A Rivian owner of two R1 vehicles published a detailed critique of the company’s software quality on Saturday, listing seven bugs that have persisted for over a year.
The Reddit user, who owns two R1S SUVs, titled the critique “The Wet Handshake” — a reference to Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe’s characterization of the R1 as “Rivian‘s handshake with the world.”
“Right now, on the software front, that handshake feels pretty wet and limp,” the owner wrote on Reddit [Full post available below].
The customer attributed the issues to leadership priorities rather than engineering talent.
“Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear that leadership is either failing to give them the tools they need, is prioritizing new feature development and/or R2 software, or is simply too distracted by RV Tech (the JV) and autonomy goals to focus on basic quality,” he added.
RV Tech refers to Rivian’s joint venture with Volkswagen AG, which has committed up to $5.8 billion to access Rivian‘s electrical architecture and software platform.
Seven Bugs Listed
The owner detailed seven issues affecting second-generation R1 vehicles, some of which the poster said could impact safety.
The first involves what the owner called “runaway HVAC,” where the climate system loses the ability to manage cabin temperature on long drives in cold weather, particularly after fast charging.
The owner described cabin temperatures spiking to 90°F while the system indicated it was cooling, with windows fogging during the malfunction.
“The windows fogged up mid-drive and the cabin temp nearly hit 90°F despite dropping the target temp from 71°F to as low as 64°F before we finally opened a window in the 33°F weather,” the owner wrote.
The second issue concerns sensor reliability.
Despite hardware improvements in the second-generation vehicles, the owner said Highway Assist and Cruise Control drop out with “blocked sensors” warnings in conditions as mild as light mist or snow — a regression from improvements made to first-generation vehicles.
“When sensors are ‘blocked,’ seemingly by light rain or thin fog, the truck refuses to fall back to standard cruise control. It just kills all assistance completely, sometimes in a very jarring manner,” the owner wrote.
Additional bugs listed include USB-C ports that reset when devices draw power approaching the rated 60W capacity, map data errors that incorrectly identify overhead structures as tunnels, inaccurate charging preconditioning messaging.
Additionally, the owner mentioned cabin preconditioning that fails to reach target temperatures, and a Snow Mode regenerative braking setting that contradicts the owner’s manual.
The post on Reddit’s r/Rivian forum garnered more than 200 comments in less than 48 hours, with several owners echoing the complaints and one user tagging the company’s software chief Wassym Bensaid directly.
“u/wassymrivian Please just take a little bit of time to read this. These are struggles and frustrations alot of Rivian owners have been feeling and dealing with for a long time now,” the user wrote in a comment that received nearly 200 likes as of press time.
Bensaid was often on Reddit responding to owners directly, but has not replied or posted since October.
Customer Satisfaction at Risk
The owner warned that continued software issues could erode the high customer satisfaction ratings Rivian has maintained.
Last week, the EV maker ranked first for the third consecutive year in Consumer Reports’ Owner Satisfaction ratings, with 85% of owners saying they would buy the company’s vehicles again.
“If these trends continue, those high customer satisfaction ratings that CR publishes are going to start dropping or people are going to move on,” the owner wrote.
The Rivian R1S scored 29 points in the rankings reported last week, while the R1T scored just 18 points — making it the second-worst model for reliability, only ahead of the GMC Acadia at 14 points.
On average, Rivian vehicles rank 26th for reliability, with an average score of 24 points— less than half of Tesla‘s 50 points, which ranks 9th overall.
The owner said the issues have affected their willingness to recommend Rivian‘s upcoming R2 SUV.
“Am I recommending R2 to friends of mine who ask about it? Not currently. The software is a mess and Rivian clearly doesn’t value service.”
Full Post Below
“RJ has said that the R1 is “Rivian’s handshake with the world.”
Right now, on the software front, that handshake feels pretty wet and limp. I’m writing this as a frustrated owner of two R1s. I’m not a hater; I know many folks working on Rivian software, and they are talented people.
I suspect some of the bugs don’t get picked up because Rivian isn’t providing their engineering teams with R1s as part of ownership.
Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear that leadership is either failing to give them the tools they need, is prioritizing new feature development and/or R2 software, or is simply too distracted by RV Tech (the JV) and autonomy goals to focus on basic quality.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of bugs on the Gen 2 R1 that generally have existed for at least a year. These aren’t even the recent bugs. Some of these are “minor,” but some can impact safety. If this is the software experience Rivian plans to provide VW Group owners through the JV, it’s going to be a disaster.
The TL;DR of these bugs: generally minor quibbles that make me wonder what’s happening behind the scene – and frustrated that these “halo” vehicles are still failing the basics.
My hope is that someone at Rivian sees these in one consolidated list, realizes how bad it’s getting, and implement proper QC, testing, and getting the various engineering teams significant amounts of time behind the seat of an R1 to squash what is hopefully a growing backlog. It’s clear to me that the leadership team doesn’t take their R1 outside of the bay area or actually uses their vehicles for any sort of road trip. I can’t imagine these would exist if any of them did.
1. The “Runaway” HVAC The vehicle may lose the ability to manage cabin temp/humidity on long drives in cool weather (<40°F). Particularly after fast charging.
The Behavior: You start comfortably, but after fast charging on a road trip, the cabin temp can spike to 90°F while the system claims it’s cooling the cabin (blue indicators on screen).
Working around it: We have to manually cycle: Defog until it the windshield isn’t fogging up, then run vents only with fresh Air until it gets too cold to tolerate, then turn the HVAC/temp control back on.
Repeat for entire remaining trip. This process ends up being needed just to cool the cabin and keep the windows from fogging up while also not having to pretend I’m on vacation in Cabo while wearing a hoodie and pants.
Why it matters: This happened in our Gen2 R1S last year multiple times and just happened again this week in our Gen 2 R1T that’s still rocking temp plates.
The windows fogged up mid-drive and the cabin temp nearly hit 90°F despite dropping the target temp from 71°F to as low as 64°F before we finally opened a window in the 33°F weather, eventually just turning HVAC off and using the fan to circulate exterior air through the vents.
While I suspect this is a software issue, if it’s a hardware issue like a valve not working, that’s also frustrating because it’s not throwing errors. If this is actually a hardware failure, where is the ‘predictive service’ we were promised?
RJ and Wassym have spent years evangelizing how Rivian leverages fleet data to proactively flag maintenance issues. Yet, in practice, this supposedly advanced system seems capable of detecting a low 12v battery and absolutely nothing else.
2. High-End Sensors, Low-End Reliability For a vehicle touting eventual “eyes-off” autonomy, the sensor suite is rather fragile. Highway Assist and Cruise Control are not immune to dropping out with intermittent “blocked sensors” or “sensor off” warnings in conditions as mild as light mist or light snow.
Remember though, Gen2 is supposed to have a heater to prevent buildup over the radar that was activated in the software last winter.
The Regression: This was an issue on Gen 1 that was largely improved. Now, on Gen 2 with better radar/cameras, it’s back and about as bad as it was during early Gen1 days. The Frustration: When sensors are “blocked,” seemingly by light rain or thin fog, the truck refuses to fall back to standard cruise control. It just kills all assistance completely, sometimes in a very jarring manner that is confusing to the average consumer with warning sounds and flashing red lights. It can seem that something is broken when that happens, and that can happen multiple times on a drive with changing weather conditions.
The truck has a high accuracy radar, why is Rivian unwilling to provide any sort of cruise if the camera is “blocked?” r/Rivian – Note: this specific sensors off happened in right around when the photo of the fogging windshield was taken. My truck obviously wasn’t covered in snow. Note: this specific sensors off happened in right around when the photo of the fogging windshield was taken. My truck obviously wasn’t covered in snow.
3. The USB Power Loop The center console USB-C ports are rated for 60W, but the controller crashes if you actually try to use that power. The only USB chargers I’ve ever owned that boot loops happen to be the ones in my 100k vehicles. Shit, Southwest provides a better experience on seatbacks of their 737s.
Problem: Plug in a device approaching 60W, the USB controller loops/resets. The Result: You lose charging and your Drive Cam (since the flash drive usually lives there). This has been documented, acknowledged by u/wassymrivian and remains largely unfixed. r/Rivian – The “Wet Handshake”: Rivian’s Ignoring of Long-Term Bugs is Getting Old
4. Old Geolocation Bugs Early Gen 1 map data used to incorrectly flag overhead gantries/tolls as “tunnels,” disabling driver assist. Rivian fixed this years ago on Gen 1. The Regression: Somehow, Gen 2 reintroduced this old map data bug. A year and a half into Gen2 and Rivian hasn’t fixed something that they already fixed on Gen1.
5. Lazy UI: Charging Preconditioning A minor but telling detail: The charging screen messaging is wrong. The Logic Error: The app will display “Ready for up to 50kW” or “ready for up to 100kw” and then vehicle will promptly pull more than what they said it would charge “up to.” I’m pretty sure “up to” is supposed to mean less than or equal to, not greater than. It’s a small error, but it highlights the lack of attention to detail in the current software builds.
When I first bought my original Gen1 R1T, one of the things I loved was the attention to detail and thought that Rivian put into things. That is no longer the case. While it hasn’t been a year, this has been present since the new charging app was released in the middle of this year.
6. Cabin Preconditioning Fails Much like the HVAC runaway heat issue, preconditioning just doesn’t achieve the set point. The cabin basically just doesn’t hit the target temp.
If you initiate preconditioning before leaving your house, you’ll likely notice that it will stall out at somewhere around 6°F less than what you set the target to. If you tend to find yourself cold on short drives, go back and look at your cabin data if you have a way to pull the data. It often will not achieve the set temperature.
My spouse has ended up setting the car to 75°F just to get the actual cabin temp to be comfortable for her roughly hour commute. This is a known issue that has persisted through multiple updates. Per the R1 data this is roughly 10 degrees lower than the set point typically.
7. Snow Mode Regen Bug The manual explicitly states that Snow Mode offers “reduced regenerative braking.” The Reality: Snow Mode regen is currently tied to whatever the current regen setting is in another drive mode.
For example: if you have High Regen set in All-Purpose, you get High Regen in Snow Mode (dangerous on ice). Again, this UI conflict was introduced over a year ago and hasn’t been touched.
The Bottom Line: I hope Wassym and the leadership team finally see these issues and take note. I am close friends with many owners, and the sentiment is shifting.
People are losing patience. This isn’t 2022 Rivian. The vehicles have been out for over 3 years. Rivian is making billions off of software from VW.
RJ is looking at billions in a new compensation package. But because the software and service are not improving, people are moving on. Am I recommending R2 to friends of mine who ask about it? Not currently.
The software is a mess and Rivian clearly doesn’t value service. I understand the need to feed the JV and to get that sweet, sweet autonomy subscription money flowing in, but if these trends continue, those high customer satisfaction ratings that CR publishes are going to start dropping or people are going to move on.”
