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Building a car isn’t like baking cookies, or even building a house. It’s the industrial equivalent of juggling chainsaws blindfolded on a unicycle, on fire. When you’re cranking out cars by the thousands, one misstep, one undercooked line of code, and the customer, the human who plunked down a king’s ransom for your four-wheeled modern miracle, feels it every time they drive.
Why Your Map Freezes on the Road
Nowhere does this circus of complexity show its teeth more these days than in the infotainment system. The bit you touch, swipe, curse at, and (if you’re lucky) forget is even there because it just works.
Rivian, the upstart darling of the EV world, is learning that lesson the hard way. As sa3idni put it in a recent Reddit post:
“Infotainment lag is ridiculous/embarrassing… Gen2 owner here who absolutely loves his car (best car I’ve owned) and thinks the software is amazing, but the lag completely ruins the entire experience. Subsequent updates have promised improvements, but it’s just getting worse…
Not complaining just to complain, hopefully Rivian sees this and tries to keep improving because it’s quite frustrating.”
It’s easy, from a distance, to dismiss these sorts of complaints as “first-world problems.” The truck runs, the batteries don’t explode, the doors don’t fall off, what’s a little lag? But the reality is, in an age where people’s lives are inextricably connected to glass screens and snappy UI, an infotainment glitch is the new Check Engine Light. You use it every day, and when it doesn’t work, it gnaws at you like a stone in your shoe, but with Rivian even the autonomous highway driving is good.
Top Features of Rivian’s Unreal Engine–Powered Infotainment System
- Rivian’s infotainment system is built on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, delivering high-quality graphics and smooth animations. The interface features dynamic visuals that adapt to different drive modes, enhancing the user experience with engaging and responsive design .
- Despite lacking Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Rivian offers a robust suite of built-in apps, including Spotify, Tidal, TuneIn, and Apple Music with spatial audio support. These services are accessible through Rivian’s Connect+ subscription, which also provides in-car Wi-Fi and is expanding to include platforms like YouTube and Google Cast .
- The system is designed with a minimalist aesthetic and intuitive layout, making it easy to navigate. Users can control various vehicle functions, such as climate settings and drive modes, through the touchscreen interface. The inclusion of Amazon Alexa voice control further enhances usability, allowing for hands-free operation of many features .
The real challenge, and the one that often escapes the armchair critics, is scale. A slightly askew body panel, a seatbelt that clicks on the third try, those can slip past unnoticed. But an infotainment system that lags every time you switch screens? That’s a dealbreaker. As Kmann1994 pointedly asked in the same Reddit thread:
“Is the goal to get Rivian to iPhone/Tesla levels of UI snappiness?”
To which WassymRivian, a Rivian official, offered a simple, telling reply:
“Yes”
What separates Rivian from the stony silence of old Detroit is that they don’t just tolerate feedback, they actively seek it.
How Rivian’s Open Feedback Loop Drives Software Improvements
Rather than hiding behind press releases and phone trees, Rivian’s engineers are out there in the digital trenches, taking their lumps and, more importantly, listening. As WassymRivian responded to the lag complaints:
“Agree. UI performance is not where it should be. There’s a compound set of issues from some apps that are affecting the overall behavior. We’re working on it and will get it addressed.”
This level of open dialogue matters. It’s how things actually improve, not just for today’s R1T and R1S owners, but for the next wave of electric trucks and SUVs rolling off the line.
Owners aren’t just venting, they’re troubleshooting, trading hacks, and sometimes finding fixes before the company does. Just look at _B_Little_me’s contribution:
“I’ve got a Gen 1 and I found the lag gone 85% of the time since I disabled Alexa. Maybe give that a try, it’s useless anyway.”
Here’s where you realize the auto industry’s battleground has shifted, especially for Rivian that is soon releasing the R2. Once it was all bushings, bearings, and brute force, now it’s a war waged in lines of code, silicon, and servers. The brands that survive aren’t the ones who pretend their cars are flawless, but those who learn fast, iterate, and genuinely care about getting it right. From fflis (“I have had Alexa disabled since pretty much day 1”) to burntcookie90 (“Never enabled Alexa, 2.5 years of laggy experience”), the feedback loop is spinning faster than ever. It’s a long way from waiting on a recall postcard and three hours at the dealer’s coffee station.
From MIT Startup to EV Innovator
- Rivian was established by Robert “RJ” Scaringe, an MIT graduate with a passion for cars and nature. Motivated by a desire to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles, he founded the company to create sustainable transportation solutions.
- The company underwent a couple of name changes before settling on “Rivian” in 2011, a name derived from the Indian River in Florida, where Scaringe spent much of his youth.
- Initially focusing on hybrid vehicles, Rivian shifted its focus to electric vehicles in 2011. The company aimed to produce rugged, luxurious, and battery-powered vehicles, leading to the development of its R1T pickup and R1S SUV.
Building a car, especially one that rewrites the rules like Rivian. To do it at scale and stay relentlessly focused on improvement is damn near impossible. But the passion, the drive to do better, to fix the things that matter most to owners, is not in doubt. If the old car industry was defined by indifference, maybe, just maybe, the new one will be defined by a willingness to listen, learn, and admit when the map screen just isn’t keeping up.
Image Sources: Rivian Newsroom
Noah Washington is an automotive journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. He enjoys covering the latest news in the automotive industry and conducting reviews on the latest cars. He has been in the automotive industry since 15 years old and has been featured in prominent automotive news sites. You can reach him on X and LinkedIn for tips and to follow his automotive coverage.
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Source: torquenews.com
