"Drive stalk not working" error - anyone else had it, what had to be fixed

[greyboundary]

Mine hasn’t come back, and because of that, I now have a gen2 that I can’t recall the last time it needed a reset. With the latest update, I’ll see if that remains the case.

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[skyhigh]

I have a new 25 R1T dual standard. Yesterday, I parked it, went into the grocery store for probably 45 minutes, and came out and could not get it out of the park (reverse or drive). I didn't receive any error messages about the stalk; just a message that regen would be unavailable and the amber hold and traction control icons were displayed. I tried locking and unlocking the vehicle twice, then contacted support on the phone. They had me do a hard reset. It's frustrating, especially since the R1T only has 150 miles. My first EV.........

 

[greyboundary]

I have a new 25 R1T dual standard. Yesterday, I parked it, went into the grocery store for probably 45 minutes, and came out and could not get it out of the park (reverse or drive). I didn't receive any error messages about the stalk; just a message that regen would be unavailable and the amber hold and traction control icons were displayed. I tried locking and unlocking the vehicle twice, then contacted support on the phone. They had me do a hard reset. It's frustrating, especially since the R1T only has 150 miles. My first EV.........

Something unfortunate is that EV also happen to get an absurd amount of tech (much of it not even necessary or EV powertrain related) and we see a lot of weird quirks that need to be sorted out. I love the Rivian features but it is surprising that there's no basic cars that just have electric motors, and so these almost inevitable complexity problems give EV a disproportionately bad look.

My first EV was super flakey early on, then gave me years of zero fuss after a few rounds of updates. Rivian has to know, and I assume / hope they'll focus on software reliability. I work in software and am understanding, but most people aren't, nor should they be: you have to convince the unconvinced, and to do so it needs to "just work," as Apple says.

 

[clostridium]

I have a new 25 R1T dual standard. Yesterday, I parked it, went into the grocery store for probably 45 minutes, and came out and could not get it out of the park (reverse or drive). I didn't receive any error messages about the stalk; just a message that regen would be unavailable and the amber hold and traction control icons were displayed. I tried locking and unlocking the vehicle twice, then contacted support on the phone. They had me do a hard reset. It's frustrating, especially since the R1T only has 150 miles. My first EV.........

I totally get your frustration. I have been driving EVS for 7 years (teslas before my R1s) and mostly had a very positive experience. I have experienced some software glitches occasionally though and this one was worrisome for me even though it hasn’t recurred. Rivian is about a year younger as a company now as Tesla was when I first got one of their vehicles. Generally Rivian seems to be around the same in terms of issues and the good news is that they seem to be improving st least as fast as my Teslas did.

the problems you have with EVs are different and often software which of course is almost never an issue with gas vehicles. But overall the issues are likely to be less with the Rivians. Many expensive vehicles with complex tech have more issues whether EV or otherwise unfortunately which isn’t an excuse of course.

 

[razem]

My experience with the "Drive stalk not working" error is much more concerning!

TL;DR: My brand-new 2025 Rivian R1S completely died in the middle of a busy road—no hazard lights, no ability to move—after just two months of ownership. I’m shocked this could happen with a high-end EV, and I’m already thinking about the lemon law.

It literally died in the middle of a busy road, leaving me stranded for hours and unable to signal other drivers. I’m shocked that a car this new and supposedly cutting-edge could fail so catastrophically. I can’t even imagine if this had happened on the freeway—I’m lucky it didn’t. Because of this terrifying breakdown, I’m seriously considering invoking the lemon law.
Here’s the story in more detail:

• I picked up my 2025 Rivian R1S on November 20, 2024.
• On January 9, I stopped at a Tesla Supercharger to juice up from 20% to 55%. Everything seemed fine.
• Moments later, merging onto the freeway on-ramp, the car jolted violently with a loud front-axle noise. An error message said “Drive stalk not working,” and the car came to a forced stop in the middle of traffic.
• It wouldn’t move, and I couldn’t even turn on hazard lights. Cars behind me had no idea I was stuck, which was terrifying.
• After about 30 minutes, the infotainment system rebooted itself, showed a “Critical battery error,” and shut down completely. The doors and center console were locked, and I couldn’t do anything.
• I was stranded for two hours until a tow truck finally arrived around 11:30 AM to take away my brand-new EV with just 2,400 miles on it.

The entire ordeal was dangerous, humiliating, and absolutely unacceptable for a vehicle this new. I’m now waiting to hear from Rivian, but I want clear answers and real solutions. Frankly, I’ve lost confidence in this car, and I’m already looking into my rights under the lemon law. I refuse to risk my safety—or the safety of others—on a vehicle that can just quit without warning.

 

[greyboundary]

My experience with the "Drive stalk not working" error is much more concerning!

TL;DR: My brand-new 2025 Rivian R1S completely died in the middle of a busy road—no hazard lights, no ability to move—after just two months of ownership. I’m shocked this could happen with a high-end EV, and I’m already thinking about the lemon law.

It literally died in the middle of a busy road, leaving me stranded for hours and unable to signal other drivers. I’m shocked that a car this new and supposedly cutting-edge could fail so catastrophically. I can’t even imagine if this had happened on the freeway—I’m lucky it didn’t. Because of this terrifying breakdown, I’m seriously considering invoking the lemon law.
Here’s the story in more detail:

• I picked up my 2025 Rivian R1S on November 20, 2024.
• On January 9, I stopped at a Tesla Supercharger to juice up from 20% to 55%. Everything seemed fine.
• Moments later, merging onto the freeway on-ramp, the car jolted violently with a loud front-axle noise. An error message said “Drive stalk not working,” and the car came to a forced stop in the middle of traffic.
• It wouldn’t move, and I couldn’t even turn on hazard lights. Cars behind me had no idea I was stuck, which was terrifying.
• After about 30 minutes, the infotainment system rebooted itself, showed a “Critical battery error,” and shut down completely. The doors and center console were locked, and I couldn’t do anything.
• I was stranded for two hours until a tow truck finally arrived around 11:30 AM to take away my brand-new EV with just 2,400 miles on it.

The entire ordeal was dangerous, humiliating, and absolutely unacceptable for a vehicle this new. I’m now waiting to hear from Rivian, but I want clear answers and real solutions. Frankly, I’ve lost confidence in this car, and I’m already looking into my rights under the lemon law. I refuse to risk my safety—or the safety of others—on a vehicle that can just quit without warning.

This sounds like you potentially had a drive failure, strangely in the front; I’ve heard of some rears failing due to the clutch system that engages the rear motor. My guess is the drive stalk error in your case was only a symptom of a much larger failure, well beyond what is being experienced in this thread.

Now that said, I totally agree with you. It’s worrying how many straight up drive failure or other catastrophic failures these are seeing. If it doesn’t erode your trust personally, it will minimally erode resale values.

 

[clostridium]

My experience with the "Drive stalk not working" error is much more concerning!

TL;DR: My brand-new 2025 Rivian R1S completely died in the middle of a busy road—no hazard lights, no ability to move—after just two months of ownership. I’m shocked this could happen with a high-end EV, and I’m already thinking about the lemon law.

It literally died in the middle of a busy road, leaving me stranded for hours and unable to signal other drivers. I’m shocked that a car this new and supposedly cutting-edge could fail so catastrophically. I can’t even imagine if this had happened on the freeway—I’m lucky it didn’t. Because of this terrifying breakdown, I’m seriously considering invoking the lemon law.
Here’s the story in more detail:

• I picked up my 2025 Rivian R1S on November 20, 2024.
• On January 9, I stopped at a Tesla Supercharger to juice up from 20% to 55%. Everything seemed fine.
• Moments later, merging onto the freeway on-ramp, the car jolted violently with a loud front-axle noise. An error message said “Drive stalk not working,” and the car came to a forced stop in the middle of traffic.
• It wouldn’t move, and I couldn’t even turn on hazard lights. Cars behind me had no idea I was stuck, which was terrifying.
• After about 30 minutes, the infotainment system rebooted itself, showed a “Critical battery error,” and shut down completely. The doors and center console were locked, and I couldn’t do anything.
• I was stranded for two hours until a tow truck finally arrived around 11:30 AM to take away my brand-new EV with just 2,400 miles on it.

The entire ordeal was dangerous, humiliating, and absolutely unacceptable for a vehicle this new. I’m now waiting to hear from Rivian, but I want clear answers and real solutions. Frankly, I’ve lost confidence in this car, and I’m already looking into my rights under the lemon law. I refuse to risk my safety—or the safety of others—on a vehicle that can just quit without warning.

I’m curious - this precise story was posted to one of the Rivian Facebook groups this afternoon as well and then appears to have been removed. Was that you? Why was it removed?

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