Rivian is certainly making progress in the market but it’s also dealing with teething issues. One of the biggest public issues it’s had is with its powered tonneau cover on the R1T pickup. Now, it’s discontinuing the option until further notice and offering owners two other choices.
Those two choices are either to opt for no top at all or a manual locking tonneau cover made from aluminum composite. That four-piece interlocking cover can be stowed in a cargo bag and stored in the Gear Tunnel when not in use. These details come from a letter Rivian sent to its customers that was then posted over on RivianForums.com and on Twitter.
The letter comes from Rivian’s head of customer engagement, Tony Caravano. In it, he says:
“We recently shared with R1T owners that we are upgrading the powered tonneau cover. As we go through the process, we are removing the powered tonneau cover from production. We plan to re-introduce this feature later, but a date has not been set. For the foreseeable future, all R1Ts will come with either a manual tonneau cover or no tonneau cover.”
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Oh, hell no @Rivian pic.twitter.com/NB0ZOu8f4U
— Jennifer Franco (@jenzfc) October 21, 2022
On top of that, members on the forum are reporting that Rivian has told some of them that the powered tonneau cover won’t be retrofittable once a solution is found for their trucks. That leaves customers who specifically wanted the powered cover with two undesirable options. Either select one of the two that they don’t want as much or continually push back delivery dates until Rivian begins to offer the top again.
Interestingly enough, that day might not ever come if a chat log also found in the thread is accurate. In it, forum user Sacagawea evidently had a talk with a Rivian representative who confirmed that no powered option was coming in the future: “Oh, so there is no replacement powered option coming up in the future?” they say, to which the rep says “That is correct, and we only have the two option mentioned above.”
It’s possible that the representative simply meant that there was no timetable but we’ve reached out to Rivian directly for further comment. We’ll update this story should we hear back.
