Rivian Recap: 04/03/2026

Hey there,

Here's your weekly Rivian Recap for April 3rd, 2026.

Q1 delivery numbers are in, a big wave of Autonomy+ trials end tomorrow, employees are notified for R2 deliveries, and a Gear Shop drop.

Let's dive in!

Software

Every new R1 delivers with a 60-day trial of Autonomy+, but there are somewhere between 60-80k Gen2 vehicles that were on a trial that expires on April 4th.

That means, if you've been enjoying some of the various states of driver assistance such as:

- Hands free lane centering
- Lane change on command (on pre-approved divided highways)

...then you'll be reverting to the free tier unless you pay up.

Currently, the features in the premium tier are nice to have, but the general sentiment is that it's likely not worth the asking price.

Given that it will cost either $49.99 per month or $2.5k once, that feels like a lot for what Autonomy+ offers today. Given that it's basically a better version of the now discontinued Autopilot suite from Tesla.

(With the notable exception of being hands free, having superior multi-modal cruise, and co-steer.)

If you let the trial lapse, your Gen2 vehicle will retain:

- Highway Assist (hands-on lane centering on pre-approved highways)
- Adaptive cruise (multi-modal with cameras and radar)
- Co-steer (temporarily adjust lane keeping without disabling)

Plus a whole suite of other standard safety features like lane departure, rear cross traffic, etc.

For most people, this included set of features is going to be good enough in contrast to the price, but I really wish the hands-on lane centering worked anywhere it saw lane lines.

Less than this level of functionality feels punitive at these prices.

What about what's coming?

The two big promises on their marketing site for 2026 are:

- Auto parking (parallel and perpendicular)
- On-ramp to off-ramp (auto lange changes, highway interchanges)

Meanwhile, both my discussions with the Autonomy team and repeated interviews by RJ state they will start to roll out "FSD like" point-to-point at the end of 2026 and into early 2027.

The point-to-point feels like the most likely item to slip, which probably also explains why it's not front and center on the sales page.

I do think that Rivian will deliver on their stated goals within the next 12 months to make Autonomy+ quite compelling for the bulk of driver scenarios.

But I also think it's not worth $49.99 per month right now.

At half the price of Tesla FSD (which itself only has a 13% take rate), it offers far less than half the value of that system.

So what's the move here? Will you be subscribing for road trips, purchasing outright or letting it expire completely?

If you plan to keep your Gen2 vehicle for any length of time, I would suggest the license as it ties it to the VIN and adds some value to your car, of which some portion should be able to be recouped when you sell.

Additionally, if you know this is something you want and you haven't acquired your vehicle yet, I'd suggest the license here as well because even on a lease if you roll the option in at the start, it comes out to around $38/month.

This is due to the fact that you're only paying part of the depreciation during your lease, and should you decide to buyout your vehicle it will have it tied to the VIN.

Next up I just wanted to acknowledge that March was a rare month without a Rivian update on the usual ~4 week cadence.

Could we be getting Rivian Assistant enabled very soon?

It sounds like it's a feature flag that could be enabled fleet wide at any time, even without a major point update, so we really must be close.

Hardware

The spicy hardware news I think most of you will be interested in...

It looks like R2 employee deliveries are in motion.

The interesting part here is that it appears as though it has opened up to both Rivian employees, and staff at the VW JV.

While this tracks with how the Gen1 launch happened, I'm hopeful we ultimately see more employees driving Rivians as their primary vehicle.

A frequent frustration and disconnect with Rivian right now is how few employees are able to get into an R1 on a regular basis, meaning some glaring bugs get overlooked or sales people being misinformed.

If more staff are driving (or "dog fooding") an R2, we are likely to have fewer bugs, and to have the product better represented through sales channels, ultimately leading to an improved fleet experience.

The Q1 2026 delivery and production numbers were released today, and they were slightly better than expected.

10,365 deliveries and 10,236 vehicles produced.

Roughly 20% YoY delivery improvement, and Rivian reaffirmed their guidance of 62,000 to 67,000 deliveries for the full year.

A full earnings call will be held on April 30th @ 3pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern.

Given that we had a good time hanging out as a community during the last earnings call, I plan to do a live stream of the event and hang around to do Q&A afterwards for those who attend.

We finally got a Gear Shop drop this week for a variety of new products that Rivian had hinted in their "Let's go!" customer newsletter.

Products include a new off-road readiness bundle for a better value than buying the same gear individually.

But also a number of (pricey) accessories from premium brands such as Dometic, BuiltRight, and EV Sportline.

Nothing here is ground breaking, but I do appreciate seeing more 3rd party products getting the official Rivian blessing at the same MSRP as you'd find from regular retailers.

The MOLLE Panels in particular seem really neat for R1T owners looking to outfit their vehicles with additional gear, while still being compatible with the powered tonneau cover.

Community

This week we have a new collab between two newsletter regulars.

My favorite Rivian data analytics platform, Rivian Roamer, has teamed up with RivianTrackr's tire guide to feed the tire efficiency data reporting.

Given that the tire guide directly feeds its list of tires to quickly select inside of Rivian Roamer, means the community benefits from truly crowd sourced data.

No more EPA guesses or tire spec sheets claiming efficiency.

Real world data from similar vehicles with the tires actually installed.

Great work guys!

Here are a few community events over the next week or so:

- 04/11 - Central Oregon Rivian Club - Off-Road and Recovery Training Day with Oregon Adventure Trucks

- 04/11 - Kansas City Rivian Club - Rivian Coffee + River Walk!

Worth Checking Out - 2TB SSD

Last week, my R1T was the on the unfortunate end of a hit and run.

Thankfully it was parked on the street and no one was injured.

Newsletter image

And while I'm working through the pain of getting it into a body shop now (which will definitely have a video on that later), one thing that saved me was having my Gear Guard properly setup and easily transferred to an SSD.

With this 2TB SSD + right angle USB-C adapter, I always have storage in my vehicle to capture road cam incidents and move key video clips onto my computer. This proved invaluable for proving liability in the insurance claim.

Thankfully, Gen2 cameras were just clear enough to make out a license plate, so that should be fun for USAA to follow up on. 😅

It seems having Gear Guard enabled and the right storage in place will save me a considerable amount of money.

Make sure you have your storage device in order, especially with AI driving computer component prices through the roof.

Purchases through the links above help make this newsletter possible.

Latest Deals

The dual-standard configurations are slimming down as this model winds down to the end of production. Even with a 1.99% finance offer, I still would recommend avoiding this build due to BMS calibration issues.

Here's what's sticking out for deals this week:

Get $3k lease bonus or 0.99% for 60 months on these builds:

Dual Large w/Performance [Lease vs Buy Example]:

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

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

[Non-performance large/max get 1.99% finance, no lease incentive]

Dual Max w/Performance [Lease vs Buy Example]:

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

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

Tri-Max [Lease vs Buy Example]:

2026 R1S Tri-Motor

2026 R1T Tri-Motor