Cancelling my Pre-order, thoughts inside from test drive

[rinconryder]

You should go to a dealer and try it now. It is really, really good. I have had a Tesla since 2017 and currently have a 23 Model S with HW4 and started using FSD pretty much full time now. I wouldn't have spoken so highly of it a year ago but the development of the robotaxi program has really pushed the FSD software development as an added benefit to Tesla owners. It's not a coincidence that the improvement has been so rapid. That is what makes me hopeful for Rivian and their partnership with Uber to develop driverless technology. I refuse to use Autonomy+ as it stands now but I am on a 3 year lease on my R1T. If they get the FSD on par with current Tesla FSD I will buy it. If not, then I will probably be back in a Tesla.

That’s what the Tesla fanboys say every year, though, for every major release of FSD since v10.

I’ve had this conversation every year for four years.

I’m out.

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[graytag]

I have a Waymo app for when I don't want to drive. I've used in zero times. I like to drive.

 

[ohmman]

Never ever buy a product predicated on the promise of future software features.

I haven’t posted here in ages. But as a senior mod over at TMC, a 12+ year multiple Tesla owner, this one cracked me up.

I think you have some valid points, your 19” wheel complaint resonates with me as well, though I’m likely to get a set of 19s with winters mounted and I’ll run the 20s in summer.

But Tesla is built around promise. They met some of them so you’re able to jump into a Y now, but I’m still 100% trading my Y for a R2.

 

[dfx]

I haven’t posted here in ages. But as a senior mod over at TMC, a 12+ year multiple Tesla owner, this one cracked me up.

I think you have some valid points, your 19” wheel complaint resonates with me as well, though I’m likely to get a set of 19s with winters mounted and I’ll run the 20s in summer.

But Tesla is built around promise. They met some of them so you’re able to jump into a Y now, but I’m still 100% trading my Y for a R2.

similar experience- Model S for 9 years until delivery of my R1S in '22 and I couldn't be happier about it. For people that want a car to drive itself, by all means stay with a Tesla, but if you like driving and like the outdoors the choice is a no brainer.

 

[Zorg]

FSD is awesome but all I need is highway ADAS and Rivian gen2 delivers what I need. And Autonomy+ should get better.

 

[Noplacelikeloam]

Good lord, just buy another car. You do you.

 

[dfx]

Good lord, just buy another car. You do you.

well said

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Two weeks ago when I was in a rented Audi overseas it was fantastic to have Carplay pop up on the screen with all my saved locations, music, and contacts. It's also nice when switching between my wife's car (Mach-E) and mine. Guess I'm a troll now...

That's actually a pretty nice perk that's not mentioned enough, i.e., when you've got two (or more) vehicles from different manufacturers, with notably different UIs, nice having consistency in things like nav, audio services (Spotify for example), messaging.

Or hopping into a short term use car like a rental, where you don't have to figure out a bunch of different functions, hunt, configure, find out X/Y/Z isn't supported - just fire up CP/AA and you're good.

 

[GEON]

I have a Ram Truck that has carplay, it is confusing, works only 75% of the time and having two separate UI's is less than ideal.

 

[Morgan J]

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.

I ended up getting a Model Y Juniper instead. I'm going to put ScreenMate into it for CarPlay/AA. If you're like me and want CarPlay/AA, EVPlay should eventually make a module for the R2; they already have an upgrade kit for the R1 models.

• 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)

 

[Morgan J]

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.

I ended up getting a Model Y Juniper instead. I'm going to put ScreenMate into it for CarPlay/AA. If you're like me and want CarPlay/AA, EVPlay should eventually make a module for the R2; they already have an upgrade kit for the R1 models.

• 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)

My test drive resulting in many of the same feelings. Can't believe so many of the software features are not available when they are available on my R1T. The tiny screen behind steering wheel is terrible. No reason they had to go that small. Sales rep couldn't explain why so many features don't come with launch edition. Agree colors are putrid - particularly the purple. Jesus. And the range is worse than my huge Quad??? I thought the entire point of the dual R2 was to give it more range as a commuter car. Very disappointed. And the weird wheels on the steering wheel are worse than the first Apple TV remote... you can't push the rear or front of it w/o ending up hitting wrong feature. Terrible hardware. Not an improvement front the buttons on the R1T.

 

[Holler Wanderer]

My test drive resulting in many of the same feelings. Can't believe so many of the software features are not available when they are available on my R1T. The tiny screen behind steering wheel is terrible. No reason they had to go that small. Sales rep couldn't explain why so many features don't come with launch edition. Agree colors are putrid - particularly the purple. Jesus. And the range is worse than my huge Quad??? I thought the entire point of the dual R2 was to give it more range as a commuter car. Very disappointed. And the weird wheels on the steering wheel are worse than the first Apple TV remote... you can't push the rear or front of it w/o ending up hitting wrong feature. Terrible hardware. Not an improvement front the buttons on the R1T.

The range may be (slightly) less, but it's much more efficient. Cheaper and faster to charge.

I can't comment on software because I haven't test driven one

 

[Horsey]

My test drive resulting in many of the same feelings. Can't believe so many of the software features are not available when they are available on my R1T. The tiny screen behind steering wheel is terrible. No reason they had to go that small. Sales rep couldn't explain why so many features don't come with launch edition. Agree colors are putrid - particularly the purple. Jesus. And the range is worse than my huge Quad??? I thought the entire point of the dual R2 was to give it more range as a commuter car. Very disappointed. And the weird wheels on the steering wheel are worse than the first Apple TV remote... you can't push the rear or front of it w/o ending up hitting wrong feature. Terrible hardware. Not an improvement front the buttons on the R1T.

The sad thing is here that I think the halo wheels have the potential to be the gigantic headlining feature of the car, like how Apple trackpads are the headlining feature in MacBooks, but since their software department is unable to iterate on the software at an acceptable rate, it's going to get buried by the poor experiences at the beginning. It's wild to me that their software isn't capable of just moving to the new car because they built it to be extensible from the ground up like new software is supposed to be written. It tells me that either the software team is tiny with a huge turnover, or they purposefully won't hire enough engineers to get shit done. From an outsider looking in, the software experience appears to be barebones, and these features like camping mode should take like a weekend to publish to the codebase, because after all, Camping mode is a few images, a few parameters, and probably a few checking functions that should be reused elsewhere, so it shouldn't take months to release to the public.

From many of the reviews I watched online, reviewers will point to software bugs, but that over the course of years, the software improved dramatically with the R1. What's not confidence inspiring is that there isn't a UX team that just hammers out user facing features on a monthly basis (directly inspired from competition, and the user base). It's hugely frustrating that you are expected to buy a Rivian product, but wait years for things to settle on the software side. In the open source community, you see weekly iteration, and with a billion dollar company, it might take years? Why?

 

[rogerspix]

Interesting seeing that this was your opening statement….

”Above all, the lack of CarPlay/Android Auto is the biggest factor in my decision to cancel.……”

I’ll admit…stopped reading after that. Came back to read the comments though.

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