New to forums and Rivian - want to discuss my pre-purchase concerns

[Zoidz]

OP......

Paragraphs....please.

IT'S ALMOST AS BAD AS TYPING IN ALL CAPS, oR WoRSEe yEt TyPiNg LiKe A sPoNgEbOB tEcHbRo!

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[getut]

When a company sells you a software license to use their IP (software), all you own is the right to use that SW with whatever restrictions placed in the license that can be held up in court. If the software comes with a free trial period that requires payment to unlock the SW for use after the free trial, it is not your right, legally or morally, to rearraign the bits or otherwise fool the SW to give you unlimited access to that SW. This is part of the social and legal contract which helps provide access to income to the SW developer/seller, restricting ease of theft of that IP. There is no significant difference with requiring additional payments to unlock additional features that are already "inside" the trial SW. The cryptography the company uses to lock/unlock trial time and feature set makes it easier/cheaper for the company to do quality control and version management, theoretically reducing customer costs and increasing company profits.

Nah, even though there is no law that truly regulates that hardware and software are two different things, let me provide a perfectly legal response to a similar situation. Take for instance the BMW heated seats that they are locking down behind similar software as with Rivian and others, there is nothing wrong with you simply pulling a wire and putting a dumb switch on the dashboard that energizes the seat heating loop. It is not stealing and in now way could be considered to be. Software and hardware are not tied at the hip even with the current crap protections that are or are not in place. You have rights to use your hardware in absolutely any way you see fit. The software is a completely different animal though. Also even with the crappy laws that we have in place, there are legal precedents for modifying things when there is no real choice for anything else. When no product has any choice, the law has on occasion sided with people who modified access ways through those software blocks because there was no other choice. Most often this comes into play when you purchase something, have already paid for it before being presented with anything like a EULA. Not always but sometimes, the law sides with the owner even in those cases. And there is no case where the law would hold up if you are simply trying to secure your thing against malicious actors, even when those actors are the manufacturer themselves.

Another example with purely software and hardware in the IT world, say you have a firewall that switches over to a SAAS model and artificially cripples your hardware and tries to sell portions of that back to you. You have full backing of law to dump the sofware completely and load an alternative OS that gives you all of that functionality back and more. It simply is not stealing to bypass artificial crippling.

 

[Zoidz]

That is what I am trying to do while finding the vehicle with the most options for FUTURE hacking and jailbreaking from the manufacturers control that tehy should never have been allowed to have in the first place.

The Woodpecker Wybertruck is the perfect EV Truck for you. Open source in Github, not connected to any manufacturer, you don't even have to waste time hacking into it!

 

[BaldThunder]

You'll need 2 adapters. One for AC charging. One for DC fast charging. And yes! Absolutely. My '21 Mach E would do 150 kw for a minute or two then hang out at 100. With the newer software my R1 Will stay pretty close to 200kw all the way to 50-60%

Wow!! And with your GT, you had faster charging than my entry level Select. If I ever get 100kw, even for a few moments, it's a miracle. Normally even at Tesla 70Kw is pretty close to the top then of course it slides down pretty quickly. So which plug is native then to the Rivian? The same one the Mach E uses to charge Level 1?

 

[mkhuffman]

Wow!! And with your GT, you had faster charging than my entry level Select. If I ever get 100kw, even for a few moments, it's a miracle. Normally even at Tesla 70Kw is pretty close to the top then of course it slides down pretty quickly. So which plug is native then to the Rivian? The same one the Mach E uses to charge Level 1?

New R1s use a NACS port for charging.

Maybe your slow charging speed has to do with LFP or maybe even the battery size. But wow, that sucks worse than I ever experienced with my MME. It isn't livable for travel, IMO. It's not much better than traveling in a Chevy Bolt.

 

[Alan in Tempe]

Nah, even though there is no law that truly regulates that hardware and software ...

You started with a "Nah" even though you didn't really argue against anything I said. You did list some fine exceptions, and examples where the law leans towards consumer's rights, which I agree with you on both. You also talked mostly about hardware, where I was focused on software, as that was core to your prior complaints.

There are laws that truly regulate hardware, mostly contract law and IP law. There are some areas of IP that do affect HW that you purchase. For example, you can remove the badging, but you might not be able to legally modify it in some ways that might weaken a trademark. You might purchase something under law or contract that prohibits or limits what you can modify or how you can or can't use or resell it, and these can be binding in court. A legal example is emissions equipment that cannot be tampered with. A contractual example is when I bought my Mach-e under a Ford X-plan contract, it limited how soon I could resell it to anyone other than back to an authorized Ford dealer (it could not be bought just to be resold). Warranties themselves are contractual limitations on what is and is not allowed in the way of usage or modification of the hardware and software, with loss of warranty aspects when violated. Yes, you can say it is your choice to void the warranty, but it is the same as paying additional value (loss of warranty coverage) for the right to change something you legally owned.

I still think the core of your arguments regarding what is wrong with EVs and connected vehicles and such are 1) primarily based on privacy issues and software practices, and 2) are really best regulated issues by strengthened privacy laws. The biggest problem trying to persuade business to change practices in these areas is that you (and I) are a very small minority of customers that either care to demand better practices, where most, even many who do care about these issues do not care enough to give up the benefits they perceive coming from the practices. For example, capturing driving data is a huge violation of privacy, but it is also quite necessary to improve the vehicle, especially for safer and more accurate and more comfortable autonomy. Most people do not adequately value their privacy.

 

[SwampNut]

You started with a "Nah" even though you didn't really argue against anything I said. You did list some fine exceptions, and examples where the law leans towards consumer's rights, which I agree with you on both. You also talked mostly about hardware, where I was focused on software, as that was core to your prior complaints.

There are laws that truly regulate hardware, mostly contract law and IP law. There are some areas of IP that do affect HW that you purchase. For example, you can remove the badging, but you might not be able to legally modify it in some ways that might weaken a trademark. You might purchase something under law or contract that prohibits or limits what you can modify or how you can or can't use or resell it, and these can be binding in court. A legal example is emissions equipment that cannot be tampered with. A contractual example is when I bought my Mach-e under a Ford X-plan contract, it limited how soon I could resell it to anyone other than back to an authorized Ford dealer (it could not be bought just to be resold). Warranties themselves are contractual limitations on what is and is not allowed in the way of usage or modification of the hardware and software, with loss of warranty aspects when violated. Yes, you can say it is your choice to void the warranty, but it is the same as paying additional value (loss of warranty coverage) for the right to change something you legally owned.

I still think the core of your arguments regarding what is wrong with EVs and connected vehicles and such are 1) primarily based on privacy issues and software practices, and 2) are really best regulated issues by strengthened privacy laws. The biggest problem trying to persuade business to change practices in these areas is that you (and I) are a very small minority of customers that either care to demand better practices, where most, even many who do care about these issues do not care enough to give up the benefits they perceive coming from the practices. For example, capturing driving data is a huge violation of privacy, but it is also quite necessary to improve the vehicle, especially for safer and more accurate and more comfortable autonomy. Most people do not adequately value their privacy.

 

[Tlohrenz]

An EV pickup truck is not for you. If security concerns you, don't be connected to the internet. My 2023 R1T with Max Pack gets 250-275 miles max on the highway. You'll never charge above 80% except on long trips. It degrades the battery. The Silverado just has a massive battery that adds a lot of weight.

I think the best truck for you is the Dodge REV. When my Rivian lease is up, that's what I'm getting so I can pull a travel trailer or 5th wheel RV to any national park. It gets about 690 miles. I think 150 miles in pure EV mode and the rest with its generator. Dodge basically took the locomotive tech and added a battery. Several people are looking at this truck for RVg or pulling a horse trailer.

 

[BaldThunder]

New R1s use a NACS port for charging.

Maybe your slow charging speed has to do with LFP or maybe even the battery size. But wow, that sucks worse than I ever experienced with my MME. It isn't livable for travel, IMO. It's not much better than traveling in a Chevy Bolt.

Occasionally I'll get 100Kw with preconditioning on a 70/80 degree day. But it doesn't last long. Battery is 77.

 

[cwintermeyer]

Just writing back to everyone saying I should hard pass. Let me explain. I am not a luddite. I make my living with technology. But that also better equips me to understand the security ramifications of any decision I would make. As for sideloading and hacking, I would have to do that with every EV I may potentially purchse. I will not submit my data to them no matter which EV I end up choosing so look at it like this. I am trying to find the most hackable EV as a platform to be able crack down on security wise to protect myself from the manufacturer and everyone else. I refuse to go to older vehicles, but I also refuse to allow MY vehicles to be data mined. You guys have been brainwashed into believing you either have to accept tracking with newer vehicles or drive something old. Also, sideloading is not a security risk in and of itself. Any software that I would choose to put on would be my decision as the owner of the vehicle, it is not their place to decide which software I should use. The definition of malware is software that works against the wishes of the owner. Many systems like you guys describe are malware straight from the manufacturer because the manufacturer wants you to believe they should protect the thing from the owner. That should never happen. But I am fighting these same issues if I decide to go with the silverado as well. Probably even worse becuase Chevrolet has even started encrypting the can bus to keep from having to fight 3rd parties who might try to outdo them. And that is the biggest problem with these walled gardens, once they lock you out, they start thinking of the owner of the thing as what they have to secure against. How messed up is that? These companies actually look at the owners as the security risk. F that and them. But their next step is the worst one, once they have you successfully locked out of everything, then they start artificially crippling things so they can sell that functionality back to you piecemill. These are the things that EVERYONE should be fighting like hell against, not accepting blindly.

 

[VandalSibs]

Occasionally I'll get 100Kw with preconditioning on a 70/80 degree day. But it doesn't last long. Battery is 77.

At what SoC are you arriving at the charger at when you get those numbers? (If you already mentioned that and I've missed it in this thread, sorry!)

 

[BaldThunder]

At what SoC are you arriving at the charger at when you get those numbers? (If you already mentioned that and I've missed it in this thread, sorry!)

It varies of course. But first, are you talking about the lower charging #'s overall, or when it's cold? I usually try not to get to a charger less than about 15% charge. So the lower the 15% of course the faster the charge at first. But let's take Saturday as an example, I was at a charger capable of 250K, pre conditioned on the way to it, got to it with about 60% Soc. My top charge rate was 70ish. But I was under 50 in minutes. Took about half an hour total to get to 90% so I could confidently get home due to rapidly dropping temps in the 30's and a 30mph head wind.

 

[VandalSibs]

It varies of course. But first, are you talking about the lower charging #'s overall, or when it's cold? I usually try not to get to a charger less than about 15% charge. So the lower the 15% of course the faster the charge at first. But let's take Saturday as an example, I was at a charger capable of 250K, pre conditioned on the way to it, got to it with about 60% Soc. My top charge rate was 70ish. But I was under 50 in minutes. Took about half an hour total to get to 90% so I could confidently get home due to rapidly dropping temps in the 30's and a 30mph head wind.

If you are staring at around 15% SoC and the battery is at roughly the right temperature, you for sure should be seeing a charge rate higher than 100kW. Reach out to Rivian Service.

 

[BaldThunder]

If you are staring at around 15% SoC and the battery is at roughly the right temperature, you for sure should be seeing a charge rate higher than 100kW. Reach out to Rivian Service.

Sorry sir, I appreciate your advice. Somewhere along the line you may have missed that I'm a Mustang Mach E owner considering flipping to the R2. So we were discussing relative charging speeds between the two. Sorry again.

 

[VandalSibs]

Sorry sir, I appreciate your advice. Somewhere along the line you may have missed that I'm a Mustang Mach E owner considering flipping to the R2. So we were discussing relative charging speeds between the two. Sorry again.

Oh jeez, I sure did!

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