Trip Report: The Phantom braking saga

[Donald Stanfield]

I just got back from a 2K mile road trip. This is my first trip since UHF has been released. Man, they took a step backwards on the highway assist. The thing was constantly phantom braking when it changed lanes, for shadows, next to semis, not next to semis. There wasn't much rhyme or reason to it.

Not only that, but it prompted me to worry about the stop lights on the freeway at least 4 times today. I also got prompted to "take control over with steep curves ahead", on pretty straight roads. Then, as I drove through the mountains, which actually have very steep curves, the system handled every road perfectly. I don't know why the curves in the flat lands of Indiana and rural Illinois require assistance, but driving through the Appalachians is fine.

This system operated less well than it did when I took my last road trip with the hands-free. I probably wasn't going to subscribe to the driver assistance, but now I for sure am not going to. I was disappointed to say the least.

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[riverie]

I have seen similar performance in my limited use of UHF on straight interstates. The phantom braking thing is a problem, especially when it auto brake checks the car behind you.

I found it works better on a rural two lane.

 

[TexasBob]

Agree with this. We did a 1300 mile trip week before last and it was pretty disappointing on the UHF flaking with both phantom braking and unreliability generally. Right after last software update. But tbh the very bad efficiency and disappointing range from the max pack plus the stupidly slow charging left my wife to declare that it was the last road trip ever in that (her) car. (“Fine for around town” was her comment on a $105k max pack so I am not super happy with Rivian this week.)

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Agree with this. We did a 1300 mile trip week before last and it was pretty disappointing on the UHF flaking with both phantom braking and unreliability generally. Right after last software update. But tbh the very bad efficiency and disappointing range from the max pack plus the stupidly slow charging left my wife to declare that it was the last road trip ever in that (her) car. (“Fine for around town” was her comment on a $105k max pack so I am not super happy with Rivian this week.)

I had some pretty bad efficiency due to the winter, but I thought the range was still decent. You need to be in conserve mode if you have a tri; otherwise, the efficiency isn't great.

 

[godfodder0901]

I found it works better on a rural two lane.

I have A Gen 1, but phantom breaking is significantly worse on rural roads for me. I am in WA though, and all of our rural roads are tree lined making shadows a real problem. This is the number one reason I'm upgrading my Comma with the longitudinal upgrade.

 

[TexasBob]

I had some pretty bad efficiency due to the winter, but I thought the range was still decent. You need to be in conserve mode if you have a tri; otherwise, the efficiency isn't great.

We barely stayed at 2.0 in conserve. Weather was warm but windy and 80mph speed limit killed us. Charging stops were pretty frustrating with on 10-90 taking and hour but needed because of the reduced range.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

We barely stayed at 2.0 in conserve. Weather was warm but windy and 80mph speed limit killed us. Charging stops were pretty frustrating with on 10-90 taking and hour but needed because of the reduced range.

Yeah, windy and 80 is a range killer.

 

[Irish76]

This is Tesla Déjà vu. After 7 years of identical growing pains with my two Tesla FSD EVs, these are the same issues with Rivian. I know it’s frustrating - man did the phantom breaking piss me off - but it’s all part of the learning curve. They’ll get there - probably faster than Tesla did. After all, they have Tesla’s lessons-learned path as a roadmap. In the meantime, if you need a perfect, error-free (or just fewer error) drive, maybe wait a bit.

 

[endress14]

I have A Gen 1, but phantom breaking is significantly worse on rural roads for me. I am in WA though, and all of our rural roads are tree lined making shadows a real problem. This is the number one reason I'm upgrading my Comma with the longitudinal upgrade.

do we know if the longitudinal upgrade slows via regen, or actually braking? Probably not that big of a deal, but it would be nice to know if the comma would save a little bit of energy and brake pads

 

[godfodder0901]

do we know if the longitudinal upgrade slows via regen, or actually braking? Probably not that big of a deal, but it would be nice to know if the comma would save a little bit of energy and brake pads

It slows the same way Rivian long does.

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