NHTSA complaint #11482330

Owner complaint summary

The Driver+ (D+) feature on the Rivians have both adaptive cruise control and lane centering active at the same time. There is a function unknown to me that controls whether or not the D+ feature can turn on or remain on. In certain situations, the D+ features asks the driver the disable the system by pushing the right stalk upward with a red message on the gauge console screen. In other situations, the D+ feature forcibly disables with a similar red message on the gauge console screen. The messages themselves look very similar at first glance and require the driver to look down to discern between the two because the outcome for both scenarios is very different, particularly when D+ forcibly disables itself. When D+ disables itself (again the reasons are unknown to me at the time and not predictable other than maybe GPS location), there is a VERY brief warning to the driver then turns off and automatically brakes the vehicle. This D+ error is not as common as the other warning described above that asks the user to push the right stalk upward to turn it off. Once D+ forcibly turns itself off, the vehicle brakes aggressively. Due to muscle memory of the other similar-appearing error, it is normal to push the right stalk upward to disable it. Herein lies the issue: the vehicle is aggressively slowing down and pushing up on the right stalk (seemingly to disable D+) actually puts the vehicle into Reverse drive. This is because the vehicle does NOT require the brake pedal to be pressed to change into Reverse at low speeds (threshold unknown). This results in unpredictable and unexpected behavior of the vehicle within the matter of a few seconds. When the driver thinks they are disabling D+, they are unexpectedly putting the vehicle in reverse, so when accelerating from the stop caused by D+ the vehicle moves in reverse. This is most prevalent when using D+ in stop/go to light traffic and resulted in reversing on the freeway into another vehicle.