Rivian Recap: 12/05/2025

Let's dive in!

R1 & Software

Every Rivian color has hit different in person than it has in photos, and it's one of the things that I think Rivian does better than most OEMs.

For example, even though Compass Yellow wasn't for me, it was easily the best looking yellow car I've ever seen. Rivian Blue just steals my heart 💙.

This week, Rivian hit us with two purchasable R1 variants that stray from the usual color schemes. Neither is my jam, but I'm glad they exist for variety.

Spoiler: Both models are quad-motor exclusive.

Limited "Miami" (Vice?) Edition

The ultra-limited run of the dixie cup vehicle is $134,990 and apparently in the first few days they already sold 8 of the 10 available cars 👀

What's interesting about this special edition is that it's a departure from the Dune (that I adored) where they made 500 of both the S and the T.

When you look around social media, it seems like collective reaction is primarily "Why didn't they do this with the Pebble Beach one-off instead?".

But moving 8 quads with special paint and a few brightly colored interior parts is probably more quads than they sold last week combined, so there's that.

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The Purple "Borealis" Quad Hits (both S & T).

The leaked in public purple colorway has finally dropped, labeled as "Borealis", which feels on theme with the Laguna Blue accents that the quad-motors have on each trim.

Available for both the quad-R1S and quad-R1T, this is the first production run of a new color we've seen from Rivian in some time, but it appears to be available in an undefined limited run.

(Here's a video captured from the launch event by Carlos!)

Will we see more special colors crop up from time to time that fill a "slot" in the paint shop to push sales? 

Does this mean Compass Yellow could make a limited return sometime in the future? 💛

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Speaking of more colors, Carlos also captured some cool colors with a bright green alongside "Yellowstone Orange" and Laguna Beach Blue which appear to be the two colors shown on the R3X prototype.

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A new way to build an audio system for R1?

Rivian has filed a patent to extend their use of ethernet based "zonal architecture" for their audio system.

This is probably more about wire reduction and cost savings, but could it mean Rivian is truly rethinking their approach to audio?

Unfortunately, this probably makes standard audio upgrades harder to do if this ever comes to pass.

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CarKey... for real this time?

After a few false starts, it seems we are finally slated to get official CarKey support. Based on the screenshot shared from Wassym, it looks like the card in your digital wallet reflects the powertrain (white, yellow, teal).

This is slated for 2025.46, which I can only assume drops shortly after next weeks AI & Autonomy day with some of the earliest glimpses at the new autonomy stack and first customer facing feature upgrades.

R2, AI & Autonomy Day Predictions

Rivian is hyping up the AI & Autonomy day to a level that could set them up for a break out event... or a total bust.

When you put this much pressure on something to be a splash, it's more important than ever that event actually delivers. Inviting the typical Tesla FSD crowd, and I assume other prominent tech oriented creators who have been critical of self-driving systems means the stakes are HIGH.

On top of all that, I'm sure this will be primarily positioned in a way that shows off what Gen2's future may look like, but far more important will be what this event will mean for R2, R3 and the future product portfolio in a few years.

Given just how make or break R2 and beyond is for Rivian as a successful company, this event will be to juice investor interest as a primary objective for what the future fleet will be capable of, and how valuable the data will be.

When we consider this against the backdrop of how spectacularly Rivian faceplanted with their claims around Gen1 autonomy (and how it seems stuck in stasis forever going forward), they better be able to back things up.

Below are my tentpole thoughts on what we may see next week, but be sure to stay tuned as I will be at the event in person and will bring back a full report.

#1 "Universal Hands Free" Lane Centering (Very Confident)

Right now, lane centering at all, let alone hands-free lane centering, only works on pre-mapped highways. On my 5,230 mile road trip this summer, large rural chunks of the trip such as New Mexico had zero highway assist support.

After this update (which may come as soon as the .46 release this month), we could see the mapping areas dramatically expand to anywhere it can clearly see lane lines, even if Rivian has never driven there before.

This puts Gen2 vehicles much closer to how Tesla's base autopilot works everywhere, but with the added benefit of hands-free in many locations where the computer safety score evaluates the situation as safe enough.

(Side note: I bring up the safety evaluation, because in areas around Seattle that are now hands-free much of the time, I've seen the system ask for hands on the wheel in hard rain or averse weather, which is very reasonable.)

Rivian has already said this is coming in 'late 2025', so AI & Autonomy day is the perfect place to show it off before dropping shortly after in the .46 release.

#2 Automated Co-Steer (High Confidence)

The biggest reason my spouse previously chose not to use any driver assistance was that she hated the proximity to large vehicles, such as semi's, in adjacent lanes.

Rivian recently launched "co-steer" to allow you to change the modality near lanes or objects in the road you wanted to avoid by "bending" the car to a new lane shade, before allowing it to ease back to center.

An area that Tesla's FSD has been quite amazing is not only in doing this action automatically, but also slowing vehicle speed when nearby lanes are going far slower which dramatically increases safety from cars pulling out.

I expect we we'll see Rivian's automatic lane positioning and possibly lane speed relative to nearby lanes as their "Driver Comfort Assist" they has been promised as well for "late 2025".

These features may seem minor, I think these two things tick the box for what >90% of drivers actually want out of their vehicle.

#3 Point-to-Point Highway Autonomy (Medium Confidence)

This is a bigger step forward in terms of actual automation, as it would be the on-ramp to off-ramp experience being completely automated to have Tesla FSD-like performance for highways.

To tick this feature box, the car would need to be able to be completely hands free between the ramp experiences, including automatic lane changes, highway interchanges, merging, dealing with traffic merging into the lane, and more.

If Rivian gets to here, they will have basically caught up to what Enhanced Autopilot was for Teslas before the FSD stack completely took over.

On my long summer road trip, I spent probably 90% of the time driving on highways. If the car has these abilities for these vast stretches of road I would've absolutely shown up feeling more fresh and relaxed to each destination.

It was very notable that on my longest days, where I had a large overlap (but not nearly 100%) for supported pre-mapped roads, the level of energy and mental fatigue was starkly different than long days with adaptive cruise only.

#4 Point-to-Point City Autonomy (Low Confidence)

If Rivian hadn't hyped up this event so much, or invited so many loyal Tesla FSD fanatics to the reveal event, I would've said city point-to-point would've almost entirely been off the menu for this demo.

However, given the pressure and invite roster, the odds of some kind of city based driving is actually pretty decent. However, I think we are going. to see a much more controlled environment for the demo if anything.

RJ Scaringe has been saying in recent interviews that complete point-to-point autonomy was coming for Gen2 within 12-18 months.

So while I do think we see something related to city driving with things like intersection control etc, I think at best it will be an early development preview of more what's to come "eventually" vs what's to come "soon".

The Reality Check

Three things to keep in mind going into this event:

1. - It will cost money eventually. Gen2 owners have a subset of these features on an extended free trial right now. But the advanced stuff will eventually be behind the "Rivian Autonomy Platform+" paywall.

I'd expect us to learn what both the monthly and onetime pricing is per vehicle at this event, but to have a roughly 90 day trial of the better features going into roughly the March timeframe which seems like the best candidate to launch R2.

2. - Timelines will most likely slip. If Rivian says Q1, some of the best features are likely to slip into Q2 or Q3. When Gen2 launched, they expected to be where they are after this event, a full year prior.

That "RAP+ free trial" period has been extended multiple times, and Rivian themselves has ambition that outpaces their ability to execute in a timely fashion, unfortunately.

3. - Gen1 owners are left behind. Gen1 vehicles don't have the hardware for any of this, and the difference in hardware models is so egregiously different that retrofits are pretty unreasonable to pull off.

Some Gen1 owners paid current pricing of $90k+ for their vehicles and are watching Gen2 capability really break away from a feature standpoint.

I really, really hope Rivian starts to adopt a more modular approach for being able to do compute based hardware retrofits in the future if nothing else in the name of sustainability, if not customer satisfaction.

(Bonus - Check out this predictions video from my friend, Mike Kantorski, about what he expects to see at the event as well. If I hadn't been coming down with a bit of a cold, I had been planning on a video as well. Good job, Mike!)

Future notes from the actual event

I'll be there in person with other Rivian and Tesla creators getting a hands-on look at what they have to show the world from the labs. Plus, I'm meeting with the ALSO. ebike team the day after the event and doing a demo ride while I'm down there to make the most out of the trip.

I'm really looking forward to bringing you the full event recap, plus my hands-on impression of the truly unique ebike design.

Community

Recently I included a note about how I was going to be installing a 3D printed upgrade for Christmas lights over the bed of my R1T.

Thanks to @Hilbe who printed them for me, I think they came out great!

If you're curious at all what it's like installing something like this, I put together a 60 second YouTube short showing the install process.

Holiday mode engaged! 🎄

Plus, I know a few of you got inspired to do a similar temporary install to get int he spirit, such as this R1S with lights in the snow.

Worth Checking Out - Sponsor

I've had our VION sunshades in both our R1S and R1T for months now. They're custom-fit for Rivian's expansive glass roof, and honestly, they can make a big difference on hot days or when the vehicle is parked.

VION sponsored my 1-year review video, and they're offering Rivian Recap readers 10% off anything site wide with code "TRAVIS".

Check out their sunshades, carbon activated air filters, and more:

VION Sunshade // VION Air Filters

My thanks to VION for helping make this newsletter possible.

Latest Deals

After the November deals came to a close, Rivian went back to their crack marketing team to come up with the best offer they could muster.

(*Checks notes*) uhhh, what I mean is... they copy/pasted Novembers deals. 😅

That means the best deals are the same with $5k in lease cash towards any 2026 dual-standard configuration.

You can still stack this with up to $3k in additional savings for purchasing the same day as a trade-in quote or demo drive ($1k) and accepting a trade-in offer ($2k bonus).

That's $8k in lease cash bonus value on top of the already improved money factor leasing available on the dual-standard.

BUT! Rivian has made a few changes to how they package a number of trims, now properly including what I think are some of the best features anyway and outsized customer delight compared to price (like the tonneau and utility panel).

The price and component change should just be for new builds so still tread carefully and use the shop filters (linked below) for the best configurations of pre-built vehicles in the R1 shop.

Here's the bottom line for offers overall..

All 2025's are 1.99% financing, but their lease rates are often worse than the newer model year (dumb).

For 2026's, you can get 1.99% financing for the performance upgraded duals (large and max), or the upper-end tri and quad motors.

Must place your order by December 31st.

My suggestion remain the same as it was during recent 1-year review.

I'd go with a 2026 model year, and lease either a dual-standard (with premium audio upgrade) with $5k lease cash:

2026 R1S dual-standard (with premium audio)

2026 R1T dual-standard (with premium audio, tonneau, utility panel)

OR, I'd go up to a 2026 tri-motor for the improved driving dynamics.

2026 R1S tri-motor

2026 R1T tri-motor

Grab either of those on a lease, and snag the extra $2k when you trade-in, plus another $1k for doing it the same day as a demo drive or trade-in quote.

Plus get either 100 gear shop credits for dual-standard, 250 for dual-large/max or 500 points with a tri/quad-motor variants when you use a referral.

All referrals also get 3 months of free charging on the Rivian Adventure Network, which would be handy with holiday travel.

I hope enjoyed this weeks 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?

Make sure you use a referral code. A friend, a neighbor, or someone who has helped you along the way.

Here's mine: TRAVIS4699411