Unpredictable Accelerator

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

There is a dead zone. Again, it's there by design for a margin of safety. Even every single ICE car I've owned, with electronic gas pedal, has a dead zone.

If you are convinced there is faulty hardware, simply submit a ticket. Otherwise, if not faulty hardware, the problem is you expecting your R1 to be just like your M3.

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[Dark-Fx]

Maybe I'll see if I can do some test and see if I can measure how far the pedal travel is before I start moving.

Stick your truck in off-road rock crawl, turn off brake hold, see if you feel a difference.

 

[Dave Cundiff]

Sounds like a safety issue, @PortlandJVB. Might be similar to what the Consumer Reports tester found on their model.

After learning the controls, you should be able to inch the vehicle slowly in either direction, and you should have confidence the vehicle will do exactly what you tell it to do.

There is a learning curve in switching from other vehicles to the Rivian -- my learning curve included learning that if I shift from Reverse to Drive gently (which is how the Bolt's shifter is engineered), the Rivian stays in Reverse and may surprise me. I'm working on that.

I would probably take this to Portland Service Center (with or without an appointment) and ask one of the staff to take a test drive with me. They're often very busy, so if you go without an appointment I recommend you take something to read.

After you drive together, you and the SC staff can negotiate what to do about it, and how quickly.

I live much farther away than you do, but I have found all of the staff at Portland Service Center to be very good. Expect good things from them, and you may finish with smiles all around.

Very best wishes!

 

[YouKnowWhatsUp]

Issue: Unpredictable acceleration.
Background: R1S, took delivery in early March. Drive in one-pedal mode with high regen braking. Previous history driving Tesla Model 3.

I think Rivian needs to tune their accelerator. The main issue I’m having is that it seems to respond differently across a variety of conditions, and I don’t know for sure when it will respond certain ways, and lots of the ways it responds, I don’t like.

• [Safety issue] When starting from stop, there is a large deadzone, where I press the pedal, but the car won’t move. This makes parking a pretty gripping experience, especially parallel parking. When I’m trying to get an extra 6-18 inches, it’s pretty hairy pressing down the pedal, slowly, farther, and farther, and farther, and waiting and waiting to move, not really knowing when it will go, and then it seems like sometimes lurches forward, and sometimes creeps slowly. Maybe this is just how impatient I get in any given moment waiting to get out of the deadzone, and the speed at which I depress the accelerator changes? I’ve only had the car for about 2 months, but I’ve had a number of near misses. This will cause me to hit something while parking, at some point.
• [Safety issue] If I’ve also pressed the brake while stopping (as one might do, if trying to park, and the car lurched toward another car), then things can get very… sticky. The brake engages into a “hold” mode, which is great in many circumstances. But when trying to slowly accelerate out of a stop where the brake is engaged, the car doesn’t seem to know when to let go very well, and I find that, at the really low speeds, the brake feels like it lets go, and re-engages, and lets go, making for a very lurchy experience. Again, this will cause me to hit something while parking, at some point.
• And sometimes, accelerating out of a stop seems to have a very small deadzone. This, for me, is the vastly preferred situation. I know when the car will move, and having that smooth and instantaneous acceleration is one of the main reasons why I prefer EVs.
• While driving at medium to high speeds, sometimes there is a delay between when I depress the pedal and when the acceleration kicks in. This feels terrible, like I’m driving an ICE vehicle, and is a major turnoff. Like I said in the above bullet, one of the major reasons I want to drive an EV is the acceleration experience.
• Finally, like I’ve seen in the forums, when I’m going at lower speeds, and hit a bump, like a speed bump, it’s very hard to not get some extra jerking from the car due to the accelerator and the regenerative braking. I’m getting better at managing this, I think.

I understand that fixing one of these issues may exacerbate other ones. That being said, here is what I need: I need to be able to know what my car is going to do! It needs to be consistent. To me, at a minimum that means I need the deadzone to go away, so I know that when I press the pedal, the car will move. Every time. It can’t be that, when I press the pedal, at some point the car will move. That’s dangerous.

So at the minimum, that deadzone in the accelerator when starting from stop needs eliminated, ASAP.

I don’t think I’ve ever posted to a forum like this, but I feel compelled because I’m kind of past my tipping point on this issue.

For me I find lowering the regen when I’m parking helps. If you have ever driven a Tahoe or Escalade they have that same delay in the pedal. The Tesla was super sensitive and precise.

 

[KCFGFE]

I have the same experience as OP. Coming from a Tesla I can feel the same awkward "dead zone" on the R1S. I'm not able to finely maneuver between 0 and 1 mph. There is a travel distance where nothing happens as I slowly put pressure on the accelerator pedal, before it suddenly jerks forward. Seems like it's not able to travel at, for example, 0.5mph or something. Agree with the other poster that Teslas I've driven have that fine control where you can slowly release the pedal to a complete stop at 0mph and slowly push down to gently accelerate. Other drivers have noted this when they test drove my 2024 R1S as well.

I haven't thought of testing out if that happens in other drive modes but I only use all purpose mode anyway and not off-road mode or sport mode when driving around town so that might be a moot point.

 

[ev_fanatic]

Completely agree with OP. While I love the R1S, the Rivian one-pedal experience is sub-par to any other EV I've driven, and this is my 5th brand of EV ownership. The whole dead zone bit is ridiculous - what they should really have is a super-linear increase in acceleration starting _very_ small in the initial zone rather than lurching forward suddenly when the brake hold dead zone is past.

As OP says, Tesla has managed to do this the best and I've never had to think about it before the Rivian.

 

[evguy]

I own a 2018 Model 3 and 2022 R1S. The R1S pedal requires a bit more travel before you get a response, and I've always assumed this was deliberate calibration on Rivian's part due to the greater size, weight and power of the vehicle. I haven't noticed inconsistencies, but my use cases are probably more limited than yours. I wish Model 3 had a high regen option to make the one-pedal experience closer to the R1S.

 

[s4wrxttcs]

In my experience the pedal feel has been subpar compared to my previous Tesla.

The deadzone was too much, and even my SO asked me why it wasn't moving when she tried to drive it. She did get used to it.

The biggest issue is regen is completely unreliable. For example I was at about a 70% state of charge with a reasonably warm battery, and yet all the regen turned off going down a moderate hill.

It just flat turned off, and displayed a "regen reduced" error.

Fairly recently they did add blended braking, but that's not really what I want. I want regen to work. I don't expect it to overcome thermal and physical limitations, but its not anywhere close.

One thing to note is my accelerator pedal was changed out during a service campaign. I was hoping that it would fix the deadzone issue, but it didn't really.

As to a preferences perspective I wish it would have a sportier mapping in sport mode. Not just the throttle, but the tightness of the steering as well.

 

[canyonero]

Seems weird but maybe it's an S vs T thing? I have no issues parking, parallel parking, or inching forward/backward in my T and can't remember the last time I touched the brake pedal. I much prefer it to the hyper-sensitive throttle in my wife's e-tron.

 

[SANZC02]

Seems weird but maybe it's an S vs T thing? I have no issues parking, parallel parking, or inching forward/backward in my T and can't remember the last time I touched the brake pedal. I much prefer it to the hyper-sensitive throttle in my wife's e-tron.

Not an S thing, I have an S, no issues with the pedal, park in a tight garage all the time. Also use 1 pedal driving, most drives never touch the brake pedal.

Accelerator pedal is heavier than our Model S but certainly is 100% predictable in response for us.

 

[Dave Cundiff]

Our 2023 R1S Dual Motor Max Pack (VIN 025xxx) does not have this problem, if I understand the OP and others correctly.

If I want to move less than three inches, I press the accelerator until I hear/feel the hold being released, then feather back the pedal immediately. The resulting movement is less than three inches. I can't predict it within an inch, but I believe I can generally predict and control it within two inches.

This seems to work equally well in Drive and Reverse. This control is about as good as I ever had in an ICE vehicle, either manual or automatic.

If I didn't have that level of control, I would submit a ticket. Precise control is a safety issue.

I hope this helps!

 

[Zoidz]

I have had none of the issues described. Without counting each comment, it seems that most of the people who experience this have owned Teslas in the past? It seems like it's more of a "it's different from what I am accustomed to" issue than a defect?

I drive 3 to 5 different vehicles in a typical week (from my Rivian to an Isuzu box truck to a farm tractor), so maybe I just don't notice the differences....

 

[Dark-Fx]

I have had none of the issues described. Without counting each comment, it seems that most of the people who experience this have owned Teslas in the past? It seems like it's more of a "it's different from what I am accustomed to" issue than a defect?

I drive 3 to 5 different vehicles in a typical week (from my Rivian to an Isuzu box truck to a farm tractor), so maybe I just don't notice the differences....

It definitely seems like that's part of it, but I'd also guess that people start pushing the pedal down, it doesn't start to move, so they push harder and faster and then overshoot how much pedal travel they needed because of the minor delay, and the change in brake hold from static to dynamic friction.

 

[PortlandJVB]

Wide variety of opinions, as expected. For those who don't classify their experiences as problematic, I'm happy for you.

I suppose I may get used the way the Rivian works from 0-1mph, as another poster pretty accurately described the window of my biggest gripe. But, to me, that would constitute just getting used to a fairly inferior product. As I think about it more, I can't directly compare my Tesla experience to the Rivian one, since I haven't had the Tesla for a while now. But I don't recall ever having an issue with parking, or this 0-1mph range with the Tesla. So my feeling is there is probably room for improvement with the Rivian.

I think the people who probably feel my pain the most similarly are the people who are talking about trying to hook up a trailer. That seems like it would be so difficult! I haven't tried, but I can imagine, given the issues I've noticed in other situations.

I tried Rock Crawl with no regen braking, as suggested. It does seem a bit better. But, to nail a fine movement, you have to be really perfect on the pedal, or switch like lightning between gas and brake. However, I staunchly refuse to stab my way through the touchscreen menus every time I want to park. That's no long-term solution. I could see some combination of tactile buttons to enter a "park mode" that did something disable regen braking and brake hold, and even maybe enabled a slow creep forward so that everything was controlled with the brake, like an ICE vehicle. The more I think about it, the more difficult the theoretical problem of minute movements seems with the one pedal setup. Especially for trailer situations.

It's all digital, right? Seems like there should be a trailer hookup mode where the car doesn't move with pedals, and scrolling one click on the volume control moves the car 1 inch forward or backward... Someone's probably already proposed something like that.

Anyway, I suppose where I'm settling out is that this likely isn't a flawed product, its my own dissatisfaction with a part of the driving experience. I'll chalk it up to personal opinion, and a part of my opinion is that they can probably do a lot better. I'll still keep an eye on things, and may reach out to service at some point, just to check.

Thanks for all the responses.

 

[srkz]

It's consistent, it just consistently sucks. Polestar has a beautifully mapped accelerator pedal for low speeds and it would be incredible if we could get that same level of finesse on the Rivian. Even after the update where they "addressed" low speed acceleration issues, it's still pretty awful trying to move only a couple of inches smoothly without lurching a bit against the auto-hold, but that's exactly the kind of thing you have to do quite frequently when towing and rock-crawling, two things that are very specifically in Rivian's niche.

Not broken, but needs improvement.

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