Rivian has begun pushing out an OTA software update today aimed at making the public charging experience of its customers easier and hopefully, less frustrating.
The update is software 2024.11.01 and, among other small updates and bug fixes, Rivian has made a major update in how the navigation system will route you to public charging stations.
The new software is industry-first and incorporates a rating score for each site based on actual plug-in data from the fleet of Rivian vehicles. Rivian has been gathering this information for more than a year now and is using it to determine how reliable the charger is.
For instance, if a Rivian vehicle plugged into a 350 kW Electrify America charging station at a low state of charge, and the vehicle was calling for more than 200 kW but the station only delivered 125 kW, the station would get dinged. This kind of granular information hasn't been available to date. Additionally, if the customer requires multiple plug-ins to find a working charger, that will be factored in also.
And it’s just the latest in a series of best-in-class trip planning features we’ve rolled out in the Rivian app and in-vehicle navigation, that allow customers to do their trip planning, filter chargers, set route preferences, navigate, and add stops without missing a beat. - Rivian
Rivian is then using the data to score the sites from A to F and customers can see the score in the Rivian navigation system as well as in the Rivian app, and use that information to decide which stations to visit. The navigation system will also route drivers to stations with higher scores, if there is one along the route and within the range of the vehicle.
While there are apps that help EV drivers figure out which public charging sites perform the best, they are all based on anecdotal feedback from customers, not hard data. Often, people are more inclined to post about a bad experience than a good one so the customer-driven feedback can be skewed. Rivian's data-gathering system records every charging stop, good or bad, making the score its score more reliable.
The new software will grant customers the have the option to filter out any charging site that scored below a B and will rate all public charging sites including Rivian's own Adventure Network. Tesla Supercharger sites will also receive a score, however currently, none have scores because Rivian customers only got access to Tesla's network recently and there isn't enough data to score those sites yet.
Included in this software update is an improvement to the rear passenger's display screen. Rear passengers can now view the trip details including how long until they arrive at the destination selected in the navigation system.
InsideEVs was able to score an exclusive interview with Rivian's VP of software, Wassym Bensiad, to discuss how the latest software update will work to make the public charging experience of its customers simpler, faster, and less frustrating.
Check out the video and let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
