Rivian should focus on features that set them apart from the rest of the industry, not AA/CP.

[Dark-Fx]

Keep your keyboard warm, interpreting Tony C's Membership Rivianese email, they're gonna start charging by end of day today.

Can't wait to pay monthly for the stellar Rivian NAV system.

Nah, They'll delay the unbundling and claim it was because of backlash that they are going back to the drawing board. It was the plan the whole time.

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[SoCal Rob]

That thread will be "Rivian should be making you pay for this feature that they spent time implementing that isn't required to be used". I'll only bother if they actually start charging for it though.

Not quite. Rivian should charge people for options they want, like enhanced telematics, interior colors other than black, screen projection, exterior colors other than silver, enhanced Driver+, etc.
I don’t see how you got here:
Rivian will MAKE me pay for an option I didn’t choose (screen projection) even though they don’t MAKE me pay for other options I don’t choose.

Your assertion isn’t rational to me.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Not quite. Rivian should charge people for options they want, like enhanced telematics, interior colors other than black, screen projection, exterior colors other than silver, enhanced Driver+, etc.
I don’t see how you got here:
Rivian will MAKE me pay for an option I didn’t choose (screen projection) even though they don’t MAKE me pay for other options I don’t choose.

Your assertion isn’t rational to me.

Not about making ME pay for it. It's that they chose to implement this thing that X people wanted and will be responding to people's backlash that it should be free if they choose to charge for it. If they don't charge for it, I don't really care enough to be a doomsayer that "you guys really should be paying for this" when there's no precedent anywhere in the auto industry as far as I'm aware.

We also still have no idea on how Rivian plans to unbundle their membership and it could end up being included in something I do want, so then your assertion would be true.

 

[mabowden]

Rivian's current differentiating infotainment feature is the lack of CP/AA. It's the one thing nearly every review knocks them on, and according to multiple guides and customer support agents is the single-most requested feature.

Oddly enough, I got a survey today on my 30 days of ownership and it specifically had me rate infotainment. I gave a 2/10 because it is pretty, but minus 8 points because I'm bluetoothing it like I did in 2015.

Every single other aspect I either gave 9 or 10 out of 10 or 5/5 for my guide experience. The product blows me away, it only has one weak point...

 

[Dark-Fx]

Rivian (and Tesla) have native systems already far better than any legacy OEM has developed in the decades that they supposedly have had to develop them, in no small part because they HAD to. Rivian's was one of the reasons I bought it because it was such a cleaner and more enjoyable experience than the cobbled together one from Audi (which is one of if not best of the legacy OEM's). They aren't giving themselves the crutch of just saying, oh well if we fail people will just use CP. That's exactly the culture and environment that promotes innovation and competition. And it's why allowing those apps will be hurtful to their own efforts, just like it has doomed their OEM counterparts. Having a plan B is a good way to ensure Plan A fails, and that's something startups know well.

The UI software on the Hummer EV is currently in some middle ground between a complete re-write and just running on a stock android automotive system. It's kind of buggy and slow and made me want something else. But the problem is, running AA off my phone wasn't really any better and it lost the range estimation information because google didn't support doing that in google maps through AA at the time (I'm not sure if they have fixed this yet as I haven't used AA in 8 months).

Rivian's range estimation when navigating is now constantly updating so it's actually really useful, and it seems to be able to accommodate the fact that I'm driving faster or slower than normal, in cold weather, with snow tires on the truck, etc. I'd hate to give that up for something that's less accurate or doesn't even exist. It's now better than the built-in AAOS google maps estimation was on the Hummer. It seems to be better than the estimation in the Polestar as well.

The stock UI on the BMW that was my rental vehicle was just awful to use for someone who isn't used to it. Not intuitive at all. I completely understand why someone might want to just plug their phone in for something that's familiar versus something that is that difficult. Rivian's UI is night and day better than what I encountered in the BMW. I could see why BMW might want to start charging people for AA/CP when their built-in UI was as terrible as it felt.

 

[mabowden]

I am a huge Apple user and fan. But I am also ambivalent on whether it gets added. There are things I like about CP and I would use it sometimes with Waze, etc but I also wouldn't care if they never add it as long as they continue to improve on their own UI. Rivian could offer both and make most people happy.

This is how I felt before I bought the truck. If they come out with a podcasting app other than spotify I will be happier. I podcast 85% of the time I drive and spotify is hot garbage for podcasting. My coworker did tell me you can use tune-in for podcasts, so I will be trying that soon.

I do miss waze, but Rivian maps are okay enough honestly... Like other users I liked knowing where cops were. I don't speed that much, but I haven't gotten a ticket in 19 years and I attribute a part of that to waze. It allows me to go a bit faster on highways knowing I'll be relatively safe from tickets.

 

[SoCal Rob]

Not about making ME pay for it. It's that they chose to implement this thing that X people wanted and will be responding to people's backlash that it should be free if they choose to charge for it. If they don't charge for it, I don't really care enough to be a doomsayer that "you guys really should be paying for this" when there's no precedent anywhere in the auto industry as far as I'm aware.

We also still have no idea on how Rivian plans to unbundle their membership and it could end up being included in something I do want, so then your assertion would be true.

I doubt that they’d make everyone pay for screen projection by bundling it since they have been touting their native system. I could see their current hubris of "we know what you want better than you do" eventually settling down to "we'll give you the inferior solution you want but we're making you pay for it."

Let’s see how it plays out…

edit:typos

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Stopped by to say CarPlay worked like crap in my Audi and I'm happier with the Rivian system than my Audi with CarPlay. Someone is going to mention text messages or something. I don't send texts while driving, people can leave me alone or wait until I get where I'm going.

 

[mkg3]

I hope that the top thing Rivian is focusing on clearing the backlog ASAP and not introducing options or changes that slow things down that they already are.

After that they should be 200% speed on R2 development and GA facility - The vehicle that will actually save their existence.

 

[Dark-Fx]

This is how I felt before I bought the truck. If they come out with a podcasting app other than spotify I will be happier. I podcast 85% of the time I drive and spotify is hot garbage for podcasting. My coworker did tell me you can use tune-in for podcasts, so I will be trying that soon.

I do miss waze, but Rivian maps are okay enough honestly... Like other users I liked knowing where cops were. I don't speed that much, but I haven't gotten a ticket in 19 years and I attribute a part of that to waze. It allows me to go a bit faster on highways knowing I'll be relatively safe from tickets.

I used to use waze all the time but it didn't get me out of every ticket. I kinda stopped using it after a few speeding tickets, since I realized that I was depending on it too much. I would drive quicker than I really should be in a lot of situations. I haven't been pulled over for speeding since I stopped.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Stopped by to say CarPlay worked like crap in my Audi and I'm happier with the Rivian system than my Audi with CarPlay. Someone is going to mention text messages or something. I don't send texts while driving, people can leave me alone or wait until I get where I'm going.

I'd like to at least know who is sending me messages, but if it's really important enough for me to deal with right then, people generally know to call me. And that works just fine in the truck now.

 

[astonius]

First of all, thank you for posting an argument rather than insults. If you'll humor me I'd love to tackle each of these points.

If CP/AA were truly a free lunch that had only positives and no negatives as the proponents allege, it would be included already, end of story. Rivian is not denying it just to annoy people, they are acting in their own self interest which you can always count on a business to do. That's their entire reason for existence.

Of course they are acting in their own self-interest rather than customer interest. That's the frustration for us CP/AA enthusiasts. Even worse is the way Rivian tries to market this decision as if they are giving us something better in lieu. Honesty wouldn't fix the issue, but it would at least quell the speculation about its absence.

Likewise, it was in every legacy OEM's best interest to include them, because they were caught flat footed, and they operate/d in a intensely competitive business where there was little margin for error and products are largely interchangeable. They had no in house capabilities other than some guy named Steve that went to night school, so the choice was clear. They would have had to immediately convince a bunch of silicon valley software engineers to work for Big Auto, and even then it would have taken years to develop a competitive alternative, which they couldn't afford to do. They implemented them while chuckling and saying, "yeah, you got us there Apple/Google, nice one you rascals...."

There's a couple of issues here. First of all, there were several companies working towards building out their infotainment systems before CP/AA came along who chose to implement screen projection and are still developing their own in-house systems. BMW is the big one that comes to mind. The reason for this is related to my second issue: screen projection IS a feature, not a replacement for native infotainment. That may be your perspective on phone projection as a whole, and no doubt some smaller manufacturers treat it as such, but many recognize the benefits of deep phone integration even with the advent of native applications, which has been covered at length in many threads here. There are a plethora of other in-car tech features which add marketable value with recurring revenue potential which are completely distinct from screen projection and don't require creating a sub-par app experience from scratch which is necessarily more limited in scope than your phone's app ecosystem.

Rivian (and Tesla) have native systems already far better than any legacy OEM has developed in the decades that they supposedly have had to develop them, in no small part because they HAD to. Rivian's was one of the reasons I bought it because it was such a cleaner and more enjoyable experience than the cobbled together one from Audi (which is one of if not best of the legacy OEM's). They aren't giving themselves the crutch of just saying, oh well if we fail people will just use CP. That's exactly the culture and environment that promotes innovation and competition. And it's why allowing those apps will be hurtful to their own efforts, just like it has doomed their OEM counterparts. Having a plan B is a good way to ensure Plan A fails, and that's something startups know well.

In what way is Rivian's system better than legacy OEMs? It's fast and pretty, for sure, but in no way is it remotely as feature-rich. Using bluetooth audio to listen to my music is a distinct and clear step backwards. Zero SMS support is a clear miss. The navigation is incredibly weak. In no way is this a superior experience from a features perspective. Rivian is not competitive. It took them over a year to add one new media app, and it's one of the lowest in market share.

Just like others say you don't have to choose to use CP/AA if it's offered, you don't have to choose to buy a Rivian/Tesla, so it goes both ways. But one thing that sure as hell won't support your argument is buying one anyway. The only thing that will ever convince them to change course is lack of sales. Criticism and requests are worthless noise otherwise.

Have you never provided feedback on a product you otherwise enjoy? How else do you think they make improvements to the experience? Why do you think Rivian reversed course on their pricing hikes for preorder holders? Criticisms and requests.

In what other part of the business world would it make sense strategically to offer a competitor's product in conjunction with your own, because choice is good for the consumer? Do Apple and Google openly allow you to run each other's OS on their phones? A vehicle is no different, even if the legacy OEM's have provided a terrible example.

This essentially goes back to my point about screen projection being a feature of a car's infotainment system, not a replacement. Google builds their apps for macOS/iOS, and Apple builds some of its apps for Android/Windows. There's all sorts of opportunities and examples of understanding when a "competitor" (which I'd argue they aren't, hence why Rivian is perfectly fine with using AAOS under the covers) provides value to your ecosystem rather than attempting to build everything yourself.

And for my last part - if anyone thinks that by giving Apple/Google a total duopoly on all vehicle infotainment systems (in addition to phone software), and they won't use that power to extract profit from it, they are totally delusional. The play has been a long one, but make no mistake, it's a business play. Let's say Rivian and Tesla hold firm, but the 95% of the market keeps playing along. If Apple and Google suddenly say that CP/AA are going to cost $100/mo per vehicle, there is nothing that can be done about it. None of them will have any choice but to comply, and none of them have the margins to absorb that cost. That's what happens when you hand over control, but worse, when everyone does.

How is that any different from Rivian using their power to profit from their system? I'd rather my money and data go to a solution that works, has broad application and appeal, and provides significant benefit as opposed to paying Rivian $10 a month for a useless data plan connected to a sub-par experience.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I'd like to at least know who is sending me messages, but if it's really important enough for me to deal with right then, people generally know to call me. And that works just fine in the truck now.

I've spent years of my professional life being available all the time. I busted my ass to get to a position where people now need to wait for when I AM ready to respond. I would like to possibly know who is sending me messages but it sure is nice to not worry about it until a time of my choosing.

 

[Dark-Fx]

This essentially goes back to my point about screen projection being a feature of a car's infotainment system, not a replacement. Google builds their apps for macOS/iOS, and Apple builds some of its apps for Android/Windows. There's all sorts of opportunities and examples of understanding when a "competitor" (which I'd argue they aren't, hence why Rivian is perfectly fine with using AAOS under the covers) provides value to your ecosystem rather than attempting to build everything yourself.

Next generation of AA and CP both have intentions of essentially replicating/replacing the entire infotainment system.

 

[astonius]

Next generation of AA and CP both have intentions of essentially replicating/replacing the entire infotainment system.

Not exactly. They want to provide an option for a more holistic user interface, but the underlying features still need to be implemented by the car's systems and function without a phone.

Even then, how is AAOS not also a takeover of infotainment by Google?

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