Rivian Recap: 01/30/2026

Hey there,

Here's your weekly Rivian Recap for January 30th, 2026.

Software easter egg, Digital Key behavior, Tesla kills Autopilot, more info about the ALSO e-bike, detailed leasing info, and more.

Let's dive in!

Software

At the heart of the Rivian in-car experience is Android Automotive. Not to be confused with "Android Auto" as the phone projection system for Android phones.

Android Automotive has quickly taken over as the core operating system across many automakers, often looking more "Google-y" in products from OEM's like Volvo and Polestar, compared to the highly customized solution Rivian offers.

It does mean though that few funny little quirks can show up, such as this discovery by Also Zampatti on X.

It turns out that there is actually keyboard and mouse support in your Rivian to navigate around the UI and even allows for keyboard inputs such in applications such as Google Maps.

While not a super practical thing day to day, I guess this support could be useful in a support situation if the in-car screen had a hardware issue causing it to be unresponsive to touch inputs.

Next, let's have a quick chat about Digital Key.

The update from the typical Bluetooth based phone keys to the Digital Key, which in our Apple household translates into official CarKey support has been a bit of a mixed bag.

An obvious upgrade has been the consistency of the vehicle unlocking, though as since upgrading to Digital Key we have not found ourselves standing by the door like doofus waiting for it to unlock.

In the prior Bluetooth based phone key, it was quite hit or miss. And for a full software cycle, on the new 17 series iPhones running Apple's custom wireless chip it was more miss than hit.

However, there are two core issues with Digital Key as it stands today.

#1 - I'm not sure why Rivian isn't utilizing Ultra Wide Band ( UWB ) to more accurately and consistently identify the correct driver profile.

When my wife and I walk up to a vehicle around approximately the same time, but she goes for the passenger door and I go for the driver door, it will switch to her profile more than 50/50.

We are both running the same generation iPhone, and this is even more perplexing why it would make an incorrect selection on my truck where I'm listed as the "owner" and she's setup as a "driver".

Friend of the channel, Christian Selig, had made some noise about this issue back in December. I had not yet set my wife up with Digital Key for setup/filming reasons so we didn't really have this issue often.

The speed and consistency of lock/unlock is great, but the correct profile selection needs some improvement.

#2 - Proximity of Digital Key Behavior

While I very much appreciate how reliable the lock/unlock happens now, it's almost too sensitive based on range.

Our house setup means our cars end up parked outside, and when we are home if we get near the front of the house the vehicle will constantly lock and unlock to an unreasonable degree.

This perimeter seems to have expanded compared to the Bluetooth range, and the awesome (in theory) feature of no longer needing to swap cars selected in the app for multi-vehicle unlock means it's a symphony of madness.

I'd love to see some kind of range sensitivity setting, even if only at home, that would allow the automatic unlock to remain set to ON, but reduce the sensitivity range to be more in close proximity of the vehicle.

For now, I've had to set both vehicles to "lock only" behavior at home.

While not explicitly Rivian focused, one of the big software stories this week in the world of EVs is the removal of Autopilot support from all new Teslas sold.

This feels noteworthy given the push by Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid to deliver on full autonomy... amid consumer surveys indicating that a great adaptive cruise and standard lane centering are what the majority of people actually want.

Given the lack of speed control or static lane selection in FSD v14, and the subpar dedicated traffic aware cruise control performance, how will Tesla stay competitive with increased competition (such as R2) rolling out soon?

I'd really love to see Rivian do their "hands on" lane centering as a universal product for the free tier, similar to Universal Hands Free that is part of Autonomy+.

With the main difference of the free tier vs UGH being the requirement of hands on, yet still working everywhere vs only pre-approved roads like it does today.

That would give Rivian a very compelling and performant set of radar cruise and lane centering that the bulk of the market says they want as it stands right now.

I still think Lucid has one of the best adaptive cruise control products on the market with how smooth the radar cruise was during my test drive.

Hardware

With the initial manufacturing validation builds (MVBs) of R2 rolling off the line, Rivian has set out on a Route 66 tour.

While primarily stuck to Instagram stories and shorts, some avid fans have collected the content from the road trip here.

Perhaps you'll be lucky enough to see this guy rolling by your local area?

At most, we are T-5 months from the first customer deliveries, but I expect by April we will have more to talk about on the sellable R2 front.

Last month when I was in Palo Alto for the Autonomy & AI Day at Rivian HQ, I was able to snag some time on their spinoff mobility company called ALSO.

While I frankly dislike the name, the products are incredibly interesting to someone who has experience owning premium e-bikes for years.

There's some spectacular value hidden in these initial offerings that I think most in the regular EV community have missed, primarily because they aren't quite sure what they're looking at... and that's ok.

I was finally able to get caught up a bit on some of backlog of content to bring you an interview with ALSO's director of product, as well as highlight some of the core technology differences vs other similarly equipped bikes.

While more niche, this has been one of my favorite videos recently.

Community

It's been a bit quieter than usual on the community front this week, but I do have a few quick highlights for you.

First, fellow content creator Gjeebs just dropped a new video detailing his full lease details from a 2-year lease on a Gen1 R1T dual/large.

For those considering a lease, or weighing lease vs buy, this is a great recap video to help you understand the process, fees, and hurdles.

Next, over the coming week there are a few local Rivian community events you may want to be aware of.

01/31 San Gabriel Valley Rivian Club - SGVRC Giant Rock Cleanup

02/04 RCA - Optima Unplugged 2026

02/05 RCA - Thursday KOH Adventure

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

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