On October 4, we brought you a story about Edmunds’ long-term Rivian R1T stopping in the middle of the 405 freeway. Edmunds said the vehicle did not present any warnings and just lost power but took it down a few hours later. We now know why: Rivian said the R1T “was accidentally shifted into neutral.” However, there is more to the story than this simple explanation may suggest.
The accidental shift allegedly happened when the driver tried to activate the truck's adaptive cruise control (ACC). The same lever that selects the “gears” also has the task of controlling this function. However, Edmunds discovered that the electric pickup truck behaves differently depending on how hard you press the selector.
The R1T’s digital screen behind the steering wheel presents the speed on its right side. We can see the familiar “P, R, N, D” sequence to the right of the speed numbers, and the selected gear appears in bold. If the vehicle is driving and you press the stalk up hard, the dashboard will show a warning telling you to hold the selector for four seconds to shift. If you follow these instructions while still pressing the lever up hard, another alert will ask you to slow down for the shift to be completed.
Things change if you press the selector up lightly. You only get the same warnings if you do not hold the lever up for four seconds. If you do, the vehicle goes to neutral without any sort of alert. Getting back to driving works in a slightly different fashion: you have to press the lever down hard. Ironically, you also have to tap the stalk down to activate ACC, which makes us wonder how the Edmunds driver made it shift into neutral while trying to turn on the feature.
There’s another point that makes us wonder about the story: when the vehicle lost power, didn’t the driver see on the dashboard the R1T had a bold N, meaning neutral was selected? It must have been a stressful situation to lose power on a freeway, which makes it more understandable, but it is still strange. Checking if there was any issue with the gears is almost instinctive if you face power issues.
Edmunds stated that it opened and closed the doors, locked and unlocked the car, and put it into park. This last action must have been what made the vehicle move again after drive was selected. Selecting D would have solved the problem immediately.
Although a driver error caused this situation, the story raised relevant concerns about the R1T operation. Perhaps ACC should not be activated with the same lever that plays the role of the gear selector. A simple button would solve that, as well as another one would solve starting the electric pickup truck and turning it off in an emergency. In a Rivian, the driver only has to have the keys with them to get going. Oversimplifying how you drive a vehicle may have unpleasant effects, such as the ones Edmunds was honest enough to share about the R1T.
Google News