- Rivian owners won’t need a service-center visit to switch tires and wheels
- Gen 1 Rivians will gain launch control
- Framework for third-party apps is completed
Rivian offers regular over-the-air updates, and it’s listening to customer feedback to lay out what it prioritizes, whether the good, the bad, or the ugly.
In a fireside chat at the automaker’s Venice Space in CA in November, Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid laid out a host of features and software tweaks that are in the works. All are driven by owner feedback.
Rivian interface will allow user-configurable tire sizes
The first three years of Rivian R1T and R1S production saw 20-, 21-, and 22-inch wheels offered with off-road all-terrain tires and all-season street-oriented rubber. The updated 2025 models, known as Gen 2, slim that down to just 20- and 22-inch wheel offerings still with off-road all-terrain or all-season rubber. But the adventure-ready vehicles are ripe for customization as seasons, or adventures, change.
Changing the wheels and tires from the 22-inch wheels down to 20s with winter tires or all-terrains currently requires owners to visit a Rivian service center to have the vehicle’s infotainment system reprogrammed to recognize the different wheel and tire size. This will then factor into the trip computer’s range estimation.
The ability for users to manually change which wheel and tire size is on the vehicle is coming in a future software update in the first quarter of 2025, according to Bensaid.
Launch control for Gen 1 Rivians
It’s coming, Bensaid confirmed.
Currently the launch control feature for the pre-2025 R1T and R1S models is in development, and it will arrive in calendar-year 2025.
Bensaid wouldn’t reveal much about the system, but said, “We want it to be really an exciting package.”
“There will be some surprises,” Bensaid noted. He went on to say there are some features that owners have been requesting for a long time, and they are coming, but the exec wouldn’t expand on what those features are.
Charging and data transparency
Bensaid also confirmed the rollout of what’s being called Energy App 2.0. The goal is to bring data transparency and insight to customers so they understand charging curves. The hope is to help educate customers on what to expect from a charging standpoint, what to expect from a range standpoint, and even promote sustainable behavior.
2025 Rivian R1S
Opening Rivian infotainment to third-party apps
Bensaid said the final vision is for Rivian to open up its infotainment platform to third-party developers. This would enable companies that make apps like Gaia GPS or onX off-road map apps to work when out adventuring in the boonies. Bensaid was quick to note he can’t provide any timelines for any of this given everything else going on from a priority standpoint, but the framework is in place.
Updated gauge cluster design
The software exec also confirmed that Rivians will receive a new digital gauge cluster design in 2025.