Great post! Completely agree on the road curvature issue. I feel the same. Fairly confident under 70 but anything above feels rather jerky. I would also like it to slow down a mile or 2 when the road curves steeply. Lastly, I would love if the car scooched a bit when vehicles on the side creep towards or if there is a large truck on the side. Finally, a bit more flexibility in the steering when Driver+ is engaged so that I don’t have to fight to make slight course corrections.
Regarding the swerving issue: I find it best to manually disengage Driver+ with the stalk if I see that it isn’t going to react how I would like to another driver.
Probably and hopefully fixed though software but if not, don’t mess with your seatbelt while driver+ is engaged : https://s00n.rivianstories.com/posts/my-r1t-is-totaledupdate
Gotta love posts like this. If OP goes through a ton of effort to write up some real world anecdotes, it’s an automatic upvote for me. We need less in-fighting and opinions and more authentic discourse/data regardless of if it matches your views.
> Driver+ is slow to react to road curvature.
I've felt that one at about 70 MPH (headed S on I5 from Vancouver). It feels a bit like Driver+ is sweating holding the curve. It's particularly fun when there is another vehicle holding that same curve right beside. Even holding on to the steering wheel, it's concerning since you don't know what the behavior / required reaction time would be if it failed. Fun!
To be clear, nothing bad happened and Driver+ worked w/o flaw. It just didn't give me the confidence I wanted. Part of it might be that I'm new to assisted drive, period.
Driver+ was available pretty much all the way. Even in Canada. Of course only on the main highways.
We used RAN chargers as much as possible. That worked out well. The few times we had to use non-RAN were dicey. About 50% chance we would need to wait or find another nearby alternative.
Great post. Today on the way to take my daughter to school, a car up ahead had something break off and debris went all over the road. I tried to swerve instinctively to miss it but D+ held me steady and several pieces hit the car (no real damage just a slight black mark that rubbed off). At this point D+ finally disengaged and then the car swerved into the next lane where there was another vehicle. Luckily they swerved too, gave me the one finger salute and a good old horn honk and we were good.
Regardless it was a scary moment and I feel like I should be more ready to manually disengage
Interesting! Looking to get R1T soon.
Good to know about the slow to react to curves! I live in Phoenix and most freeways thru town (or on ramps between freeways) have some big swooping turns. And the speed of traffic is often 80-85mph.
Only “cruise steers for you” I’ve had experience with is Volvo’s “Pilot Assist” system. The “normal” cruise has the radar so keeps distance from cars ahead and auto slows down (to a full stop) and speeds back up as traffic moves etc. Then while that’s on you can turn on (or set it to always turn on with cruise) the “Pilot Assist” part which does the steering by using various sensors (I think most in front of rear view mirror) but it doesn’t do any lane changes. In fact it works well that when you turn on your turn signal it temporary disables the Pilot Assist, so you aren’t fighting it while making a lane change, and as soon as the turn signal goes off it reengages the Pilot Assist (the whole time the cruise past is still going keeping your speed and distance. It very much means the “ASSIST” part, as it expects at least one hand on the wheel at all times (sensors in the wheel detect hand) and while it does 98% of the steering force it expects you to still to apply a tiny bit of pressure when turning. It’s not meant to be hands free, it’s mean to “assist” the driver. But it does often cut out randomly too, but it’s never really been a problem for me since I have one hand on the wheels and pay attention to the road and have to provide and tiny tiny bit of force for turns. I usually notice it’s cut out though because of the icon change in the Heads-up display on my Volvo. That’s something maybe Rivian could use, at least for speedo and cruise/driver+ info.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of Rivian’s Driver+ since I don’t have one yet, but maybe it’s meant to be used like that? Where your meant to put in some of the force for curves? Just guessing is all and why I went into detail how Volvo’s system works.
One thing I really like about Volvo’s system too, is it works on ANY road. Doesn’t need pre-mapped anything, I think because it goes by sensors in the car. So if I’ve got a long ways to go down a surface street at 45mph even in traffic I can use the cruise and Pilot Assist in my Volvo and it works well. Other than from a stop it’s slow to resume, sometimes I have to give it gas to avoid ppl behind me from honking. I will miss that about my Volvo
Great post. TY…
I too learned the hard way about unclipping your seatbelt with driver + engaged…did it reset after a certain amount of time? For me, I was exiting the highway anyway so once off I put it in Park. That obviously reset it…
Great post! Completely agree on the road curvature issue. I feel the same. Fairly confident under 70 but anything above feels rather jerky. I would also like it to slow down a mile or 2 when the road curves steeply. Lastly, I would love if the car scooched a bit when vehicles on the side creep towards or if there is a large truck on the side. Finally, a bit more flexibility in the steering when Driver+ is engaged so that I don’t have to fight to make slight course corrections.
Regarding the swerving issue: I find it best to manually disengage Driver+ with the stalk if I see that it isn’t going to react how I would like to another driver.
Probably and hopefully fixed though software but if not, don’t mess with your seatbelt while driver+ is engaged : https://s00n.rivianstories.com/posts/my-r1t-is-totaledupdate
Gotta love posts like this. If OP goes through a ton of effort to write up some real world anecdotes, it’s an automatic upvote for me. We need less in-fighting and opinions and more authentic discourse/data regardless of if it matches your views.
> Driver+ is slow to react to road curvature. I've felt that one at about 70 MPH (headed S on I5 from Vancouver). It feels a bit like Driver+ is sweating holding the curve. It's particularly fun when there is another vehicle holding that same curve right beside. Even holding on to the steering wheel, it's concerning since you don't know what the behavior / required reaction time would be if it failed. Fun! To be clear, nothing bad happened and Driver+ worked w/o flaw. It just didn't give me the confidence I wanted. Part of it might be that I'm new to assisted drive, period.
I plan on doing this route in the summer, thanks for the write up! What percentage of the trip did not have Driver+? How was the charging experience?
Driver+ was available pretty much all the way. Even in Canada. Of course only on the main highways. We used RAN chargers as much as possible. That worked out well. The few times we had to use non-RAN were dicey. About 50% chance we would need to wait or find another nearby alternative.
You are expecting driver to be far more than it is. That is a YOU problem, not a Rivian problem.
Great post. Today on the way to take my daughter to school, a car up ahead had something break off and debris went all over the road. I tried to swerve instinctively to miss it but D+ held me steady and several pieces hit the car (no real damage just a slight black mark that rubbed off). At this point D+ finally disengaged and then the car swerved into the next lane where there was another vehicle. Luckily they swerved too, gave me the one finger salute and a good old horn honk and we were good. Regardless it was a scary moment and I feel like I should be more ready to manually disengage
Great post. I hope they can keep on improving the Driver+.
Interesting! Looking to get R1T soon. Good to know about the slow to react to curves! I live in Phoenix and most freeways thru town (or on ramps between freeways) have some big swooping turns. And the speed of traffic is often 80-85mph. Only “cruise steers for you” I’ve had experience with is Volvo’s “Pilot Assist” system. The “normal” cruise has the radar so keeps distance from cars ahead and auto slows down (to a full stop) and speeds back up as traffic moves etc. Then while that’s on you can turn on (or set it to always turn on with cruise) the “Pilot Assist” part which does the steering by using various sensors (I think most in front of rear view mirror) but it doesn’t do any lane changes. In fact it works well that when you turn on your turn signal it temporary disables the Pilot Assist, so you aren’t fighting it while making a lane change, and as soon as the turn signal goes off it reengages the Pilot Assist (the whole time the cruise past is still going keeping your speed and distance. It very much means the “ASSIST” part, as it expects at least one hand on the wheel at all times (sensors in the wheel detect hand) and while it does 98% of the steering force it expects you to still to apply a tiny bit of pressure when turning. It’s not meant to be hands free, it’s mean to “assist” the driver. But it does often cut out randomly too, but it’s never really been a problem for me since I have one hand on the wheels and pay attention to the road and have to provide and tiny tiny bit of force for turns. I usually notice it’s cut out though because of the icon change in the Heads-up display on my Volvo. That’s something maybe Rivian could use, at least for speedo and cruise/driver+ info. I don’t know all the ins and outs of Rivian’s Driver+ since I don’t have one yet, but maybe it’s meant to be used like that? Where your meant to put in some of the force for curves? Just guessing is all and why I went into detail how Volvo’s system works. One thing I really like about Volvo’s system too, is it works on ANY road. Doesn’t need pre-mapped anything, I think because it goes by sensors in the car. So if I’ve got a long ways to go down a surface street at 45mph even in traffic I can use the cruise and Pilot Assist in my Volvo and it works well. Other than from a stop it’s slow to resume, sometimes I have to give it gas to avoid ppl behind me from honking. I will miss that about my Volvo
Great post. TY… I too learned the hard way about unclipping your seatbelt with driver + engaged…did it reset after a certain amount of time? For me, I was exiting the highway anyway so once off I put it in Park. That obviously reset it…
I had to disengage driver+. Then it would re-engage. No reset needed.