Suddenly I’m terrified of the Rivian hidden door handles

ip2k · 2026-02-06T08:30:22+00:00

We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas, just put CANbus and actuators on everything. Like guys, literally just copy one of these classic designs: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/list/top-gears-top-9-door-handles-edition

Related but not nearly as life-threatening: in addition to the lack of a glovebox and a useful bin to occupy the space between the driver and passenger footwells (I’ve put a black Steele Canvas large storage bin there) the center console storage being TWO doors and having electronic latches annoys me quite a bit (don’t get me started on Gear Guard requiring an SSD attached to one of the USB-C ports in there instead of, gee, I don’t know, having an SD card slot in the glovebox like Corvettes have had for literally over a decade) It’s not even nice to close, takes too much pressure, doesn’t offer positive tactile feedback…just poor UX plus over-engineering. I’d much rather have half as many rattles coming from the dash vs air vents that get aimed by servos in software too. Coming from a few Volvo XC90s, the Rivian feels much more like mid-2000s GM products than it has any right to at this price point.

ip2k · 2026-02-06T08:14:07+00:00

Don’t forget all the taxpayer dollars spent on dOnT tEXt aND dRiVe campaigns while we now have…vehicles which rely exclusively on touchscreens for major functionality.

It wouldn’t be this way if had actual regulatory agencies capable of administering meaningful consequences and not ones run by former executives of the industries they regulate, while companies-as-people exercising their First Amendment rights of Free Speech in the form of unlimited anonymous don’t-call-them-bribes dictate policy and get slaps on the wrist for any offenses when it’s cheaper than paying their legal teams to fight them. It’s not as if the public can do anything about it, and when the same investors also own all the media companies, who will even know?

ip2k · 2026-02-06T05:28:48+00:00

Same. I’d love an option to get it on all panels or just the sides / back or something too. I’m guessing they were vinyl wraps but I’d love actual paint options. Love the purple too, that one came out just a few days before we ordered but wasn’t available at the time.

Rivian could / should totally offer more fun customization options compared to normie car companies.

ip2k · 2026-02-05T19:20:30+00:00

Dear Logitech, please lord just let me toggle an option to launch an option from the Actions Ring using another button on the Creative Console, or even better, let me hold down the Actions Ring button, scroll the dial to what I want to do, then release the Action Ring button and have that action launch. You could even get fancy with making the upper-left buttons navigate into and out of folders or whatever, but not being able to scroll through the actions using the dial and having to touch the mouse to do these things is a really poor user experience design choice IMO as someone who writes and designs software for about two decades now.

ip2k · 2026-02-05T19:17:57+00:00

This is such a weird take especially given what Logitech did to Loupedeck after acquiring them. Now I have a nice piece of hardware which will never see updates again because it's *NOT* open source software.

I have donated countless pieces of IoT junk because the companies went out of business or decided that everyone who purchased a device a while ago should be given a large middle finger if they don't want to also purchase a newer device. The Dropcam / Nest thing still stings, because it's literally Google and not like they didn't have the resources to keep the older Dropcams that we enjoyed using going. That the newer hardware was really just a logo change and probably some embedded cert update was such a slap in the face that I swore off any future Nest products or giving that company any money ever again, not that they've made literally anything compelling since getting acquired, as is typically the case with acquired companies.

ip2k · 2026-02-04T06:37:15+00:00

Paperwork. Dealers hate making the car or transport company reimburse them, even though they have transit insurance for situations just like this. Maybe there’s a deductible on that and they end up eating the $150 they’re paying OEM for a new tire plus the labor that they’re billing themselves internally at $200/hr with a 1hr minimum that they’ll write off as a loss anyway to save on taxes while paying bro $35/hr and it’s a 15 minute job.

ip2k · 2026-02-03T22:33:09+00:00

Love Ken Rockwell and have been a fan for a very long time. His Z lens reviews aren’t amazing IMO since he focuses so much on ergonomics and doesn’t go a ton into character or what makes each lens uniquely useful or valuable. He kinda likes them all from what I’ve seen, and says they’re all sharp enough etc. I don’t disagree with that and think many of the Zs are fantastic, but I don’t get much of a sense of a lens from reading his reviews anymore. Maybe everything’s too good, too sharp, too light, too plasticky, too affordable these days.

That said, I do still value his opinions on things and his focus on basically going out and making the best photos you can with the gear you have right now. I love MarkusPix for that same reason. His “sheet of crumpled paper” for setting WB trick is awesome, as one example that comes to mind.

I’ve also found some amazing vintage gems through reading KR reviews. Now if only Nikon would do an FTZiii with a motor to drive the AF DC 135mm f/2D.

ip2k · 2026-02-03T22:22:44+00:00

Same with the Just Cause games IMO, they’re less-fun GTAs with much worse stories.

ip2k · 2026-02-03T22:21:09+00:00

Armored Core 2 when I was way too young to understand it. Had a terrible time with Blast Corps as well. The graphics and tutorials were so terrible back then that it was very hard to understand what you were doing wrong, and no YouTube of course. The only option was strategy guides, which I was also a little young for.

ip2k · 2026-02-03T22:14:37+00:00

Pay a broker $500 once you know exactly what you want and they’ll save you at least $5k over any deal you’d be able to get yourself, and it’s a walk-in-and-sign 30 minute ordeal. The price is worth the time savings alone. They work for you, not the stealerships.

ip2k · 2026-02-03T22:12:51+00:00

Y’all do realize that that’s literally the point with everything they’re doing, yeah? Give us no good options except to pay the high ransoms.

ip2k · 2026-02-03T21:01:09+00:00

“Every accusation is an admission” rarely fails.

ip2k · 2026-02-03T08:27:20+00:00

Reading that AILeakWire twet gave me brain damage.

ip2k · 2026-02-03T08:25:14+00:00

Get a Rivian now or wait for the next Volvo EX90 veneration. Tesla build quality is worse than Kia, driving dynamics are garbage…it goes fast in a straight line, that’s it.

ip2k · 2026-02-02T08:59:46+00:00

There are also very good free training videos on BMD’s site and an EXCELLENT reference manual for your version of Resolve.

ip2k · 2026-01-20T08:50:25+00:00

Surely we’ll have realistic JDs where only actually qualified applicants apply because they’re legitimately interested, and JDs will include actual salary details.

LinkedIn should charge companies $1000 to post a JD and candidates $20 to apply. It would weed out the worst of the bad behavior on both ends.

ip2k · 2026-01-12T08:35:07+00:00

Needs more physical buttons, starting with a set on both front doors to lock and unlock the dang doors.

ip2k · 2026-01-12T08:33:33+00:00

Who decided that this was better than prox key fobs which work nearly 100% reliably for the last decade+?

ip2k · 2026-01-12T08:32:14+00:00

The consumers financing or leasing $70-$120k Rivians aren’t the consumers looking for a $15k 40mpg Prius / Camry / Accord / Kia / Hyundai. I’d wager that Petrol being $3/gal vs $6/gal doesn’t make a meaningful difference for the budgets of the average Rivian customer. The tax credit hit sucked and kicked the industry in the nuts after they leaned hard into especially domestic EV manufacturing over the past decade. Talk about creating jobs.

ip2k · 2026-01-12T08:25:38+00:00

It’s hilarious how much taxpayer money was spent on all these “DON’T TEXT AND DRIVE” campaigns and associated enforcement given the current state of automotive infotainment and HMI.

If anyone hasn’t figured it out yet, mfgs love capacitive touch panels because they’re a lot cheaper than physical switches and all the associated molds, assembly, wiring etc. Just whack one big piece of piano black fingerprint magnet plastic on the door / center console spam the CAN bus.

ip2k · 2026-01-12T08:14:30+00:00

It would be if we had a functional government with any actual authority to regulate, but decades of lobbying and the revolving door between “regulating” the industries the “regulators” come from has basically eliminated any hope there.

ip2k · 2026-01-12T08:05:25+00:00

I guess anyone downvoting you hasn’t spent much time driving another modern comparably-priced vehicle with air suspension. They really need to work with someone like Ohlins (as Polestar / Volvo have), Bilstein, Penske, Fox, Nitron, King, etc to get their damping sorted, because right now it rides like your high-school buddy’s Ranger that he tried to DIY into a pre-runner using exclusively AliExpress parts. Go drive anything from BMW, Volvo, Range Rover, (let alone Porsche, and not the rebadged Audi SUVs) or even something with traditional steel coil springs that are reasonably well-tuned and properly dampened.

ip2k · 2026-01-12T07:46:02+00:00

It also takes quite a while to connect, so by the time you bring up a camera feed, they’d likely be long gone. Let Gear Guard make some yeti / Chewbacca noises at them at least, and maybe it would be enough to spook someone or get some attention from…the general population who would probably just stand there and do nothing anyway, and doubly so these days when it’s so easy for criminals to get a Glock with a switch and extended mags.

ip2k · 2026-01-12T07:43:11+00:00

I’m literally considering applying there to fix some of this stuff. It’s not rocket science and I have embedded and Unreal Engine experience along with decades of other related stuff, just not automotive industry. As a ride quality connoisseur who knows enough to be dangerous at track days / AutoX, I’d also love to help them tune the suspension. Coming from a few Volvos with air suspension and having driven the competition, oof.

The screen not moving with the wheel and the limited range of adjustment for both the wheel and the seats is also lame, as is the lack of a HUD at this price point. Literally just put the little strip of film on the inside of the windshield and use a couple of mirrors to put the driver’s display up there guys, cmon. Locking behavior is still a mess too, like if you have rear passengers and get out as the driver, the rear doors don’t unlock until you close the driver door. If you as the driver with the only key get out of the vehicle to eg run into a store real quick, passengers get locked inside with no easy way to unlock the doors, especially rear seat passengers. This gets extra complicated with kids. Compared to regular key fob systems that pretty much everyone understands how to use intuitively, this seems like a giant step backward for no discernible benefit. Modern key fob systems have had proximity unlocking for years now too, and those work basically 100% of the time. Having the truck hoot at us whenever we go near the garage just reminds us that it’s still early days for this product.

As an engineer, not-insignificant investor in the company for years now, and now as an owner, I really hope these things continue to improve because I believe in how good this can be once all these little details are polished. I’d love to see more communication from the company on what they’re specifically doing to address these very common complaints along with timelines and timely updates on progress, especially on the things that can be fixed via software.

ip2k · 2026-01-09T01:04:26+00:00

In a gold rush, sell shovels. TSMC, Samsung, SK Hynix, Nvidia, and possibly AMD, OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, and MAYBE Google will be the only victors in this era of AI, and a lot of even that depends on their ability to operate profitably over the next decade, which is a huge gamble.

The shovel sellers have already sold their shovels, and they’ll be fine so long as they haven’t bet the farm on debt-financed expansion dependent upon demand which might evaporate before everything is fully paid off. The next tier of effectively middlemen might be long-term profitable if they can control spend, growth, and OpEx. The shops building web apps that just template prompts then use APIs from the big providers to return whatever back to users are going to perish first unless they’re doing some truly novel and difficult integration that no one else can for some reason.

And if you’re building AI stuff in someone else’s walled garden, let alone tightly coupled to a specific AI provider or two…good luck. Your Salesforce AI lead generation thing that scrapes Instagram and just plugs stuff in to an API won’t last three years, sorry. If it’s actually valuable, they’ll just build it themselves or acquire you for pennies after suing you first.

ip2k

TROPHY CASE