Rivian's Gen 1 Overlooked: A plea for parity

Rivian Blue · 2025-04-01T08:59:34+00:00

Ever since I got my R1S, I've noticed that the battery range estimation hasn't been the best. Driving a Tesla for the last 3 years, it never had this kind of issue. During my last trip, the driver display shows 255mi remaining. My total trip (including 2 destinations) is 160mi so I believed I should be able to make it easily with a nice cushion. But the center display showed that I would arrive at first destination with 4mi remaining, and run out before the second destination! I knew this was false so I made the drive anyway, and arrived at second destination with 50mi remaining. If I understand correctly, the driver display range is simply the total rated range multiplied by SOC. That makes sense here, since my vehicle is rated for 370mi, 255mi is 68.9%. Coming from Tesla, I expect the number shown in the center display should account for factors like elevation, wind, traffic speed, etc. It's sad that my own mental estimation is better than Rivian's.

J's Rivian

New member

Mar 21, 2025

I already wrote a thread about Gen 1 Rivian's missing out on the vehicle chime, so this is like an extended version of that. For a couple of reasons, 25.06 Gen 2 vs Gen 1 capabilities and Rivian's decision to abandon their early promises for capability development hasn't really sat well with me. I fully understand that the Gen 2 vehicles have better sensors and significantly more advanced processing speed/capacity. And I don't begrudge Rivian for making the advancements to reduce cost and improve their product. I also understand that developing parallel systems for the Gen 1 and Gen 2 will stretch their SW team resources; so, Gen 1 owners will never get the level of autonomy that Gen 2 will achieve.

However, the current capabilities they are rolling out to Gen 2 are well within the hardware capacity of Gen 1. Hands free on pre-mapped highways is really no different than what the truck already does. They would just have to use the camera (that they disabled) in the cabin instead of steering wheel sensors to determine if the driver is paying attention. This was clearly on the original Gen1 roadmap; that's why the camera is in the vehicle.

Like most early adopters, I have continued to sing Rivian's praises to everyone who asks about the truck. Even though I've had a couple of issues with my R1T, I always thought the pain was worth it because the truck is amazing and continued to get better. Some Gen 1 owners might feel this last update is a giant middle finger to the Gen 1 buyers who have promoted the brand and provided the base sales that allowed for the Gen 2 development.

I've never for once thought about abandoning Rivian as I've come to fall deeply in love with the vehicle over time. That been said, I really really hope they do something about the update for Gen 1 owners cause we could also really use the features.

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