take what is inside. I would just remove the whole cover at that point. The powered tonneau has the option to stop the cover anywhere along the track… meaning you could almost completely close the cover leaving only the smallest gap to fit the gear guard cables. No such luck with the manual tonneau.

My guide assured me that she did pass along my email to her superiors and to Tony. I believe her when she says that she did so. She has always done her best to be a straight shooter with me which I appreciate. I honestly think that if enough people tell them that they want a retractable option and/or the option to have the powered version added after the redesign is done, they will listen. If not, I will be exploring aftermarket options and ditching the manual tonneau cover as soon as I can.

 

[jbronkoR1T]

Yeah I had this on my list to ask my guide. I'm getting no tonneau when mine is delivered (hopefully in a few weeks). I saw a tonneau for another truck that rolled back into a roll like a small carpet, and then had a strap that you pull to extend it wherever you wanted. I would prefer that to 4 sections that have to be stored elsewhere.

 

[chrismc]

Another major issue to the tonneau debacle is that Rivian’s inability to communicate any plan here is sabotaging any potential aftermarket options. What company is going to invest in designing and setting up a supply-chain and tooling for a product that could be rendered unsellable in the market based off of the whims of what Rivian decides to do? Rivian has strongly failed to support and embrace aftermarket manufacturers across the board (which could actually fill some crucial product gaps and create a broader potential R1 market) , and the tonneau cover is the most glaring example of this misstep.

Sponsored