Rivian Recap: 10/16/2026
Hey there,
Here's your weekly Rivian Recap for October 16th, 2026.
Details about the point-to-point rollout, updated video collection privacy, owners take R2 seat ventilation into their own hands, and more settings persistence issues.
Plus a big time hire for a Rivian spin-off.
Let's dive in!
Software
The big story on software this week is related to Autonomy+.
Rivian has been promising a "limited rollout" of point-to-point by the end of 2026, with a broader rollout to the fleet in 2027.
With the next Autonomy and AI Day happening in less than two months, we were still waiting on the details of how that would happen.
We finally have details on the Autonomy Early Access Program (EAP).
Here are the key details you need to know:
1. All owners can indicate interest who are actively subscribed to Autonomy+.
Trials don't count, but there will be a tile in your account soon to flag your interest in order to be considered. It is not live in accounts yet at the time of writing this newsletter.
2. The initial locations will be limited to California and Florida.
To reduce the variables on the initial rollout, Rivian is limiting the geo area to drivers who reside in these states, at least to start. (Bummer for me).
3. Only Gen2 and R2 vehicles in the United States are eligible.
Gen1 with it's older hardware, and oddly, Canada, are specifically excluded from the Early Access Program as it stands in the initial format.
Regardless of operating areas, all customers with qualifying vehicles in the United States will be able to "express interest".
4. Eligibility requirements are re-checked every 30 days or so
While there are geographic restrictions, as well as hardware requirements, Rivian is looking for safe drivers who frequently use driver assistance features.
Participants are also asked to complete monthly surveys, continue to drive safely, and provide consistent feedback in-vehicle.
5. Participants must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement
One of the biggest bummers for those who are interested in the development of Rivian's self-driving platform and are not in the program, is the requirement that participants sign an NDA.
It makes sense that Rivian would want to control the narrative here, especially at first, but we will need to see how stringent these agreements are. If they are too limiting, it will keep most of the community in the dark in terms of progress.
Seeing the official documentation go live and the areas they are targeting at launch is definitely encouraging. This likely means Rivian is seeing success with employee access and is ready to take the big step of limited customer rollout.
I'm excited to learn more about what Rivian has been cooking on the Autonomy front from their event in December.
One interesting (and welcome) note that Rivian sent out references a change in their data collection policy for driver assistance video clips.
A while back, Rivian increased the areas that it collected clips to use in model training, but noted that there was a time based rule around saved locations such as your home, work, or other favorites.
Given the high resolution cameras around Gen2 R1S, R1T, and R2, there is a lot of data to be potentially collected.
Checking your WiFi traffic would show some large data dumps from Rivian over your home network being sent back to improve driver assistance for everyone.
While the time based rule around these locations was a good start, the update referenced for 2026.41 (the next expected update) improves this considerably by using a geo fence instead of time.
This means, if you are driving around looking for a parking space, or any other activity near your saved locations, now you'll have 100% of these activities excluded from data collection.
Taking this approach is a notable improvement for the privacy of users.
Good job, Rivian!
Some users are finding their pet annoyances with the drive mode defaults of R2, which for each person is likely to be a little different.
Last week, I pointed out the moving of the goal posts for how drive mode persistence works in R2 despite earlier descriptions in the manual.
There were many people who felt it was overly nit picky despite my effort to flag that this wouldn't matter most of the time, to most owners.
(I still find it frustrating that Rivian effectively lied here, though.)
This week, some users who really prefer low regenerative braking are finding that the defaults are also bothering them after each 4 hour+ gap in driving.
The common theme here seems to be "EPA test setting or better" for what R2 is forcing itself back into after any extended stop.
For drive modes, despite what the manual says, if you put the vehicle into 'conserve' drive mode, it will persist until you change it. Conserve is simply a throttle mapping change that only adds about 1% of expected range.
Any other drive mode will revert back to All-Purpose.
For regenerative braking, you can set it to high and it will persist as this is stronger than the EPA tested cycle and should in theory yield more range.
Set it to low? And it will revert to standard after a 4 hour gap in driving.
I understand that Rivian wants a maximum marketable range figure, but the choices to do that at the expense of the user experience is quite irritating.
This is even more true for a top trim performance model.
In R1S and R1T, if you get a Performance (Tri) or Quad model, it will keep your drive mode settings persistent.
As a result, the rated EPA figure looks decidedly worse from a marketing perspective compared to the dual motor counterparts.
But if you look at the actual range comparison for comparable drive modes, the difference in maximum range is negligible.
Zooming out even further, this is made worse by the fact that the brand Rivian was clearly aiming to "beat" on a paper spec (Tesla), handily beats them when it comes to drive mode user experience.
Tesla chooses to test across drive modes, allowing them to keep modes persistent while also handily beating their stated range figures for the latest generation vehicles.
In practice, this means Rivian is playing fairly extreme EPA software games to get a paper number higher than Tesla, while consistently losing to Tesla in real world range figures.
(Yes, the vehicle shape plays a factor for highway speeds here a well.)
Most people don't actually need the full range available in the most optimal drive modes, so I don't think I'd be alone in taking the trade off for improved user experience at the cost of range due to my choices.
Whenever possible, I prefer to trust that users are savvy enough to understand when range is the priority they can choose modes that optimize for that.
Hardware
For hardware, it's never been more clear that Rivian is trying to leverage their hardware platform to be a flywheel for them as a software company.
Despite well over 80% of new vehicle buyers indicating they have very little interest in autonomy features, we're seeing more and more validation units out on the road on the path to better autonomy.
These validation units (or "penguins" as they're called) have specialized computers, and LiDAR arrays mounted to the roof for "ground truth" validation.
LiDAR provides extremely accurate depth information to validate what the cameras are seeing and interpreting as objects in space.
You'll notice on these expensive validation models, there are multiple LiDAR units pointing in multiple directions vs what we expect on R2, which is limited to a forward facing LiDAR that is well integrated.
These two applications for LiDAR are not totally comparable, but it's a bit of the 80/20 rule at play. The less expensive module in R2 should provide tremendous ground truth data at scale, for a fraction of the cost.
Even if most prospective buyers aren't currently interested in full "go to sleep" levels of autonomy, as this technology progresses and improves I do believe more people will want to use additional assistance.
The very limited version of Autonomy+ we have today, handled over 90% of my drive across the state and back this week.
I found to be very useful for a solo trip, so any progress beyond here is going to be a welcome improvement on something I already enjoy.
Next up is the R2 seat ventilation removal for the lower back, while leaving the bottom seat cushion fan.
As usual, the Rivian community is at the ready to rip things apart and see what the options really are. Thankfully (for now) the bracket and wiring remains.
Jordan harvested the bottom seat cushion fan from the passenger side to install in the driver side back, as it seems Rivian won't sell owners the fan parts directly to self-install the additional fan.
It appears as though Rivian likely intends for this change to be permanent, despite us still having no official statement or communication about it.
This is amplified by the extreme control that Rivian has over parts and service availability, which has been a negative in terms of right to repair from the get go.
If we look at past part changes, I would expect the bracket and wiring to be temporary and for them to eventually be eliminated as well once the current inventory for these parts are depleted.
We saw the same thing in Gen1 with the 12v frunk port, among other changes.
At this point I'm also not convinced this was truly about fan noise, and perhaps could be a parts shortage that had a convenient cost cutting side effect.
Much of this backlash could've been avoided with clear and consistent communication about the change. Eventually no one will really remember this outside of early adopters, but it's definitely an unforced error.
Community
One of the best things that Rivian has brought continues to be the community.
The excitement that (often first time) EV owners get to experience with these vehicles as a software defined platform, and the interesting people it seems to attract continue to be a highlight.
The unfortunate thing that gets lost when the community has backlash over things like the ventilated seats is how fun these vehicles can be.
While there is always a valid argument to be made for delivering more bug fixes and features (hello Camp Mode for R2, for example), things like Halloween mode can be such a fun experience.
That's even more true for first time owners, because it helps them think about their vehicles differently than they ever have before.
Worth Checking Out - R2 Organization
A common accessory that many Rivian owners love to pick up are organizers for the center console "pit" in order to have layers of their stuff.
From headphones, gum, pocket knives, etc... it can be handy to have order to the chaos without being annoying to use.
In our R1 vehicles, I actually didn't love the OEM organizer 2 layer design as it was a bit fussy to get in and out.
Cargonaut recently sent out their two designs for me to check out, and while they are 3D printed, the build quality is nice and the organization is handy.
If you're interested in organizing your center console, these are great options to get you squared away. Plus an optional slide out cubby organizer.
I think I prefer the 3 compartment design, but you can't go wrong either way.
The first 30 people to use code "TRAVISKETCHUM" save 10%.
My thanks to Cargonaut for helping make this newsletter possible.
Industry News
A new segment this week based on feedback from last weeks question.
Here's a quick hit of industry news for the week.
Doug has history at Apple, the Model 3 ramp at Tesla, and helping Ford build their new EV program that is giving us the new Ford Fathom.
Mind Robotics has been light on public details, but having already raised more than $1 Billion in funding, this could be one of the more meaningful things to come from the Rivian tree to date.
Second, is the reveal of a revamped Tesla Roadster prototype.
While I feel it's objectively less attractive than the 2017 prototype, as a tech demo it is wildly more impressive (even if unnecessary).
With a wild combination of engineering efforts, this thing can actually fly.
Plus, it can do 0-60 in under 1 second.
A new 4680 cell design with advanced cooling coupled with a different chemistry has a claimed 10 minute charge time to 80%.
I hope we see this actually come to market (for real this time), if nothing else to set the new benchmark and getting the battery tech to trickle down.
Latest Deals
October deals are here, and most of them are set to extend into securing your offer by November 2nd with a November 30th delivery deadline.
The majority of the offers are still working on incentivizing the remaining 2026 model inventory, but we do have a new 3.99% offer for 2027 vehicles.
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 (3.99% or $1.5k lease bonus) [Lease vs Buy Example]
2026 R1S Dual-Large (Premium Audio)
2026 R1T Dual-Large (Premium Audio, Utility V2 Tonneau)
Tri Max (1.99% or $1.5k lease bonus) [Lease vs Buy Example]
Quad Max (3.99%) [Lease vs Buy Example]
All R1 referrals also get 3 months of free charging on the Rivian Adventure Network, as well as some shop credits (varies by trim).
I hope enjoyed this week's edition of the Rivian Recap. Let me know what you'd like to see more of in future editions!
Even if you just want to say hi, hit reply – I'd love to get to know you 👋
Stay curious ✌️,
Travis Ketchum
P.S. Thinking about buying a new Rivian R1S or R1T?
Make sure you use a referral code. A friend, a neighbor, or someone who has helped you along the way.
Here's mine: TRAVIS4699411
P.P.S. Here are some tools and resources you may find useful: