EV maker Rivian is facing criticism from consumers after a YouTuber with nearly 10 million followers accused the EV maker of preventing owners from replacing the 12-volt battery, without risking their warranty.
Zack Nelson — known online as JerryRigEverything and followed by over 900,000 users on X and nearly 10 million on YouTube — said in a post that Rivian refused to sell him a 12-volt battery for self-installation after his unit failed.
The company allegedly warned that using a non-Rivian replacement could void the warranty.
“My 12v batteries died after 3.5 years,” Nelson wrote. “However – Rivian won’t sell me a 12v battery to install myself. And they say if I buy anything off the shelf it could void my warranty.”
He shared a repair invoice showing Rivian charged $775.04 to replace two 12-volt batteries, including $511.30 in parts and $231 in labor, a cost he compared to what he once paid for an entire car.
“The kicker? Rivian charges $775.04 dollars to replace the two 12v batteries. (That’s what I paid for my first car and it came with a 12v battery,)” he wrote.
As of press time, the post had reached 1.2 million people and gathered 19,000 likes.
The tech reviewer contrasted Rivian’s stance with how a similar situation would be handled with his Tesla Cybertruck.
“I could snap my Cybertuck in half and Tesla would give me a manual on how to glue it back together,” he wrote. “But Rivian won’t even let me replace a 12v battery on my own.”
The post quickly spread on social media, reigniting a debate over automakers’ “right-to-repair” policies.
One of the top-voted comments noted that if Rivian’s policy discourages third-party parts or self-service, it could violate the’ Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act’ and Federal Trade Commission rules.
The rules prohibit conditioning warranty coverage on the use of branded parts.
Under 15 U.S.C. § 2302(c) and 16 CFR § 700.10, manufacturers cannot tie warranty validity to the use of their own authorized parts or service unless those parts are provided free of charge or the company has obtained a waiver from the FTC.
David Barclay, who served at the FTC, posted the relevant section of federal law on X, calling Rivian’s practice “illegal under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and FTC rules.”
The company’s warranty terms state that repairs must be performed by Rivian or authorized service centers.
However, they do not explicitly mention consumer-performed replacements of 12-volt batteries — a component generally considered a wear-and-tear item in both gasoline and electric vehicles.
Rivian’s design originally featured two compact 12-volt batteries, positioned side by side near the firewall to free up additional space in the front trunk, according to the X user Alex Edgerton.
After a software malfunction in 2023 temporarily disrupted 12-volt charging and created a shortage of replacement units, the company revised the setup—substituting one of the batteries with a capacitor.
Although it appears identical from the outside, the new component doesn’t store power, and Rivian’s manuals and documentation still refer to both units as batteries, Edgerton noted this Thursday.
As reported earlier this week, Rivian is preparing to replace Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant with Google’s Gemini AI platform in its vehicles.
The company’s founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said this week Rivian remains opposed to integrating Apple’s CarPlay.
