Rivian’s Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid defended the EV maker’s maintenance policy after a viral post accused the company of preventing owners from replacing their 12-volt batteries without voiding the warranty.
Zack, who has nearly 10 million YouTube subscribers, had shared on X that Rivian refused to sell him a 12-volt battery for self-installation after his unit failed, warning that using a non-Rivian replacement could void his warranty.
In a reply on X, Bensaid thanked YouTuber Zack Nelson — known as JerryRigEverything — for his feedback and said Rivian wasn’t intentionally harmful.
“There’s nothing intentional behind it — this would have required a diagnostic tool to clear the error codes after 12V battery replacement,” he wrote.
The executive added that Rivian is “working on an in-vehicle service menu that will make similar repairs possible by our owners in the future.”
The YouTuber had complaint for not being allowed by the EV maker to replace the 12-volt batteries by himself.
“My 12V batteries died after 3.5 years,” he 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.”
The tech reviewer shared a service invoice showing the company charged $775.04 to replace two 12-volt batteries — including $511.30 in parts, $231 in labor, and $53.74 in tax at a 7.45% rate.
“The kicker? Rivian charges $775.04 to replace the two 12V batteries. (That’s what I paid for my first car, and it came with a 12V battery.),” the YouTuber wrote in the post.
His post, viewed more than 1.6 million times and liked 21,000 times as of early Friday, drew over 1,400 replies.
“You build a software-defined vehicle from the ground up but require a scan tool to reset a 12V alert???” one user wrote.
Another added: “What about people who change their own 12V batteries and come in to clear the code? You can charge, what, half an hour of labor for clearing the code?”
Nelson contrasted Rivian’s stance with Tesla’s more open repair ecosystem. “I could snap my Cybertruck 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 controversy rekindled debate over automakers’ “right-to-repair” policies.
Some users cited the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which bars companies from conditioning warranty coverage on the use of branded parts unless provided free of charge or exempted by the Federal Trade Commission.
