Rivian builds very appealing products, with both the R1T and R1S proving to be incredibly capable vehicles that offer very good range and power for the price. However, as a small company, their vehicles are not without their issues, and that became apparent to one R1S owner in particular.
After placing an order for his R1S back in 2020, Chase Merrill waited three whole years to take delivery, as reported by Business Insider. Unfortunately for him, though, the electric SUV died just two days after he had taken ownership of it.
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Merrill had been driving his R1S to his family’s shared property in the Adirondack Mountains when he came across a large snow drift in his path. Aware of the claims made to his SUV’s capabilities, he attempted to drive through it, and it actually worked quite well to start.
Not too long after, though, the SUV got stuck; however, that wasn’t what broke it. Rather, in the attempts to recover the vehicle by rocking it from the driver’s seat, Merrill believes he accidentally triggered a safety feature that the R1S uses to prevent itself from sliding down slippery hills. The SUV was essentially stuck between drive and park, rendering it immobile, and it was then that a tow truck was called to take it away. Unfortunately, that service center was a few hundred miles away in Massachusetts, so the bill ended up amounting to an eye-watering $2,100.
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On top of that, it turns out that the issue could have potentially solved with a simple reset procedure rather than needing to be towed and serviced, but Rivian’s customer service team failed to mention that in Merrill’s initial call. After getting word of this, Rivian apologized and offered to cover the (potentially) unneeded repair costs, but not the towing expenses. That was until Business Insider reached out to them on the issue, at which point they pedaled back and offered compensation for the towing as well. The cherry on top was when Merrill finally received his SUV back, and it displayed a critical error message instructing him to return it to the service center.
“There was an unfortunate cascade of events and edge cases that led to this situation,” said Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s senior vice president of software development, to Business Insider. “But we take this feedback as a gift. It’s great input for us to improve the product.”
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The company has also decided to treat this as a learning experience for how they accommodate their buyers, especially those who are first-time EV owners. “There’s nuance to that ownership experience that we have to make sure that they understand,” Tony Caravano, Rivian’s head of customer engagement, told Business Insider. “One of the great learnings here is for us to be even more even more communicative about key parts and key elements of the ownership experience when we know that customers live in more remote areas.”
Merrill took a big leap with the purchase of this $85,626 vehicle, the 24-year-old making the jump from a 2015 Ford Edge. Not only that, but the mountainous area of New York he lives in is somewhat isolated, so the charging infrastructure around him was sparse to say the least. But despite his whole ordeal, he still likes Rivian’s products and hopes the automaker ends up doing well; he just doesn’t want to be their guinea pig.