Rivian Recap: 10/23/2026
Hey there,
Here's your weekly Rivian Recap for October 23rd, 2026.
Rivian makes a key acquisition, expectations rise for Autonomy Day in December, cold weather concerns, new info on Mind Robotics, and details on next week's live stream.
Quick note: If I did a local meetup in the Edmonds, WA area would that be something you'd be interested in joining? I've had a few requests lately and I'd be willing to do it if there's enough interest.
Let's dive in!
Software
Rivian made the first announced acquisition in a while with Third Dimension, a U.K. based startup that uses AI to turn images and videos into lifelike 3D environments.
(Side note: Does anyone remember when Rivian acquired 'A Better Route Planner' back in 2023, which still doesn't have every Rivian Adventure Network fast charging site listed?)
Based on this article about the acquisition and what we know about Rivian's autonomy plans, it's pretty clear why they made this move.
The 15 person team, based in the U.K. is able to take images and videos to generate compelling real world scenarios out of simulation.
While fleet collected data from Rivian vehicles is always going to be golden, in order to play catch up and even have a shot of pulling a front runner position in autonomy, Rivian needs more data.
This is why they are mixing in professional driving data to help balance the behavior of their large driving model compared to fleet derived samples.
Getting that controlled professional driver input helps give signal for things like full legal stops, softer accelerations, and overall a "5 star private driver" benchmark that everyone is trying to deliver.
An acquisition like Third Dimension will give Rivian vastly increased flexibility when it comes to building more scenarios for the model to train against.
No matter if that's creating a new scenario from scratch, or more interestingly, expanding a scenario from an existing fleet clip.
That includes things like changing the weather in a real world scenario.
Imagine "this same intersection of traffic, but with heavy rain at night", and you would very well get a different reaction from the model.
I know in practice, driving the current version of Universal Hands Free, you can almost "feel" the confidence of the model fluctuate based on conditions.
In poor weather for example, "Spicy" driving style becomes unavailable, kicking down to "Medium" for increased follow distance and more measured lane changes, throttle input, etc.
More reserved and defensive driving in inclement weather is the right move, but as additional training happens, the model can be more confident about how it operates and ultimately be a more consistent experience.
Similarly, we got a quick clip from RJ Scaringe this week while navigating through New York traffic that had an interesting tidbit.
While being asked about the progress of autonomy, specifically in relation to more complex driving scenarios, RJ revealed that the upcoming Autonomy Day will feature a demo in San Francisco traffic.
So expect bikes, pedestrians, and tight congested traffic which should result in a compelling stress test if the demo rides ultimately go well.
What we are seeing play out in real time is Rivian working relentless to hit the autonomous performance milestones tied to the Uber deal.
With up to $1.25 billion available to unlock, with an initial $300 million of that following signing, there is still $950 million to unlock through milestones.
That includes an initial plan to purchase and deploy 10,000 autonomous R2 robotaxis, including an option to purchase an additional 40,000 beginning in 2030 should the product be successful.
Initial robotaxis will launch in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, with expansion to 25 cities by 2031.
(Note: Rivian has said on a prior earnings call, that the first R2 robotaxi will not be the same hardware as customer owned vehicles, but ultimately the vehicles being the same hardware suite is the goal.)
Rivian has shown they are very serious about rapidly accelerating their autonomous features, despite the current low adoption rate for leaders such as Tesla.
Personally, I welcome ever improved levels of driver assistance, and I believe it will take legal liability shifting for a massive uptick in buyers to care.
Giving aging family members extended personal independence through a safely operated, personally owned robotaxi, would be a dream come true.
If you're unwrapping a new iPhone Duo today, you'll probably be disappointed with how the Rivian app works at it stands today.
Rumor has it that Rivian is working on a version that takes better advantage of the new form factor, but users have been asking for years now to get the vehicle element reduced in size and increased control density.
It's likely we see more controls come to the forefront, but given the overall track record it's likely to be baby steps compared to what we really want.
The Duo is a niche device, and today is launch day so it's not unusual to have apps require an update. However, Ford and Tesla both beat Rivian to the punch with the Tesla app looking predictably nice.
Lastly, in one of funnier things I've seen in a while from Rivian software, it seems that a customer owned vehicle was accidentally pushed 2026.41.
Ultimately, Rivian caught the mistake and scheduled the vehicle to go back to the prior build, but it's funny how this could happen in the first place.
The only thing the user noticed while on the future build was that stop signs and stop lights were represented on the map, something I miss from Tesla.
Unfortunately though, they weren't able to check for Camp Mode or any of the other missing software pieces I'm personally waiting on.
In the next few weeks we should all see just what other changes may come to drive modes, bug fixes (like the rear window closing properly for R2), etc.
Hardware
A few users have shown some concerns about how Rivian handles the cold weather, in particular the R2 but R1 is not spared here either.
The overall polish of how the HVAC works in a Rivian has always been a bit perplexing. Often, it's either blasting cold or hot air with very little in nuance.
Similarly, we have the battery temperature to deal with beyond the internal cabin temperature. The battery has plenty of thermal capacity, as I proved in my heat test last month in Arizona.
Two things are true though when it comes to temperatures:
1. Rivian battery management and/or cabin HVAC needs to decide it wants to do something to actually move the temperature.
2. The powerful heat pump can suck a lot of juice when it's actively cooling or heating.
Recently when I was dealing with a family member health concern I saw the cold weather range loss message pop up for the first time on R2, something they added last winter across the fleet.
Originally, this cold weather communication was likely to head off the performance of R1 Standard (RIP) with the more cold sensitive battery chemistry, but it's still helpful for new EV drivers in general.
The thing that surprised me a little bit was how relatively mild the ambient temperature was that still triggered the warning about range loss.
With temps in the high 40's, near 50, the pack had cold soaked into the upper 30's at night it hadn't come to the air ambient temperatures yet.
For those worried about cold weather range, just note that charging the battery warms it up and recovers the cold weather range loss in most cases.
In real world examples, if you're doing a road trip and start cold it will not be uncommon to see ~20% range loss on the first leg. However, every leg after the first charge should be more or less the same as usual (not cold).
Hopefully we get "scheduled climate preconditioning" in the next update, or at worst the one after that for R2. This is one of the more confounding pieces missing from R2, despite having Pet Comfort Mode.
Community
This coming week on October 29th at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern, I will be doing a multi-cast of the earnings call followed by a community Q&A.
You'll be looking for this thumbnail once I go live:
You can expect one additional email from me as a reminder on Thursday, and bring your best questions for me to answer at the end of the call.
Looking forward to hanging out with you all (virtually)!
Worth Checking Out - Road Cam Storage
It's a real shame just how much prices have increased for storage and memory, which has impacted so many different markets.
But don't let those price increases stop you from catching footage through your road cam in case something wild happens while you're out and about.
Thankfully I have some drives from the "before times" when prices were a lot more reasonable, but I also know many of you are taking delivery of your first Rivian and will need something.
While only 256gb of storage, that should be enough for most people and it will save you some decent cash compared to the larger capacity options.
This will also give you the option to offload the motion cam footage should someone end up hitting your car like I had earlier this year.
You can grab the 256gb (or other capacities) here and support the content at no additional cost to you, as it uses an Amazon affiliate link.
Industry News
Still somewhat related to Rivian, but we finally get the first details about Mind Robotics "manufacturing robotics".
Mind Robotics is a spinoff out of Rivian (still a share holder), has raised an independent $1 Billion in funding so far and is the unsung story for 2026.
Given how much RIVN stock has been hammered this week, Rivian sees themselves down to a market cap ~$17.18 Billion.
Compare that to Mind Robotics, whose last round of funding brought them to $3.4 Billion on their own.
Despite the depiction used for the article above with full humanoid robots walking around, Mind Robotics has a different approach compared to the Tesla Optimus robots.
Described instead as "industrial robots" that has two arms, two hands, and fingers that go wider than humans along with fingernails to manipulate thin items or provide a light touch is the unique component.
Such detail on the dexterity of the hands is particularly interesting, because the leading factor referenced on the Tesla Optimus delay is the hands.
Given last weeks high profile hire of Doug Field, I wonder if we will hear more about Mind Robotics on this coming weeks earnings call.
It's long been the dream of dream of physical product CEOs to have "the machine that builds the machine", going back to Steve Jobs as NeXT.
Steve failed twice, and Elon famously tried to do the same with Model 3 production early on, eventually reverting to more human assembly.
Can Mind Robotics finally crack the fever dream?
Lucid is making progress with the production of their Nuro robotaxi.
One potentially underrated thing about these robotaxi programs is just the "butts in seats" effect that can help drive more EV adoption in the future.
The Lucid Gravity is a great EV that seems to have sorted out many of the software issues that plagued it a year ago.
I'm still nervous about the financial situation Lucid is in, but they have exceptional engineering that is present in their vehicles so far.
Latest Deals
Just over a week left for October deals, and most of them require 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: