Cancelling my Pre-order, thoughts inside from test drive

[CD1973]

Garage door opener?
I don't know anyone who puts it as #1 feature.on a car. Buy a $30 remote and stick it some where, under the dash perhaps with some double sided tape. Way better than any software buttons. Some are valid points , but some are just funny.

My 2005 G35 has a home link button on rearview mirror. So does 2014 Subaru. Who wants a remote junking up the interior?

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[CrazyOne]

My 2005 G35 has a home link button on rearview mirror. So does 2014 Subaru. Who wants a remote junking up the interior?

Stick it under dash. No one can see it. Annoying, sure. Deal breaker? Not even remotely() close.

 

[TexasBob]

Oh my goodness, that made me actually laugh... not just "lol"
....I'm wiping tears from my eyes.... thank you for that.

I am totally NOT making that up. Eucalyptus green in full watermelon

And if that is not watermelon-y enough then you can special order in Java Green with red interior

(There is something wrong with our friends in Munich.)

 

[macb00kemdanno]

My 2005 G35 has a home link button on rearview mirror. So does 2014 Subaru. Who wants a remote junking up the interior?

I have mine taped to the back of my central display in our Tesla Model Y and 3. It’s at the very bottom-center above where the wireless chargers are. You can’t possibly see it from any angle unless you’re on your back in the footwell with your head resting on the brake pedal.

Yet it’s in easy reach of my hand — non issue.

 

[Horsey]

Of course you would. People like you (and the OP) are only here to shit on what you perceive as R2s weaknesses without ever saying anything good about it.

That’s the whole point of this editorial board. The opposite being that all everyone does is praise it

I must say…I’m genuinely curious why you bothered to post such a long winded message about all the things you didn’t like about the R2…on a Rivian forum.

I’ve owned mine for almost 2 years, and absolutely love it. I’ve also been a member here for a little longer, and not once have I felt the need to list out all the things I love about my R1T.

So, why make the effort? It comes off as either a “look at me“ moment, or some other ulterior motive (a Tesla fanboy, or you’re shorting the Rivian stock). But again…don’t you have better things to do? What exactly do you hope to accomplish by telling us how much you dislike this vehicle?

I have a software project I work on; I read forums/Reddit all the time to get ideas for improvement. I love hearing candid opinions; it makes the software better.

 

[Horsey]

Yeah... As a sales guy myself, if you researched all of the things you didn't like about my product before then coming in for a demo of said product, likely to tell me about the things you don't like about my product, I would be more than eager to get back to my desk, too.

Here are the questions I asked the salesperson:

1. can I purchase a set of 19" wheels from you?
2. how do I engage auto park?
3. where is Rivian assistant?
4. how do I initiate a lane change via Autonomy+?
5. what are your financing options going to look like?
6. which software features are included for free vs. paid? Is there a place that I can find a list of all the functions that I have to pay for?

I didn't ask combative questions.

 

[strykerwsu]

I took a test drive in a Model Y for the first time yesterday, and it ticks enough of the boxes from above that I'm going to be mostly satisfied with it. I just wish it had a better tow rating.

Enjoy your bean

 

[macb00kemdanno]

Enjoy your bean

Flick it even...

 

[dscoti]

Actually, that’s my feeling as well. There’s something about having a familiar UI/UX. Many, maybe most of the things he lists are why we love our EV6’s.

That said, I’m willing to keep an open mind and have a very late reservation. I don’t expect to get the ok to order letter until mid-2027, when our lease on the red EV6 is up. The Kia’s have been solid, trouble free, and fun o drive. I hope I didn’t just jinx us. ROFL

By then the software should be much more refined, I hope. The white interior should be available. And finally, the Gen 3 w/LiDar should be in the R2 by them

I would never switch to a Tesla for a variety of reasons, which I don’t need to go into.

The R2 is the first EV that I felt like I would want to drive instead of the EV6. I’ve been driving EVs since 2017 and absolutely love driving them. Bypassing all the gas stations and their long lines and insane prices. I charge at home for about $0.09/kW. The 77 kW, 74 usable, takes 5-6 hrs to charge. We have solar and am exploring adding batteries to the system.

Lastly, it’s not necessary to put someone down for what they want or think. But that’s what happens on all the vehicle forums I’m on. I do get tired of all the belittling, snarky comments. I’m sure I’ll get blasted, but I won’t wear my feeling on my shoulders. That kind of stuff just makes many people leave the forum and lose some good advice and input. It only makes you feel good about yourself and doesn’t reflect well on Rivian, Kia, Hyundai, Tesla, and the like.

You do what’s right for you, and I’ll do what’s right for me.

I’ll go back to stealth mode now.

 

[dscoti]

Garage door opener?
I don't know anyone who puts it as #1 feature.on a car. Buy a $30 remote and stick it some where, under the dash perhaps with some double sided tape. Way better than any software buttons. Some are valid points , but some are just funny.

I have a HomeKit automation with geofence that automatically locks/unlocks our front door. Could do the same for a garage door. Unfortunately, our single car garage is put to better use. Well, not unfortunately at all. LOL

 

[CrazyOne]

I have a HomeKit automation with geofence that automatically locks/unlocks our front door. Could do the same for a garage door. Unfortunately, our single car garage is put to better use. Well, not unfortunately at all. LOL

There are more important things. The car can stay outside .

 

[cwintermeyer]

I'm going to make this post a list of all the things that led to my decision to cancel my pre-order. Hopefully this information will be read by someone who can use the information to make a better product in the future! My whole investigation into the Rivian software/hardware has essentially been a good-faith investigation into the brand.

• Above all, the lack of CarPlay/Android Auto is the biggest factor in my decision to cancel. The Rivian software is not better than CarPlay, and based on the other posts that I've read spanning years of Rivian software developments, I can comfortably say at this point that the speed of software iteration at Rivian is not confidence-inspiring. I don't want to wait for the Rivian software to "maybe someday" duplicate all the functions already present in CarPlay, when I can simply just use CarPlay right now. Below I'll list things that I cannot duplicate from CarPlay/AA within the Rivian software ecosystem:
  • HomeKit support for accessories (and Google/Alexa integrations on the Android side), especially a garage door opener. Granted, Rivian has the best implementation of this in their software because they emulate an old radio frequency based dumb-opener, but I need this functionality on day 1, at no charge.
  • Waze. I want the mapping software to have a social element to it. Waze essentially is a democratic service that allows for alerts that would otherwise be illegal/gray area if integrated into major mapping apps like Google Maps. I want to know where the speed cameras are, where obstructions are, and I want to hear from other drivers what they think about local roads, whether that info is "politically correct" or not.
  • Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, or whatever music app I want. I don't want to rely on Rivian software building an app. I want to be able to use any media app at all times.
  • Apple Maps is simply better than Google Maps for navigation. I use both Apple Maps and Google Maps, and Apple's maps generally are the most performant, and look the most polished. The old days of Apple Maps leading you off a cliff into a lake have been passed over by almost a decade now.
  • Personal wallpapers. I don't want to look at a large scale cartoon drawing of the car I'm already driving in. It's a lot like flying an American flag in America. "You're in America, so no need to state the obvious." I want customization.
  • I don't want to be "advertised" the brand at every turn in the software. CarPlay/AA does a fantastic job removing the car branding so I can have my own personal customization to make the car feel like "mine".
  • I'm able to write my own apps and use them in CarPlay.
  • I want the UI to have Glass-like transparency throughout.
  • Siri/Gemini/Alexa is leagues more reliable than any other assistant I've used, especially with personal context.
  • I rely on on-screen tapbacks for messages while driving.
  • App based ETA/location sharing (not text message based)
• Lack of accessories compared to Teslas. Almost all of the hardware/software features that Tesla doesn't support can be added with aftermarket parts. CarPlay/AA, auto presenting doorhandles, LED lightbar customizations, Sunroof covers, extra physical knobs (thanks in part to the extensibility support offered by the Tesla infotainment software), driver display, etc. Tesla Accessories. To be fair, Rivian does have accessories too, but they're not nearly as powerful as the competition, because of the lack of volume sales, and support by Rivian corporate.
• Lack of a 19" wheel option with the Launch Edition. I want to be able to maximize range, and to do that I need the smallest, lightest possible wheel. I asked about buying a set of 19" wheels, and I was told not to bother doing so by the salesperson.
• The Rivian infotainment software features that will be missing at launch. Never ever buy a product predicated on the promise of future software features. Also, if these basic features from the R1 can't make it to the R2 by launch, it'll take even longer for software features to be released based on customer feedback on the R2.
  • Rivian Assistant
  • Camping Mode
  • Garage Door support
  • Climate Hold
  • Pet Mode
  • Gear Guard will be present but with limited functionality.
• The halo wheels were awful outside of vertical scrolling; I just couldn’t get left and right clicks to trigger. The software integration with them was awful and I found myself not immediately understanding when I could go left/right/forward/backwards in a menu. Pressing into the wheels and pressing behind the wheels felt better than left/right clicks, but I wanted them to feel like the middle click on a mouse, and absolutely didn't feel that in my hands-on.
  • Scrolling with the wheels felt better than excellent. Definitely the best scroll wheel I’ve ever used in any product, ever.
• The lack of 2 pedal driving (forward creep) was unbelievably disappointing.
  • people coming from an ICE car are going to be disappointed by the lack of 2 pedal driving. Parking into a tight garage is also way harder without a coasting feature.
• The sales rep straight up couldn’t answer any intermediate level questions, and just seemed in a rush to get back to his desk in the empty waiting room. Not super confidence-inspiring service. These vehicles that are software defined need a rep dedicated to all the particulars, because if I can't find something in the software with my 20 years of software development, a non-tech person would be just lost.
• Super disappointed that there’s no option to delete the sunroof. I’d much much much prefer to have a metal roof. Here in the southwest, having a sunroof that can't be covered up is a huge loss.
  • besides the obvious heat-issues, getting a crack is a giant pane of glass on the roof is just not something I want to be possible. Here in the southwest, rocks fly at you all the time, and glass coverage isn't free anymore like it used to be with insurance.
• Autonomy+ issues
  • I couldn't get the car to switch lanes autonomously on my test drive (on excellent surface streets; I didn't have time to get on the highway to test it there)
  • I couldn't find an auto park function. I had to park the vehicle manually when I returned to the service center.
• Cruise control/driving dynamics
  • I really liked being able to set a speed in the cruise control with the +1 and +5 increments, but my Prius/Rav4 did a better job of that with the single pull down/push up for incremental speed changes in cruise control speed. The knobs method on the R2 felt worse from a UX perspective.
  • The brake regen felt like I was hard braking even with the lightest and most careful manipulation of the accelerator pedal. I simply couldn't come to a clean, limo-like stop like I can in my Lightning (which has 2 pedal, coasting mode enabled)
• The color choices were just awful. I wanted more bold color choices besides Catalina Cove and Borealis. Ideally, I'd want a watermelon green, but that's just me.
  • since these cars are made to order, there shouldn't be an issue with custom color selection if they're hand painted anyway
  • give me an RGB slider to customize the paint to whatever I want in the configurator (I'd be willing to pay extra for this)

 

[kah]

I'm going to make this post a list of all the things that led to my decision to cancel my pre-order. Hopefully this information will be read by someone who can use the information to make a better product in the future! My whole investigation into the Rivian software/hardware has essentially been a good-faith investigation into the brand.

• Above all, the lack of CarPlay/Android Auto is the biggest factor in my decision to cancel. The Rivian software is not better than CarPlay, and based on the other posts that I've read spanning years of Rivian software developments, I can comfortably say at this point that the speed of software iteration at Rivian is not confidence-inspiring. I don't want to wait for the Rivian software to "maybe someday" duplicate all the functions already present in CarPlay, when I can simply just use CarPlay right now. Below I'll list things that I cannot duplicate from CarPlay/AA within the Rivian software ecosystem:
  • HomeKit support for accessories (and Google/Alexa integrations on the Android side), especially a garage door opener. Granted, Rivian has the best implementation of this in their software because they emulate an old radio frequency based dumb-opener, but I need this functionality on day 1, at no charge.
  • Waze. I want the mapping software to have a social element to it. Waze essentially is a democratic service that allows for alerts that would otherwise be illegal/gray area if integrated into major mapping apps like Google Maps. I want to know where the speed cameras are, where obstructions are, and I want to hear from other drivers what they think about local roads, whether that info is "politically correct" or not.
  • Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, or whatever music app I want. I don't want to rely on Rivian software building an app. I want to be able to use any media app at all times.
  • Apple Maps is simply better than Google Maps for navigation. I use both Apple Maps and Google Maps, and Apple's maps generally are the most performant, and look the most polished. The old days of Apple Maps leading you off a cliff into a lake have been passed over by almost a decade now.
  • Personal wallpapers. I don't want to look at a large scale cartoon drawing of the car I'm already driving in. It's a lot like flying an American flag in America. "You're in America, so no need to state the obvious." I want customization.
  • I don't want to be "advertised" the brand at every turn in the software. CarPlay/AA does a fantastic job removing the car branding so I can have my own personal customization to make the car feel like "mine".
  • I'm able to write my own apps and use them in CarPlay.
  • I want the UI to have Glass-like transparency throughout.
  • Siri/Gemini/Alexa is leagues more reliable than any other assistant I've used, especially with personal context.
  • I rely on on-screen tapbacks for messages while driving.
  • App based ETA/location sharing (not text message based)
• Lack of accessories compared to Teslas. Almost all of the hardware/software features that Tesla doesn't support can be added with aftermarket parts. CarPlay/AA, auto presenting doorhandles, LED lightbar customizations, Sunroof covers, extra physical knobs (thanks in part to the extensibility support offered by the Tesla infotainment software), driver display, etc. Tesla Accessories. To be fair, Rivian does have accessories too, but they're not nearly as powerful as the competition, because of the lack of volume sales, and support by Rivian corporate.
• Lack of a 19" wheel option with the Launch Edition. I want to be able to maximize range, and to do that I need the smallest, lightest possible wheel. I asked about buying a set of 19" wheels, and I was told not to bother doing so by the salesperson.
• The Rivian infotainment software features that will be missing at launch. Never ever buy a product predicated on the promise of future software features. Also, if these basic features from the R1 can't make it to the R2 by launch, it'll take even longer for software features to be released based on customer feedback on the R2.
  • Rivian Assistant
  • Camping Mode
  • Garage Door support
  • Climate Hold
  • Pet Mode
  • Gear Guard will be present but with limited functionality.
• The halo wheels were awful outside of vertical scrolling; I just couldn’t get left and right clicks to trigger. The software integration with them was awful and I found myself not immediately understanding when I could go left/right/forward/backwards in a menu. Pressing into the wheels and pressing behind the wheels felt better than left/right clicks, but I wanted them to feel like the middle click on a mouse, and absolutely didn't feel that in my hands-on.
  • Scrolling with the wheels felt better than excellent. Definitely the best scroll wheel I’ve ever used in any product, ever.
• The lack of 2 pedal driving (forward creep) was unbelievably disappointing.
  • people coming from an ICE car are going to be disappointed by the lack of 2 pedal driving. Parking into a tight garage is also way harder without a coasting feature.
• The sales rep straight up couldn’t answer any intermediate level questions, and just seemed in a rush to get back to his desk in the empty waiting room. Not super confidence-inspiring service. These vehicles that are software defined need a rep dedicated to all the particulars, because if I can't find something in the software with my 20 years of software development, a non-tech person would be just lost.
• Super disappointed that there’s no option to delete the sunroof. I’d much much much prefer to have a metal roof. Here in the southwest, having a sunroof that can't be covered up is a huge loss.
  • besides the obvious heat-issues, getting a crack is a giant pane of glass on the roof is just not something I want to be possible. Here in the southwest, rocks fly at you all the time, and glass coverage isn't free anymore like it used to be with insurance.
• Autonomy+ issues
  • I couldn't get the car to switch lanes autonomously on my test drive (on excellent surface streets; I didn't have time to get on the highway to test it there)
  • I couldn't find an auto park function. I had to park the vehicle manually when I returned to the service center.
• Cruise control/driving dynamics
  • I really liked being able to set a speed in the cruise control with the +1 and +5 increments, but my Prius/Rav4 did a better job of that with the single pull down/push up for incremental speed changes in cruise control speed. The knobs method on the R2 felt worse from a UX perspective.
  • The brake regen felt like I was hard braking even with the lightest and most careful manipulation of the accelerator pedal. I simply couldn't come to a clean, limo-like stop like I can in my Lightning (which has 2 pedal, coasting mode enabled)
• The color choices were just awful. I wanted more bold color choices besides Catalina Cove and Borealis. Ideally, I'd want a watermelon green, but that's just me.
  • since these cars are made to order, there shouldn't be an issue with custom color selection if they're hand painted anyway
  • give me an RGB slider to customize the paint to whatever I want in the configurator (I'd be willing to pay extra for this)

 

[RandomMcRandomFace]

Unclear why this would help anyone - nearly all of the things referenced are well known and in some cases features of the car. This is akin to someone posting how they aren’t buying the R2 because it lacks a gas engine and isn’t a convertible. I don’t care who does or doesn’t buy one but these self important posts are nothing but pointless cries for attention.

 

[Great Gatsby]

While everyone is entitled to their opinion, most of the serious hardships you mentioned and would have to endure could have been easily found by just looking at the info page for the R2.

Doesn't hurt to do some research on a $60k car. This car is not for everyone (clearly) but good thing they are literally hundreds of other options out there for you. I hope you find what you are looking for.

I will thank you for cancelling the reservation though and moving the line up for someone else excited for the vehicle

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