Rivian Recap: 09/25/2026

Hey there,

Here's your weekly Rivian Recap for September 25th, 2026.

The R2our is complete, we get a teaser for R3 and R4, the 3rd quarter Autonomy+ improvements are MIA, plus a fun YouTube collaboration.

Let's dive in!

Software

Now that the Rivian R2our is complete and I'm back home taking care of our black lab who just had knee surgery.

While I have a few more videos from the road trip, including a full recap of the experience with pros/cons, I had a few software specific notes I wanted to share with you.

First up is Autonomy+ and Universal Hands Free.

Throughout the roughly 3,500 mile road trip, we found ourselves using the hands free feature for about 80% of the trip. This was a stark improvement over last year's road trip with "Enhanced Highway Assist" that required pre-approved roads.

Usage of hands free would've been well north of 90% if the feature didn't disable at 85 mph. In areas where the speed limit is 80, but the flow of traffic is 90+, leaves 85 feeling less safe than it looks on paper.

Even a 5 mph bump to 90 would be very welcomed for these areas, as we felt a similar need in our rented Model 3 road trip back in 2020, which could actually do a full 90 mph cruise control (but would be limited to 85 today).

Before Tesla dropped the radar, they used to allow a 90 mph top speed for cruise control, which was later reduced when they went vision only.

The difference from 85 to 90 may seems small, but it can make a big difference for not impeding traffic over many long stretches of the country.

Overall though, the fatigue and relief from widespread coverage of the hands free system was very notable throughout the trip.

However, there are regressions compared to the older Rivian system that are still present in terms of absolute centering around widened lanes such as on and off ramps that have been present for months now.

Earlier this year, I had a chance to sit down with a member of the Autonomy team in my local area to outline what their goals were at that time.

In that interview, Scott mentions that there was a target of "Q3 2026" which had also been stated by several other Autonomy members for more features.

Lane Change 'Anywhere', stoplight and stop sign behavior, along with auto lane changes on the freeway for on ramp to off ramp autonomy.

So far, we've only seen the increased footprint of lane change behavior, and even that has some odd guardrails about where it will or won't operate.

As we come to the end of Q3, media requests to Rivian have been met with the canned answer of "nothing to share at this time". It's unclear if these features are simply delayed or if they're being rolled into point-to-point entirely.

Given the quiet communication, I'm guessing they are just shooting for full point-to-point, which honestly makes more sense.

These half measures up until now are confusing for more casual consumers who aren't following every little change along the way like those of us here on this email list :-)

Given the deal with Uber and the pressure mounting for a December Autonomy Day (as soon as 70 days away at this point), I'd suspect it's all hands on deck for point-to-point and anything else is sidelined.

Next on the software front is how the Rivian ecosystem did overall with handling a substantial road trip. There were some delights and a few warts along the way.

Pros:

+ Negative arrival state of charge that updates as charge level improves. From "we aren't going to make it" to "we now have an acceptable buffer, let's roll".

+ Accurate arrival state of charge if you stay within reasonable distance of the posted speed limits (often met or beat by 2-3%).

+ Pre-conditioning the battery worked well without wasting too much battery capacity, and resulted in reliable charging performance.

+ The Waze integration for police sightings was immensely helpful and shockingly accurate.

Cons:

- Trip planner can't account for time zone changes. Both times our single trip had us crossing time zones, it had the incorrect arrival times.

- There's no way to say "optimize for these specific networks" vs overall network preferences. With us having free charging at Rivian Adventure Network right now, I was willing to shift my planning slightly to optimize for charging costs.

- Weirdly, even though "A Better Route Planner" is owned by Rivian, it was missing quite a few Rivian Adventure Network locations. Including those that have been live for well over a year.

Lastly there were a few quirks in the software that ended up being an inconvenience during the trip. Top of mind here was that this was our first really long road trip using the DOMETIC CFX 35L fridge vs a cooler with ice.

Newsletter image

Not having to source ice from gas stations or hotels was a pleasure, and the reduction for size and weight was welcome.

However, R2 turned off the outlets multiple time despite the 3 day outlet timer and would sometimes take 2 tries to get the outlets to turn back on.

A specific bug that turned off the outlets multiple times was when using Level 2 charging at homes or hotels, it turns off all the outlets.

Using a DC fast charger, such as Tesla Superchargers, or the Rivian Adventure Network would not disable the outlets. Level 2 charging killed the outlets every time, and this behavior was repeatable.

While we wait on other software features to catch up with the rest of the fleet such as Camp Mode, Rivian Assistant, Climate Keep, etc... I hope there is a team chasing down these quirks on each release cycle as well.

Hardware

While I'll have a dedicated video for the heat stress test, in addition to the full road trip recap, I was able to spend some time with a fellow content creator to compare the different options we each chose + impressions of R2.

We each chose different paint, wheels & tires, XPEL paint protection film, tint, and more.

It makes two of the "same" vehicles very different in daily life.

One key question that came up during the comparison is:

Just how much different will the Premium and Standard suspension be?

In the segment leading to Phoenix, I was less sold on the variability of the Performance suspension. However, on the leg back to Seattle we encountered even more "rolling" roadways with dips and peaks.

Being able to tame the suspension back from Soft to moderate or even Firm in some cases vastly reduced the peak float or full dip that Soft gives you.

This helped the vehicle feel more settled and was actually more comfortable pushing through some curvy mountain passes.

I'm very much looking forward to comparing the two suspension systems from Performance vs Premium/Standard back-to-back once they're available to test.

I have a lot to say about the overall trip efficiency since I know that was a big concern from many people going into this adventure.

There were two key takeaways I had related to range:

1. A bigger battery would leave us in the 10-80% sweet spot more often.

R2 ships with an 88kWh battery, but an option for a ~110kWh battery like we see in the BMW iX3 that would be super useful.

The benefit here isn't really for peak 100% charge range, but so you can spend less time poking your head above 80% where things really slow down.

2. For a 400v-ish vehicle, R2 charges really well and the new thermal management does wonders for delivering that curve consistently.

However, being a higher voltage class such as 900v would've shaved time off many of our charging stops along the way in addition to producing less heat from resistance in the first place.

Chris Hilbert recently found a job filing that indicates that Rivian probably agrees with the higher voltage solution in the long run (it's inevitable).

Lastly, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe recently talked about the unveiled R3 and the unannounced R4 which will be "materially cheaper" than R2.

With a price target for R3 being 35-40k, and R4 to come in under that, it will be interesting to see what design tradeoffs have to be made to continue digging towards lower pricing than what is present in R2.

We're still waiting on the lower cost R2 trims, but from those who were at the media event in Park City, Utah, it actually sounds like the interior of the standard trim is quite compelling for a sub-$50k Rivian.

Here's hoping at least a few US Automakers can compete if China is allowed to build and produce vehicles locally.

Community

After meeting with a number of you in Phoenix, it was nice to see a few more friendly faces at the charging stop in Boise, Idaho.

This week I also helped some of some family members get into an R2 from their previous Model X, that has been on the channel a few times.

While the Model X was the best car they had ever owned, they were extremely excited to have stalks back on their vehicle.

Congratulations Chuck and Evelyn on your new "Pie" R2!

Worth Checking Out - Gear Guard Storage

With the intermittent issue that Gear Guard has had on R2 with storage devices being unreliable (which is a software issue), I put together a work around for those who already have a drive on hand or ran into issues.

However, it has not impacted all drives or even all brands equally.

Thankfully, a few have been trouble free and I keep getting questions about which drive to get for pending R2 deliveries.

Just this past week, I had success getting this drive installed for 1 terabyte of storage for video files and easily offloading of clips to a computer.

So if you need a drive, I'd suggest picking up this one from Best Buy.

My thanks to Best Buy for helping make this newsletter possible.

Latest Deals

September offers are wrapping up, and they are exclusive to model year 2026. We do see an interest rate improvement for '26 R1 quad models.

Here is a bonus $1,000 discount that applies to any new R1, including both 2026 and 2027 models if you purchase by September 30th.

There are still some overall price reductions available:

Check out the price reduction on R1S.

Check out the price reduction on R1T.

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

Dual Large (2.99% or $1.5k lease bonus) [Lease vs Buy Example]

2026 R1S Dual-Large (Premium Audio)

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