Bad news for Rivian owners who like to keep their cabin toasty, as that may cause the accelerator to malfunction, leading their vehicle to believe that the pedal is being pressed ever so gently, even when their foot is off it. The good news is that Rivian has already introduced a new Over-the-Air (OTA) software update to address this issue, with the automaker informing NHTSA that as of late December, 53% of vehicles have been remedied.
The recall affects 7,873 Rivian R1Ts and R1Ss from the 2022 model year, which were equipped with an accelerator pedal assembly that was manufactured out of tolerance by the supplier, Precision Varionic International Sensor.
According to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Rivian first became aware of the fault in March 2022. At that time, it received a complaint from an owner stating that the vehicle would not go into “sleep mode.”
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Between that time and December 2023, the automaker received 35 service requests from customers related to this issue. Fortunately, Rivian is not aware of any crashes, injuries, or deaths related to the bad pedal.
Instead, customers complained that vehicles would not go into “auto-hold” or “park” mode automatically. In extreme cases, the vehicle may even have creeped forward, requiring the driver to apply the brake pedal, or press the “park” button to hold it in place.
That’s because the accelerator pedal assemblies equipped to Rivian vehicles between June 10, 2021, and October 31, 2022, got bad chips with a stronger magnetic pole than intended. That meant that when cabin temperatures rose, the pedal could drift outside of the dead band, and the sensor might not register 0 percent application. Essentially, the R1T/S would believe that the driver was touching the pedal.
As mentioned earlier, Rivian says that it has already pushed a software Over-the-Air (OTA) fix that should remedy this issue. Furthermore, the company told the NHSTA that is has committed to replacing all affected accelerator pedals to ensure customer satisfaction. They intend to start contacting owners of the affected models on February 16.
