Want to get in touch? Contact us at [email protected]
Why Rivian Kick Turn Won’t Be Available on Gen 1 Quad Models
Rivian’s flashy new Kick Turn feature, the off-road party trick that lets an R1T or R1S pivot nearly in place, is making waves on the 2026 Gen 2 Quad models. But if you’re a Gen 1 Quad owner, don’t expect to see it coming to your truck or SUV through an update. Rivian has confirmed that Kick Turn will stay exclusive to the Gen 2 platform, and it all comes down to hardware and durability, not just software.
The original Quad setup in Gen 1 vehicles uses Bosch water-cooled motors and a 17-ECU architecture that simply doesn’t allow for the precise motor control Kick Turn needs. Gen 2 vehicles use Rivian’s newer Ascent oil-cooled motors and a far simpler seven-ECU zonal system, giving them tighter torque modulation and quicker communication between all four motors. Those upgrades are what make the controlled spin possible without risking damage to the drivetrain.
There’s also a durability factor. Early R1T and R1S models use half-shafts and tie rods that might not handle the repeated torque spikes from Kick Turn without wearing prematurely or breaking. Even if Rivian could rewrite the code to enable the feature, the risk of warranty claims on broken driveline components makes it a non-starter. Gen 2 Quads have beefed-up parts specifically designed to handle the stress, so Rivian can safely market the feature without fearing an expensive wave of repairs.
Plenty of owners hoped this would be a simple over-the-air update, but Rivian has said there’s no plan to add Kick Turn to Gen 1 Quad vehicles now or in the future. If you really want it, you’ll need to look at upgrading to a 2026 Gen 2 Quad, where the hardware and software work together to pull off the maneuver.
This explanation from Rivian doesn’t hold water. The Ford Bronco achieves a similar thing simply by locking the inner rear wheel. No precise control of any kind is needed by the Bronco. I am sure the Gen 1 trucks can lock one wheel while allowing the others to spin.
Are any other Gen 1 owners as fed up as I am with Rivian. You have to upgrade to Gen 2 to get any of the features that were advertised future capabilities for the Gen 1 when we bought them. Remember they advertised thrust vectoring for tighter turning radius up to and including Tank Turn along with future proofed hardware to support hands free driving up through full autonomy. The lie that our hardware isn’t capable of these things is not going to make be buy a Gen 2 (you know that as soon as you do, they will come out with Gen 3 and start delivering exclusive capabilities for it). It will make me cancel my R2 reservation and move to other brands when I replace my Gen 1 R1T. Traveling for work I drive tons of low end rental vehicles that don’t even have adaptive cruise control, and they can still perform competent lane centering on any road with well marked lanes. Come on Rivian try to follow through on some of the promised capability for Gen 1 owners who hyped your trucks, put up with all the problems of a new product, and most of whom invested in your company.
Great breakdown.
I’m surprised this hasn’t turned into a lawsuit.
“Remember they advertised thrust vectoring for tighter turning radius up to and including Tank Turn along with future proofed hardware to support hands free driving up through full autonomy.”
I sure do… The autonomy was on their website and then eventually would vanish. How could they do the tank turn previously?
My R1S is not a phone. I can’t upgrade it every time a new gen come out. It’s really disappointing that Gen1 users are getting dogged out again.
I know this sounds corny but I doubt we will even get launch mode.
I will keep my R2 reservation, its supposedly inexpensive for a reason with its lack of premium features.
We got played.
agree with Jeff Gaskins…it feels like a bit of abandonment of us Gen 1 owners. Many of whom paid high $ value and yet aren’t getting anything like what we were promised. Stand it up Rivian.
I think most Gen1 quad owners are being dramatic. If you were an early reservation holder you probably got your quad for $30-40k cheaper than the Gen2 quad depending on specs. We got what we paid for and if we’re being honest we got an absolutely smoking deal. Even Rivian knows that’s a steal hence the attempted price raise that they did the right thing and walked back. But that meant Rivian gave us vehicles at a financial loss, can we really expect to get all the features and upgrades when we’re the least profitable customers they’ve had.
Admittedly the self driving stuff is frustrating but it does make sense. At the time Rivian was using sensors, motors, cameras etc from outside suppliers with the hopes they’d be able to integrate it with their own custom ECU-architecture. Unfortunately that’s not always as easy as it seems and it ended up not being feasible to deliver some of the higher level self driving features in a safe reliable manner. Now with Gen2 they’ve changed their ECU-architecture to be more compatible with outside supplier’s sensors but also developed a lot of in-house built parts to make self driving possible. Tesla went through the same thing, over promising self driving tech and then not being able to improve it till they brought more stuff in house. Realistically Tesla is still over promising and at least Rivian is getting better.
The fuss over kick turn is what really gets me though. Kick turn is not that impressive of a feature, it’s a low speed power slide with a fancy name. Any competent driver with their Gen1 in the right drive mode (one with most of the torque at the rear wheels) can easily flick the tail out with some hard lock and a hard throttle blip and achieve a kick turn. Honestly a good driver could do it then keep in the throttle with some opposite lock and not only do a kick turn but keep moving instead of looking like a fool that just lost the tail end and came to a stop because that’s what kick turn really looks like.
And tank turn seriously it’s a gimmick, would it be cool to have sure. But are you really gonna give up on such an awesome vehicle otherwise over tank turn? Do you even off-road?
The specific capabilities aren’t the point. Failing to meet their promises is the point. The sensors on the Gen 1 truck are far superior to many vehicles with more autonomy capabilities. Saying it is a hardware limitation is a lie. Comma AI/open pilot does the lane centering on any road and the early version of Comma was just an android phone with cameras.
The truth is that Rivian made significant changes to their architecture for Gen 2 and made a conscious decision to limit future development of Gen 1 to minimize software development costs. Developing parallel capabilities for Gen 1 would require a separate SW pipeline for any capability built on their new ECU architecture. Except where there are true HW limitations, Tesla eventually releases capabilities to HW 3 vehicles even though it takes additional development after they release the capability to HW 4 vehicles. I’m not saying Rivian has to continuously develop Gen 1 vehicles forever, but they do need to at least get them to do what they promised initially.
Rivian said they would not release tank turn for generation 1 due to potential environmental damage which was totally opposed to their ethos. They are now willing to let vegetation and trails get impacted by this feature. Makes you wonder if that was really ever their concern.
Gen1 owners should be more concerned about the ongoing expense of maintaining their vehicles. I recently went to a service center for a quick 5-minute preventative maintenance repair at the request of Rivian. I ended up being there for several hours as they found the seals on the front motors were leaking oil and needed to be replaced. Later I researched this and found out that this is becoming a very common problem, and quite expensive if out of warranty, due to the labor involved. In my opinion, this sounds like a design flaw, perhaps due to the Bosch motors overheating, and something Rivian should cover regardless of warranty – and hopefully resolve with a recall and a permanent fix.
As an R1S Gen1 owner I also feel left behind with a vehicle that it is only two years old. It make me question if I will go through my purchase of the R2 I have in reservation in 2026 or wait until 2028. Rivian may do the same thing is doing to the Gen1 to the R2.
If my grandma can do a kick turn in her wheel chair why can’t my gen 1 R1?
The problem is that many of the reasons that Rivian gave for why they did or didn’t do things are turning out to not be the case. This is a brand trust issue – especially if you want people to remain faithful to the brand.
I’m fine with not having kick turn or tank turn or autonomy feature if they are indeed not possible. But in many cases (looking at you launch mode) we know full well that they ARE possible and the reasons given to not do them don’t hold water.
Act like a regular company, you get the brand loyalty of a regular company – which means you play on price and not on brand. Just be honest with us and stop giving us implausible reasons for why things are the way they are. You can’t claim “trails would be destroyed” as the reason and then introduce a feature that could destroy trails.
Be honest. If you lie, we won’t but, and you will die.
The Enhanced Highway Assist and Lane Change on Command feature was another promise to us that never materialized. So many cameras on the Gen 1 and we can’t get the feature. Tesla is accomplishing Full self-driving on their vehicles with the same camera resolution we have in our Gen1s. At least, allow us to do a hardware upgrade if required at cost. Gen1 should be capable of doing “eyes-free” system.
Dominic is right about the drama here. I don’t recall any vehicle in history actually being kept up with the newer models etc. Whining about launch mode seriously? Put it in sport mode, hold the brakes and gas, then pop your foot off the brake. Vehicle is launched! Couldn’t really be easier than that but I guess spending time with the entertainment screen just to activate it makes it better. I’ve been off-road several times and have been in zero circumstances where I needed or wanted a “kick turn ” or “tank turn” and would expect the same from most drivers. Did everyone forget how much better their truck is now compared to the day it was delivered?
Such a huge cop out and lie to R1 owners. We paid more for the extra motors with the explicit promise to have greater turning, vectoring, and software tuned performance capabilities both at launch and the not too distant OTA upgrade future. So far, NOTHING has been released that explicitly benefitted the need for having more motors, and the reality is that we were duped into paying for more expensive hardware R&D, given the classic “OTA’s will keep your investment ongoing and valuable for years to come” and then sucker punched in the nuts merely one year later with the “oh sorry, you need our newer model to benefit from any SOFTWARE related upgrades we hand out in the future”. Rivian is behaving like a computer tech bro company that only gives a $hit about whoever is buying the current vehicle tomorrow not whoever stood them up with money in the past!
Don’t buy any consumer product for hand-wavy future promises, but for what it’s capable of when you buy it. It’s 2025, this shouldn’t be a new lesson for an adult in the US by now, anyway. The Gen 1 is a fantastic product for the price we paid.