Does anyone else want Drive Mode pre-selection?

[SoCal Rob]

I’ve bumped into issues where I wish that I could choose my Drive Mode settings (without the vehicle doing anything) and then commit the change with a button labeled, “OK,” “Do it!” “Make it so,” or whatever is on brand for Rivian.

Why? Here are two examples:

There are times when my Rivian remembers settings from the last use that I don’t want to use now. The last time I used Sport Mode, over 2 weeks ago, I had selected it just to lower the suspension to Lowest to make it easy for my mom to climb in. Today, I find myself driving down the road and I want to switch to sport mode. I’m at a red traffic light so I switch to Sport and as the light changes I realize that I’d forgotten it was in Lowest and I only want it in Low. I don’t want the rough ride so I have to switch back to Low as quickly as possible. What I would like is if I could‘ve selected Sport, seen the ride feel and height settings, changed them if desired, and then commit the change to go directly to what I want. This means I don’t have to handle any follow-up changes because I made all the choices up front when I had low/no workload as a driver.

Another scenario is that we’ve gone from pavement onto a rough dirt road where Rally would be more comfortable. When I tap Off Road I get a message that I can’t until I slow down under 25 mph because the last time I used an off road mode I was in Rock Crawl. So I have to slow down, tap Off Road, and then select Rally. Only then can I go back up to 30 mph. It would be better if I could just go into Off Road (where the options which are unavailable at current speed are grayed out), tap Rally, and then commit the change.

These are just two examples and I’m wondering if anyone else trips across these kinds of issues and would like to see a similar change.

Oh, and at a bare minimum Rivian, please, PLEASE change the ride feel control from a tap-to-toggle between 3 states to an up/down as done with items which permit 3+ states.

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[SSteveEV]

I'd support something like this.
My complaint is simpler to fix which may cover some fraction of yours.
When switching ride modes that could be in the same height but aren't currently you get an error message saying "cannot switch" due to speed. I'd like that error message to have an option to say "change mode at current height".

 

[clostridium]

I’ve bumped into issues where I wish that I could choose my Drive Mode settings (without the vehicle doing anything) and then commit the change with a button labeled, “OK,” “Do it!” “Make it so,” or whatever is on brand for Rivian.

Why? Here are two examples:

There are times when my Rivian remembers settings from the last use that I don’t want to use now. The last time I used Sport Mode, over 2 weeks ago, I had selected it just to lower the suspension to Lowest to make it easy for my mom to climb in. Today, I find myself driving down the road and I want to switch to sport mode. I’m at a red traffic light so I switch to Sport and as the light changes I realize that I’d forgotten it was in Lowest and I only want it in Low. I don’t want the rough ride so I have to switch back to Low as quickly as possible. What I would like is if I could‘ve selected Sport, seen the ride feel and height settings, changed them if desired, and then commit the change to go directly to what I want. This means I don’t have to handle any follow-up changes because I made all the choices up front when I had low/no workload as a driver.

Another scenario is that we’ve gone from pavement onto a rough dirt road where Rally would be more comfortable. When I tap Off Road I get a message that I can’t until I slow down under 25 mph because the last time I used an off road mode I was in Rock Crawl. So I have to slow down, tap Off Road, and then select Rally. Only then can I go back up to 30 mph. It would be better if I could just go into Off Road (where the options which are unavailable at current speed are grayed out), tap Rally, and then commit the change.

These are just two examples and I’m wondering if anyone else trips across these kinds of issues and would like to see a similar change.

Oh, and at a bare minimum Rivian, please, PLEASE change the ride feel control from a tap-to-toggle between 3 states to an up/down as done with items which permit 3+ states.

the drive mode interface is a bit clunky to use while driving. It’s pretty and explanatory but none of that is what you want while driving. I’d like to see another way to change modes without traversing the main screen and having to press a few times.

I’d like to be able to pull up a customizable tab in the driver display you can control with the left sided steering wheel controls. This could include a variety of things normally controlled with the touchscreen one of which would be drive modes. Then you could add in a way to toggle drive modes easily without the touch screen. And it would allow you to choose from the default drive mode settings or have a customized version of each one with options preselected.

it took Tesla a few years to fully leverage the steering wheel buttons to allow custom controls and I’d like to see Rivian do that too as well as providing a way to customize one or two screens just like we can on our phones. We are all going to have opinions about what we want so let us do it ourselves.

 

[beatle]

I want to make fewer interactions with the screen for common tasks. I don't want to have to "commit" the changes as a third, fourth, or fifth step of adjusting the suspension or drive mode. It is bad enough that Rivian kicks us out of sport mode after the truck sleeps, and that they reset auto ride height in all purpose mode. This forces me to interact with the suspension screen almost every time I get in. Having to tap another prompt just seems crazy.

I mention this in almost every thread about suspension settings, but if Rivian allowed us to map a favorite drive mode to the right steering wheel button would solve much of this since it would be very quick to do without even looking at the screen. Oh, and allow full power in all purpose mode.

 

[Dark-Fx]

How about automatically putting my truck into sport mode whenever I'm first at a stoplight?

 

[SoCal Rob]

the drive mode interface is a bit clunky to use while driving. It’s pretty and explanatory but none of that is what you want while driving. I’d like to see another way to change modes without traversing the main screen and having to press a few times.

I’d like to be able to pull up a customizable tab in the driver display you can control with the left sided steering wheel controls. This could include a variety of things normally controlled with the touchscreen one of which would be drive modes. Then you could add in a way to toggle drive modes easily without the touch screen. And it would allow you to choose from the default drive mode settings or have a customized version of each one with options preselected.

it took Tesla a few years to fully leverage the steering wheel buttons to allow custom controls and I’d like to see Rivian do that too as well as providing a way to customize one or two screens just like we can on our phones. We are all going to have opinions about what we want so let us do it ourselves.

I really like the idea of presets which can be selected from the steering wheel controls and the left side of the driver display could benefit from some changes. Ever since the gauges were added to the driver display mode screen, I’ve wondered why 1 of the 3 choices we have is TPMS. That made sense when there was no other way to view it, but it seems like a waste of real estate to me. I always pictured getting a media display there so you could see playing song/podcast info, select from different sources, see upcoming track, etc. Even that seems redundant since most of the information could be displayed in a banner or crawl so given a choice I’d go for drive mode presets instead.

I think the limited number of steering wheel controls can hamper how interactive the left side of the driver display can be, though. So, even if I’m in a drive modes favorite list, I still want to be able to adjust volume and mute/pause the audio which means all we have left are the left and right buttons. What I’m picturing is that we could move sequentially through a list of presets in either direction and then what is showing becomes the active selection after a delay. What I don’t like about that is part of what I dislike about the current drive modes interface: once you start interacting with it must continue to pay attention to it until you’re satisfied with what you have. So, as an example, if I start changing presets on the highway and someone nearly changes lanes into me, it could be that while I’m avoiding a collision the drive mode settings get changed to whatever preset I happened to be on when my focus changed to actually driving.

 

[SoCal Rob]

I want to make fewer interactions with the screen for common tasks. I don't want to have to "commit" the changes as a third, fourth, or fifth step of adjusting the suspension or drive mode. It is bad enough that Rivian kicks us out of sport mode after the truck sleeps, and that they reset auto ride height in all purpose mode. This forces me to interact with the suspension screen almost every time I get in. Having to tap another prompt just seems crazy.

I mention this in almost every thread about suspension settings, but if Rivian allowed us to map a favorite drive mode to the right steering wheel button would solve much of this since it would be very quick to do without even looking at the screen. Oh, and allow full power in all purpose mode.

I understand what you’re saying but I think when you interact is more important than how many taps it takes. I want to have all interactions when I have the time to deal with them and not because the vehicle is demanding my attention as soon as I start and until I finish.

In many of my uses, “commit” wouldn’t add a step anyway. If you ever tried to go to a lower height only to be prompted to confirm Then this simply moves the confirmation to the end of the process. As it is now, when I switch to off road mode I get a prompt basically asking if I’m sure. I think this is done because as soon as I agree, the vehicle changes to whatever settings were in use the last time I went into off road, without any way for me to know what those settings were. Is that really less ’crazy’ than what I’m proposing? No, the current process is the same number of taps but with a worse outcome. I say it’s worse because it demands more attention from the driver once you start interacting with it. This means I may be committing to more time than I want to if something changes and I need to focus on, you know, driving.

Being able to see the settings when I have time to devote to them and then tap Commit at the end is objectively safer, and arguably better, than what we have now. With what I’m proposing I can spend a couple seconds starting the process, look at the road for as many seconds or minutes as I need to, spend a couple seconds tapping on settings, look at the road for as many seconds or minutes as I need to, spend a second to tap Commit.

I’m not saying that what I’m proposing is the ideal solution, but it is safer than having the vehicle in a state you might not want at the worst possible time: when a hazard or other more important driving task suddenly needs your attention. It could be something as simple as a traffic light turning green, or more intense like an emergency vehicle enters the road behind you and you want to signal to pull off to the right, sudden downpour and you want to adjust wiper settings, etc.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I'm not sure I've ever run into this situation. I'm pretty limited in my drive mode use. I have used the off-road settings only once. I use sport the majority of the time and all purpose when it's raining or snowing. I also use conserve on long road trips.

I set it once and leave it alone. That said, I wouldn't care to have to click an extra confirmation to make it work.

 

[SoCal Rob]

How about automatically putting my truck into sport mode whenever I'm first at a stoplight?

Can it take into account the gap until any vehicle in front of you? I mean, if someone just made a right turn from the cross-traffic and they’re 50 yards in front of you doing 25 mph, why bother?

 

[Bullwinkle]

I want to make fewer interactions with the screen for common tasks. I don't want to have to "commit" the changes as a third, fourth, or fifth step of adjusting the suspension or drive mode. It is bad enough that Rivian kicks us out of sport mode after the truck sleeps, and that they reset auto ride height in all purpose mode. This forces me to interact with the suspension screen almost every time I get in. Having to tap another prompt just seems crazy.

I mention this in almost every thread about suspension settings, but if Rivian allowed us to map a favorite drive mode to the right steering wheel button would solve much of this since it would be very quick to do without even looking at the screen. Oh, and allow full power in all purpose mode.

You have mentioned this before. My 2023 R1S does stay in the mode I last used--including Sport.

 

[SSteveEV]

Can it take into account the gap until any vehicle in front of you? I mean, if someone just made a right turn from the cross-traffic and they’re 50 yards in front of you doing 25 mph, why bother?

Allow me to introduce you to Alan Ruck.

 

[beatle]

You have mentioned this before. My 2023 R1S does stay in the mode I last used--including Sport.

If it's a quad, that's why. Rivian didn't screw those up.

 

[SoCal Rob]

I'm not sure I've ever run into this situation. I'm pretty limited in my drive mode use. I have used the off-road settings only once. I use sport the majority of the time and all purpose when it's raining or snowing. I also use conserve on long road trips.

I set it once and leave it alone. That said, I wouldn't care to have to click an extra confirmation to make it work.

I probably should have mentioned this from the start, but this should be an option: standard or pre-selection. Kind of like how computers let you choose how scrolling on a pointing device works where it can be the way you want it even if other find it backwards. That’s assuming that Rivian starts making all options and memory positions tied to the driver profile, of course. As someone who changes between on and off road modes a fair amount, I hope that my examples show how the current method can lead to some annoying or unsafe situations.

Another example: I’m on a dirt road in off road Rally mode. I’m turning onto a paved road so I tap on-road when someone drives over a hill behind me going a lot faster so now I’m not looking at the screen and my hands are on the wheel (because I’m driving) then I floor it. Except the last time I was in on road I was set to Conserve. Now I’ve got someone fast approaching and I’m traction and power limited. In hindsight I would have been better off staying in Rally or better off starting the process of switching modes, dealing with the driving task at hand, and then finishing the process of changing modes when I had time.

I don’t know about trailering but switching between on and off road modes means you’re potentially changing a lot, and doing it all blind. The blind part makes it worse than it should be, in my experience, and I’d like the option of changing it.

 

[Mathme]

Come on now folks...we can't be a havin' any functional changes on the drive mode settings because it's more important to have a team of graphic designers updating those "pretty" wireframe graphics in those screens every month.

 

[SwampNut]

For the entry, don't change modes, just press the height button. Or keep the kneel mode enabled.

I was fewer nannies and confirmations, not more. Let's get rid of the "are you sure" for dog mode, please.

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