Rivian Recap: 01/23/2026

Hey there,

Here's your weekly Rivian Recap for January 23rd, 2026.

Dual-Standard LFP has issues, new R2 color revealed?, a Lease vs Buy comparison tool, and Tesla does something dumb.

Let's dive in!

Software

While there's an argument to made that an issue with Dual-Standard LFP pack charging calibration issues being a hardware issue, there seems to be an on-going issue with LFP packs suddenly losing power.

That loss of power is related to the Battery Management System not accurately understanding the charge level based on voltage.

LFP has been more prone to this kind of thing than the NMC cells found in the Large/Max packs within the lineup, but this core issue has been rearing it's head and has remained elusive in being fully solved.

As noted by Kyle Conner who likely pushes their vehicles much harder than the average user, getting the BMS to properly recalibrate has remained an issue.

Additional reporting by Riviantrackr has indicated that this issue may be wider spread throughout the Dual-Standard fleet equipped with LFP packs.

This is the kind of thing that can lead to a dramatic and sudden loss in brand confidence for owners (rightfully so).

Coupled with the fact that dual-standard configurations are proving to be the most popular due to their undeniable value for money, this likely has an outsized impact on the Gen2 fleet.

I really hope Rivian has the A-team on this issue to make sure it's full resolved no later than the next major release, and if a hot fix is required for LFP owners, that they roll it out as soon as humanly possible.

For the past two weeks I've shipped tools that enable you to better understand Rivian deals or which model is actually right for you based on range.

Implementing the real world environmental factors for the range calculator have been a hit, but it seems the lease calculator has been a smash hit.

Not long after the lease calculator went live, I started getting a ton of people asking me if they should lease or if they should buy.

Luckily, I had kinda predicted this so work on a solution was well underway 😉

Newsletter image

With the lease deals having recently gotten worse, and Rivian pushing low interest rates (0% to 1.99%, depending on trim) it sways the math.

I tried to build this lease vs buy comparison tool to take into account the lease grade and total expense compared to both projected residual, as well as the opportunity cost of putting that downpayment into a high yield account.

You can also get a tidy little summary image that helps you recap the recommendation. In cases where the lease is more expensive, but within 10% of the finance option, it tells you how much of a premium you'd be paying to protect yourself from volatility in residual values.

My hope is that this gives the community even more data to make an educated decision by quickly mocking up deals you may be considering.

Let me know what you think!

And of course, if you already have a Rivian, you can use this tool to share with friends and passthrough your own referral link by adding ?ref=YOURCODE123 at the end of the URL so your code is promoted 🙌.

Hardware

Rivian seems pretty excited about having official "Rivian" versions of their colors, so they've worked with Pantone for "Rivian Green".

Could this be a new color we see on R2?

Given how much I adore the Rivian Blue, I don't mind them branding some of their colors a bit. However, hopefully we don't see it get boring with just "Rivian {Insert Generic Color Here}" for the lineup going forward.

My wife, who is obsessed with green loves this move.

To my eye, it looks very close, if not an exact match to "Launch Green" that we saw on Gen1 & Gen2 Quad as an option.

Could this mean "Rivian Green" is on some of those early R2's that rolled off the production line last week?

Those photos were in black & white for a reason...

Going a step further, I see some interior green components on their Rivian Stories page. Could we see a return of "Forest Edge" or similar in R2??

What do you think? Would you go for a green on green in a launch R2?

Community

First up in community this week, the adventures of "Sad Mike" have begun.

Will you stumble upon this little guy out in the wild?

If you do, please tag @AmpdAdventures , @MikeKantorski, and @TravisKetchum in your post. Let's keep it going 🙂.

Secondly, Tesla has done one of the most customer hostile things I've seen in a while by removing Autopilot from all new Model 3/Y delivered in North America.

That means all new Model 3/Y delivered as of today will only have adaptive cruise control unless you pony up for "Full Self Driving" at $8,000 (which itself goes away on February 14th), or pay $99/month.

Kyle once again has a solid take here:

To Kyle's point... a $23k Toyota Corolla offers basic lane keeping assistance similar to Autopilot.

Both the traffic aware cruise control and Autopilot from Tesla have been left to rot for years, and notably they both got way worse once radar was removed and retroactively disabled on radar equipped vehicles.

In our August 2020 road trip in a rented Model 3, the radar equipped cruise control was truly excellent.

Newsletter image

However, in the 2022 Model Y Performance we owned without radar, the cruise control was far inferior. And not once in the 2.5 years we owned that vehicle did either TACC or Autopilot improve in performance.

While Full Self Driving, especially in the latest builds, has vastly improved the smoothness of lane keep and modulating speed control it takes away control that many users want (speed and lane decision making).

Coupled with a current take rate that is around 10%, even after multiple waves of free trials I don't think this will be the lift Tesla expects.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Elon's $1 TRILLION pay incentive that is tied to FSD subscriptions... right?

I have a LOT more to say on this matter, so I'll try to get a full video out on it soon. Stay tuned for that in the coming week or so.

Worth Checking Out - Soonish EV

As nice as the Rivian cabin is to hang out in, the phone "charger" on all Rivians delivered to customers so far is... less than ideal.

By far the nicest solution for full speed 25w Magsafe compatible charging (when using the right pucks and modern phones) is from Soonish EV.

Check out their Gen1 and Gen2 bespoke solutions.

American owned by two of the nicest guys you'll meet in the community.

My thanks to Soonish EV for helping make this newsletter possible.

Latest Deals

Now that I have the Lease vs Buy Comparison tool, it's clear that even with a 10% buffer to favor leases against residual volatility, the finance deals are pretty strong right now with super low interest offers (0% to 1.99%).

Get 1.99% financing for 60 months on these builds (+ must have options):

Dul Standard

2026 R1S Dual-Standard (Premium Audio)

2026 R1T Dual-Standard (Premium Audio, Utility, V2 Tonneau)

Dual Large w/Performance:

2026 R1S Dual-Large w/Performance (Premium Audio)

2026 R1T Dual-Large w/Performance (Premium Audio, Utility V2 Tonneau)

Dual Max w/Performance:

2026 R1S Dual-Max w/Performance (Premium Audio)

2026 R1T Dual-Max w/Performance (Premium Audio, Utility, V2 Tonneau)

Get 0% financing for 60 months on these builds:

Tri-Max: