SCARY ABS INCIDENT ON FREEWAY!

[rjriv1t]

Not sure if anyone else has experienced something similar and I would love to read your story if you have. I also want to say up front that I love my 2023 R1T and get that with EVs the occasional performance issue will rear it’s ugly head

So driving home on hwy 50 last night around 7:45pm and all is well. Out of nowhere the truck starts to brake and slow down, then switched to Park on its own. I was pulling over to the shoulder and didn’t quite make it all the way into the lane so my left back end was jutting onto the right lane of the freeway. I could not change back to Drive so sitting there watching the rear view mirror with lots of vehicles coming up at high speeds. The first big rig going by really scared me a lot!! Turned out ok in the end since I’m here writing about it

I put on my hazards and hit the SOS button. A rep came on and hadn’t heard of this happening before so logical first step was a soft reset which didn’t fix it, but a hard reset did thankfully. Turned off the ABS obviously. Went back to driving normally and made it home like nothing happened, except for my increased blood pressure and heart rate

The truck is going in for a service inspection and hopefully the technicians will be able to see the incident in the software and determine whether it is a hardware or software issue. I’ll update the outcome once I know for sure. Right now I am very curious about whether I’m the only one who has experienced this issue. Thanks for reading!

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[Laserboy1054]

Glad you're alright! I'll have a stiff drink on your behalf--I hope it helps soothe your jangled nerves. Keep us posted on the diagnosis, please--if it happened once, it can happen again.

 

[Tucker74]

Never exactly what you experienced, but several times where someone in an adjacent lane stopped or was going going slow where it has hard braked me to various extremes. One time I was going 75mph with the adaptive cruise on, someone had pulled into the left turn on a divided highway and was stopped on a slight curve. Truck slammed on the brakes and wheel corrected right to next lane. Scared the heck out of me.

 

[VSG]

Out of nowhere the truck starts to brake and slow down, then switched to Park on its own.

From your description, this could be something as simple as the cruise control disengaged - this would let the regen braking kick in and the vehicle would seem to brake on it's own. But you should have gotten notice, unless of course you accidentally bumped the stalk and disengaged it. Likewise if you were using HWA and accidentally moved the steering wheel. In both cases because the vehicle thinks you want to disengage. Sometimes it will disengage because a sensor was obstructed or you hit an unmapped segment of the freeway, but in both cases you should see a message on the screen telling you it was disengaging.

Providing some context would help - were you using cruise control, were you using HWA? Did you get any informational message about taking control, or any warning about putting your hands back on the steering wheel, or anything like that?

Or, what makes you think this wasn't just the automatic emergency braking? Did you get the warning tone and red message on the driver's screen?

Why do you think this was an ABS failure? Was there a message or an indicator light saying that?

What do you mean switched into park on its own? While you were driving?

Here's another thought - were you reaching into the back seat for something at the time and perhaps maybe lifted your butt off the seat a bit? At low speed that would cause the vehicle to brake then go into park, because it thinks you're no longer in the seat. I haven't tried that at high speed ...

Regardless, again, context would help.

 

[Mathme]

Glad you're OK...that can be quite the traffic on 50 some days.

When something weird like this happens, touch and hold your name on the center display, and make a note of the date/time. This will capture the logs so service can go back to that time quickly.

 

[rjriv1t]

From your description, this could be something as simple as the cruise control disengaged - this would let the regen braking kick in and the vehicle would seem to brake on it's own. But you should have gotten notice, unless of course you accidentally bumped the stalk and disengaged it. Likewise if you were using HWA and accidentally moved the steering wheel. In both cases because the vehicle thinks you want to disengage. Sometimes it will disengage because a sensor was obstructed or you hit an unmapped segment of the freeway, but in both cases you should see a message on the screen telling you it was disengaging.

Providing some context would help - were you using cruise control, were you using HWA? Did you get any informational message about taking control, or any warning about putting your hands back on the steering wheel, or anything like that?

Or, what makes you think this wasn't just the automatic emergency braking? Did you get the warning tone and red message on the driver's screen?

Why do you think this was an ABS failure? Was there a message or an indicator light saying that?

What do you mean switched into park on its own? While you were driving?

Here's another thought - were you reaching into the back seat for something at the time and perhaps maybe lifted your butt off the seat a bit? At low speed that would cause the vehicle to brake then go into park, because it thinks you're no longer in the seat. I haven't tried that at high speed ...

Regardless, again, context would help.

All valid points and I probably can’t guarantee the sequence of events beyond what I did do and notice. Yes a message came up on the left display and I just glimpsed the words automatic brake but didn’t see the detail. I don’t ever use cruise control but it may be on by default? The Park icon came on and stayed red next to the light beam icons. Did I touch the wrong button or jostle the stalk — definitely a possibility. I didn’t lift from the seat though Thanks for your input!

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Sounds pretty scary. Keep us updated if Rivian is able to tell you why this happened.

 

[CrazyOne]

If what you described happened, it's some kind of safety feature activating unnecessarily.

VW has/had a feature to stop vehicle if driver is disabled. I haven't heard of similar feature for Rivian.

Why do I think so? Because it went into park, not just stopped. One possibility is that a fault caused vehicle to think that park button was pressed. I think if we hold the park button for a long time while driving, this may happen.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Only time I've experienced weird braking things was from excessive trailer sway after I did something stupid with the trailer.

 

[VSG]

One possibility is that a fault caused vehicle to think that park button was pressed. I think if we hold the park button for a long time while driving, this may happen.

This is a good point too.

The "park" button functions as an emergency brake (see the manual) - pressing and holding it while driving will brake you to a complete stop before putting the vehicle in park.

This is by design. But many people have accidentally pressed the park button while driving because they mistook it for the windshield washer button (which is on the other stalk). If you just press it momentarily, it makes you brake hard for a moment - you have to keep it pressed in to make it come to a stop. But perhaps if the button were stuck or malfunctioning it would think you were holding it in.

 

[rjriv1t]

This is a good point too.

The "park" button functions as an emergency brake (see the manual) - pressing and holding it while driving will brake you to a complete stop before putting the vehicle in park.

This is by design. But many people have accidentally pressed the park button while driving because they mistook it for the windshield washer button (which is on the other stalk). If you just press it momentarily, it makes you brake hard for a moment - you have to keep it pressed in to make it come to a stop. But perhaps if the button were stuck or malfunctioning it would think you were holding it in.

I’m also wondering if I triggered the Emergency Deceleration feature somehow, and pressing the Park button might have started the whole incident — major operator error stuff

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

The two things I thought of is what VSG described (triggering highway assist fail safe) and/or activation of emergency brake. Out of habit, lots of people new to the Rivian mistake the parking brake and emergency brake button for wiper fluid.

 

[CrazyOne]

I’m also wondering if I triggered the Emergency Deceleration feature somehow, and pressing the Park button might have started the whole incident — major operator error stuff

If you press momentarily, it will make a noise and possibly start breaking. But it will not bring you to a complete stop, unless you keep holding for a few seconds at least.

I have pressed it for a second or so a few times, but a short press will not do what you described.

 

[CANCERDOC]

Sounds like the automatic deceleration was activated. The clue was the vehicle went into park and could not move. If you press park while the vehicle is in motion it first gives you a warning saying don’t do this. If you continue pressing park (or somehow the switch thinks it’s pressed) it will stop the vehicle on its own.

My guess is the OP left out some details of what warning message may have been on the dash while all of this was happening.

 

[DaveA]

You just got the scary Halloween update early.

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