My Rivian Driver+ almost killed me

[Zoidz]

It behaved as intended. AI is here to kill us,

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[White Shadow]

Just realize that you guys are all beta testers for this self-driving technology and be safe out there.

I was just watching a video last night from EV Dave (I'm not sure if he's on this forum, but he has an R1T as well as a Lightning, a couple of Teslas) and he was using full self driving on his Model Y to drive back roads from his house to a restaurant and the vehicle did a great job of negotiating curvy mountain roads, stop signs/intersections, all with zero input from Dave as a driver. It was pretty impressive.

 

[White Shadow]

I think that's a fair and measured response and certainly respect your point of view. The fact that I waited 4 months to post about this probably suggests that my intent isn't to 'sensationalize' the event. While it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that I am an emo who is so distraught by the incident that I'm making a bunch of stuff up, all I can tell you is the events as they happened. If you were in the drivers seat you would have experienced them the same way I did unfortunately. As far as 'there is no coming back from etc.' Well yep, there is but it was a very near thing. Fishtailing on dry pavement back and forth after the incident was the almost 'not coming back'. Again don't want to discount your feedback (it seems thoughtful, measured and well informed) but also don't want to put unicorns and moonbeams on this incident either and this is definitely a safety hazard.

Did you save the dashcam footage? It would be great to see.

Edit: Nevermind, already asked and answered. If my car almost killed me, I'd certainly save the video clip.

 

[Nacho Rivian]

Several months ago I had an incident with Driver's Plus that came very close to taking my life. I have been working with Rivian since that time to try to get to the bottom of the issue and figure out why it happened. I would have posted about this earlier but I wanted to some answers before sharing my experience with the community. I have been a staunch advocate of the Rivian brand so this isn't a 'hate on Rivian' post but rather a fact based (at least as I recall the events) warning to those who own Rivian's and use the Drivers+ feature.

Here's the facts...

• Driving at highway speeds in southern Wyoming
• Road was straight as an arrow (no obstructions etc.) and dry pavement (not slippery etc.), weather conditions fair (no rain etc.)
• Using Drivers+
• Occasionally would take both hands off the wheel (will never do this again) until the car 'chirped' and then would put hands on wheel again

On one of these occasions Drivers+ lurched the steering wheel to the left violently (at highway speed) as if it had detected some sort of obstruction on the road (there was none, bare flat as far as the eye could see). I grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and fought as hard as I could against Driver's+ to prevent it taking me off the road at highway speed (it was trying to take me off the left side of the highway). This was not a 'passive hands off loss of control' type incident, this was absolutely fighting the fully engaged automatic steering for control. I managed through brute force to overcome Drivers+ and proceed to fishtail on dry pavement for quite some time as I fought to correct the initial engagement (which was now disengaged after I overpowered it). I can honestly say this is the closest I have ever come to dying in a vehicle.

I reported the incident to Rivian immediately and asked them to pull the telemetry on the vehicle to try to figure out what happened. I won't go into the 10 hours of calls, failed follow ups, outright lies etc. with the call center as that in itself is another sad (and quite frankly surprising) story. I will tell you however that the determination of the engineering team (after 4 months) was that it was caused by the driver (apparently according to them I initiated a sharp left turn at highway speed into the ditch as I had a death wish) All I can tell you is that factually that isn't what happened and while I understand their desire to absolve themselves of liability due to the seriousness of the incident that doesn't protect other drivers who may face the same issue. Though I remain a Rivian fan I can't in good conscience not share this experience with the community knowing what happened and that it could happen to someone else, I certainly hope it doesn't.

Should I have taken both hands off the steering wheel at any point? Absolutely not, stupid, risky and will never do so again. Does that in itself change that this system catastrophically failed and almost killed me and may kill others? Nope, not a bit.

Sorry to hear that it happened to you. All current driver assistance features are not intended to keep your hands off, not even Tesla. Keep your hands on at all times. Please do not fall into the traps of delusional autopilot things.

 

[Spork8]

I had a few incidents using highway assist in the early months of first owning my T. Consistently when taking it in to their temp service center in Plymouth, it would attempt to veer off the road into a bridge at a specific exit. It was almost like it couldn't decipher the exit lane markings vs the highway shoulder markings. This was before incident cam / drive cam / all the cams so I couldn't give them footage, but when calling customer service they just needed the exit number / mile marker, the highway, and the direction of travel for their navigation team. Since those few incidents, I haven't experienced anymore AI uprisings at that location.

With all that said, I have taken long trips in the R1T and used HA extensively. I always keep a hand on the wheel, even if just loosely there, because the camera sometimes will use the seam in the road instead of the painted lane markings. I've also had it where those strip repairs in the road cause issues with the camera, or even skid marks.

 

[endress14]

I’m a bit surprised that there are so many reports of people having to “fight” the wheel while being steered off the road. I’m sure that’s accurate, but during these episodes does nobody have the gut reaction to tap the brake and disengage the system that way? I’d like to think that would be my first move, but haven’t been put into that situation.

 

[Spork8]

I’m a bit surprised that there are so many reports of people having to “fight” the wheel while being steered off the road. I’m sure that’s accurate, but during these episodes does nobody have the gut reaction to tap the brake and disengage the system that way? I’d like to think that would be my first move, but haven’t been put into that situation.

I have yet had to "fight" the wheel. For me it is faster and easier to flip the right stalk up to disengage than to tap the brake to disengage. I usually force the wheel to disengage HA. I also do not find the CCS DCFC cable ends to be difficult to handle either, sometimes the cable is stiff but that is about it. To each their own I guess.

 

[cjust2006]

Several months ago I had an incident with Driver's Plus that came very close to taking my life. I have been working with Rivian since that time to try to get to the bottom of the issue and figure out why it happened. I would have posted about this earlier but I wanted to some answers before sharing my experience with the community. I have been a staunch advocate of the Rivian brand so this isn't a 'hate on Rivian' post but rather a fact based (at least as I recall the events) warning to those who own Rivian's and use the Drivers+ feature.

Here's the facts...

• Driving at highway speeds in southern Wyoming
• Road was straight as an arrow (no obstructions etc.) and dry pavement (not slippery etc.), weather conditions fair (no rain etc.)
• Using Drivers+
• Occasionally would take both hands off the wheel (will never do this again) until the car 'chirped' and then would put hands on wheel again

On one of these occasions Drivers+ lurched the steering wheel to the left violently (at highway speed) as if it had detected some sort of obstruction on the road (there was none, bare flat as far as the eye could see). I grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and fought as hard as I could against Driver's+ to prevent it taking me off the road at highway speed (it was trying to take me off the left side of the highway). This was not a 'passive hands off loss of control' type incident, this was absolutely fighting the fully engaged automatic steering for control. I managed through brute force to overcome Drivers+ and proceed to fishtail on dry pavement for quite some time as I fought to correct the initial engagement (which was now disengaged after I overpowered it). I can honestly say this is the closest I have ever come to dying in a vehicle.

I reported the incident to Rivian immediately and asked them to pull the telemetry on the vehicle to try to figure out what happened. I won't go into the 10 hours of calls, failed follow ups, outright lies etc. with the call center as that in itself is another sad (and quite frankly surprising) story. I will tell you however that the determination of the engineering team (after 4 months) was that it was caused by the driver (apparently according to them I initiated a sharp left turn at highway speed into the ditch as I had a death wish) All I can tell you is that factually that isn't what happened and while I understand their desire to absolve themselves of liability due to the seriousness of the incident that doesn't protect other drivers who may face the same issue. Though I remain a Rivian fan I can't in good conscience not share this experience with the community knowing what happened and that it could happen to someone else, I certainly hope it doesn't.

Should I have taken both hands off the steering wheel at any point? Absolutely not, stupid, risky and will never do so again. Does that in itself change that this system catastrophically failed and almost killed me and may kill others? Nope, not a bit.

What were the lane markings like? Where was the sun in relation to the front camera? You absolutely did not overcome the motor that did this if it malfunctioned. Most motors for lane keeping are like 1HP motors. You've written a lot without telling us nearly enough.

 

[cjust2006]

I think that's awesome that you have that and I certainly wish I did. Unfortunately this happened 4 months ago and to the best of my knowledge it isn't on the drivecam (though it's worth double checking) I personally have had several incidents that I felt were 'drivecam worthy' that didn't get registered so I'm not sure how much confidence i have in that system. Insofar as the skeptics go I don't waste much energy on such things. My conscience is clear in posting about the experience and my lessons learned and I'll leave it to each individual to choose to learn from my experience or not.

Every moment of driving is recorded until storage is full. How was that not the first thing you grabbed?

 

[GANTZ]

I have yet had to "fight" the wheel. For me it is faster and easier to flip the right stalk up to disengage than to tap the brake to disengage. I usually force the wheel to disengage HA. I also do not find the CCS DCFC cable ends to be difficult to handle either, sometimes the cable is stiff but that is about it. To each their own I guess.

I use my D+ as much as possible and yes there have been occasions in which the vehicle veers off a bit but I agree with Spork8 I never had to fight the wheel. So I’ll chalk this one up as unique issue.

 

[SactownD]

I’ve had driver plus attempt to steer me off the road on several occasions: when the lane markings become non existent over Donner Summit, aberrant shadows, corners with indistinct markings , construction zones with poor lane markings, but I’ve always resumed control with a quick turn of the wheel. Fighting violently against the steering is not something I’ve experienced. Sounds like something wrong with the mechanism that lets you disengage the auto steering.

It is definitely not something I use without extreme vigilance. Straight sections of highway with perfect lane markings and no shadows seems to be the only scenario that it does well with.

 

[SkiLizardHead2]

That's fascinating. I distinctly remember passing over one of those small 'bridges' as it happened, right in the area you describe too. I will pass this information along to Rivian. My primary goal is to prevent this sort of thing from happening to other drivers.

Tesla Autopilot (enhanced version) sometimes has false positives - (sudden braking when no object present in front). Also some of these false positives appear to be correlated to optical illusions like mirages due to sun lighting conditions on a warm road surface, or perhaps an error in the geo database since sometimes they always happen at the same location. Looks like this happened in winter, but a sunny day in Wy in winter might produce some optical issues? i would submit a report to the Feds - NTSB that will get more attention to Rivian.

You should record what software version and geo database (if available) your R1S was operating at the time.

 

[ndmiller]

There should be a harder test to get access to Driver +. Thread title should be changed as it's misleading at best clickbait at worst. I've driven 2K+ miles using Driver + using as it's designed but I'm sure if I didn't I could almost crash as well.

 

[iBang]

I'm in tech and have been using various driver assist systems from Audi, VW, Tesla, Ford, Rivian, etc for over 10 years and heavily embrace them. I push them all to the limits and they all have faults. I have videos of Bluecruise taking me off the road, but they are just assist systems, and not at all meant for total control of the vehicle. Therefore, while BC took me off the road, I was always in charge to regain control.

That being said, you say it turned "violently" left and then you said you fought to remain on the road and in control. If the vehicle turned "violently" left at highway speeds you would have likely rolled it. There's no remaining in control in a situation like that. Additionally, I don't know of any ADAS system that will turn sharply. They are designed with very tight limits on how much they will turn, purposefully to avoid what you are describing. You go on to say you overcame it with brute force. Again, all ADAS systems will be overridden with slight torque applied to the steering wheel. It doesn't require brute force...

I'm not sure if you're over sensationalizing the event because it scared the crap out of you, but it just doesn't sound right. I find it more plausible that it took you to the left on accident and you over corrected because you weren't paying full attention. If in deed it took you "violently" left and you had to "wrestle" with the vehicle to regain control I suggest you file an honest complaint with NHTSA.

lol you sound like Rivian's driver+ software team engineer...

 

[Whale Blubber]

I've had a at least three instances where HA/D+ pulled me suddenly and rapidly to the left in error, while at 70+ mph in the left-most lane of 183N in Austin. I chalk this up to the fact that there is construction all over the place, and the lanes and barriers are totally screwed up, to put it mildly. On two of those occasions my nose would have been cleaved around the beginning of a temporary cement barrier, but I had my finger hooked into the wheel and was able to quickly yank it back into the actual lane where it belonged. It took a bit of force to do that, for sure, but I have mighty fingers from all the 100-day One-Punch Man workouts I do. Anyway, TLDR, yeah be careful out there with AI piloting you places; it's designed to wipe us out. I still love it, but I don't use it on 183N any longer, except in traffic jams where I can basically just get out and run if I have to.

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