Rivian’s 2026.07 Software Update Delivers a Major DC Fast Charging Improvement

Rivian's 2026.07 Software Update Delivers a Major DC Fast Charging Improvement

Happy Sunday! Something changed in 2026.07, and it changed for the better. I took my 2025 R1T Tri-Motor Max to a new IONNA Rechargery here in Orlando today just to check out the location, and I walked away with the best charging session I’ve ever had in this truck. Not close, either. A genuinely flat, clean curve that held above 200 kW for longer than I thought was possible on a Gen 2 R1T.

I’ll get the numbers out of the way first because they’re the whole story.

I pulled in at 14% state of charge on a pretty warm Central Florida afternoon, ambient somewhere between 90ºF and 92ºF, battery reporting 101ºF after a navigation-triggered preconditioning run. The IONNA site runs Alpitronic Hypercharger 400 units, capable of up to 400 kW, which is plenty of headroom for what the R1T can actually pull.

At 20% I was already sitting at 205 kW. I held right around there, more or less steady, until I peaked at 216 kW around 32%. A small dip to 195 kW at 35%, then the truck climbed back up to 211 kW by 49% and held on into the low 50s. From there it tapered gently rather than falling off a cliff, settling into 142 kW at 70% where I wrapped up the session.

14 to 70% in 25 minutes flat.

For context, Out of Spec Studios has public data on a Gen 2 R1S Max Pack, which uses the same battery as my truck. That session peaked at 209 kW at 30% and then, in classic Rivian fashion, it was cliffs and valleys the rest of the way. Highest it got after that peak was 155 kW at 57%. A more recent test on another Gen 2 Max Pack tracked a little cleaner, ramping up to 207 kW around 35% before tapering down gradually, but the highest it hit after peak was still only 156 kW at 58%. Neither session looks anything like what I saw today. I don’t know what software versions either truck was on, but I’ve charged this battery enough times to know those curves are the norm. Or at least, they were.

Image courtesy of Out of Spec Studios

I reached out to the Rivian tech team to ask whether anything had actually changed in the backend, and they confirmed thermal adjustments were made in 2026.07 with more on the way. None of this showed up in the release notes, which is pretty on brand for Rivian. They tend to tweak the thermal and charging logic quietly and let owners figure out the improvements for themselves.

Today’s curve is closer to a flat line than a curve. That’s what I’ve been wanting from Rivian for ages. I don’t need 400 kW peaks and a bragging screenshot. I want a sustained 200 kW that actually does useful work on a road trip, and this is the first time my R1T has really delivered that.

Worth calling out, the only real slowdown I hit came around 66% when the truck let me know charging would reduce because it was sharing cooling with the cabin. Fair enough. It was almost 92ºF outside and I wasn’t going to let my wife sit in a hot cabin to squeeze out a few extra kW.

Session information courtesy of Rivian Roamer

The obvious question is whether this is repeatable. I’ve already had other Rivian owners message and email me after seeing the posts on social confirming they’ve seen similar behavior on 2026.07, which is a good early signal. It’s not definitive though. Ambient temperature, battery temp at arrival, which charger cabinet you’re plugged into, and even site load will all play into the curve you get on any given day. Your mileage may literally vary. What I can say is the directional change is real and Rivian has confirmed it on their end, which matters more to me.

I’ll keep testing this at other IONNA sites and at other DC fast charging networks to see how it holds up outside of ideal conditions. If you’re on 2026.07 and you’ve had a session that looked noticeably different from your usual Rivian curve, good or bad, I’d love to see it. This is the first software update in a long time that has actually moved the charging experience in a way an owner can feel from the driver’s seat.

16 Comments

    • I have a 2022 R1T LE and it appears that this update improved charging for my truck, a Gen 1, as well.

      Yesterday I charged from 18% -> 49% in 16 minutes. Adding 51kWh at an average speed of 200 kW.

      Awesome improvement just in time for road trip season!

      • Thanks for bringing this news to the non-connect+ gen 1 owners! Stoked to see how it works as road trips ramp this summer. Would be cool to install before this weekend to test on vin 507🙃

  3. Going on a month long road trip starting Weds. I have a gen 2 r1t with max pack. Great news here that I’ll be testing a bunch.

      • The short version is that Max Pack gets to an indicated “99%” on an L3 when the battery might only be at 85%. So the reported SoC is much higher than reality. The bug was seemingly introduced last June.

        Throws nav estimates off. You need to drain to low SoC and fast charge heavily to see the issue it seems, so most folks haven’t seen any impact. But all Max Pack vehicles seem to be affected. (Rivian reproduced the issue on a brand new, pre-delivery Max Pack that they charged alongside my vehicle at a RAN.)

        There are many more details in the post if you are curious. A vehicle can be easily be tested for the bug by L3 charging from < 10% until it stops on its own at 100%.

      • I hadn’t heard of that issue before either, but could some of what you are seeing… which would suck, but probably not all since there is just a 7% discrepency.

        You charged 56% so (142 * .56) =~ 79.5kwh

        But your session says 74.5 kwh to the pack, or ~52.5%; not a huge difference (7%) but still not great, wonder if the max pack sneakily changes the available kWh when the battery is warm because it just can’t use the top of the range in that state.

        • Jose, you should be able to check whether your charging rate over the 25 minutes actually corresponds to (70 – 14)% of a max pack battery (area under the curve type of calculation). This way, you can verify if the charge curve improvements are real, independent of this bug that was mentioned. My quick calculations seem to say yes, but you have the actual data.

  5. I have a hard time figuring out how such drastic improvements are being made after all this time to the charging curve. The thermals are what the thermals are. The only thing I can think of is the engineers decided they can push the hardware more than they first believed.

  6. Another incremental improvement in fast charging by Rivian. Welcomed, but not earth shattering. Good they keep tweaking. I’m never in a hurry when traveling. I rather enjoy the stops as it reduces driver fatigue which improves highway safety. Depending on how much fuel I need, I spend 15 to 55 minutes fast charging. I often have my eMTB with me and go for a ride to get a little exercise and explore the community during longer charge sessions. Driving an R1T Tri is overall a far more relaxing and enjoyable experience than driving my old piston and valve F150.

  7. ’23 Gen 1 Large – 6 DCFC on a road trip last week. 4 RAN, 1 TSC. Was on 2026.07.0 “A”

    Saw NO improvement in curve, if anything, it was worse.

    Below are raw numbers from electrafi / rivian, granted I was into the bottom or top of the battery which does slow things, but even in mid battery you can see it is SLOW. Peaks are not indicative of the avg.

    RAN – Lost Hills 4%-61% 39min
    peak 219kw
    85kwh 2.18kwh/min

    RAN – Shoshone 43%-71% 16min
    peak 220kw
    43kwh 2.69kwh/min

    RAN – Olancha 48%-76% 19min
    peak 221kw
    41kwh 2.15kwh/min

    TSC – Bakersfield 14%-98% 80min
    112kwh 1.4kwh/min

    EVGO – Lindsay 72%-90% 23min
    24kwh 1.04kwh/min

    RAN – Fresno 57%-90% 38min
    peak 177kw
    48kwh 1.26kwh/min

  8. I’m not sure it’s a ,07 thing. I’m still on .06 and a week ago I did a session at an EA station very, very similar to yours. Pulled in at 14%, held over 200 kw to around 53% and reached 70% in 27 minutes. 2 minutes slower than yours so maybe .07 improved things a bit but small .

    Gen 2 max pack. Happy to share the RivianRomer curve

  10. Interesting. I did a roadtrip in my Gen 2 R1S with the LFP standard battery over the weekend and thought it was charging faster than I remembered. It stayed at 200+kw until about 40% and didn’t really slow down significantly until about 65%. Here are some of the stats (I wish I had taken screenshots showing the curve)

    42kwh in 15 minutes – Tesla Newbury Park, CA

    41kwh in 17 minutes – RAN Buttonwillow, CA

    23kwh in 7 minutes – Tesla Lebec, CA

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