Rivian is reportedly gearing up to roll out a brand-new AI-powered in-vehicle assistant, and this time it’s coming from Google. Sources say the company is transitioning away from Amazon’s Alexa platform and moving toward Google’s Gemini AI as its primary voice assistant partner. This marks a big shift for Rivian’s connected vehicle experience. The automaker will use Google Cloud as…

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe joined The Verge’s Decoder podcast this week, and once again, the question came up that so many owners keep asking: where’s Apple CarPlay? RJ didn’t dodge it. He told guest host Joanna Stern that Rivian has no plans to support CarPlay or the new CarPlay Ultra, explaining that the company wants to deliver a “seamless digital experience” built…

After sharing my video yesterday about the Rivian Performance Upgrade on my R1S Dual Large, Rivian’s Head of Software, Wassym Bensaid, jumped into the conversation on Twitter with some clarification. There had been rumors floating around that the All-Purpose drive mode doesn’t see any improvements from the Performance Upgrade, but that’s false. Wassym confirmed that All-Purpose mode does in fact get a…

I finally pulled the trigger on the Rivian Performance Upgrade for my R1S Dual Large and wanted to share the full experience with you all. This upgrade runs $5,000 and promises better acceleration and overall performance. In the video below, I go over the purchase process, what installation was like, and most importantly, whether it’s actually worth the money. If…