Rivian May Bring Back A Beloved Feature With A Twist: Modified Tank Turn For Off-Roading

EV startup Rivian Automotive RIVN is now working on offering variations of the tank turn feature it decided to scrap in favor of driver safety and respect for the environment.

What Happened: “…we are thinking of variations of tank turn where we would use parts of the technology to have slightly similar features but more targeted for off-road scenarios with a true utility for our owners. This is something we have been thinking about,” Vice President of Software Development Wassym Bensaid said in an interaction with Rivian owners. The senior executive was responding to an owner who requested the feature.

A tank turn enables the vehicle to rotate on its center axis like a tank. Rivian posted a video of its R1T truck doing a tank turn in December 2019. The video has garnered 2.4 million views to date.

Dropping The Turn: In May 2023, Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe informed that the company decided not to pursue the feature as it wanted to protect trails.

"Over the last year and a half, we have arrived at the view that it's a feature that while we can do it, it's so easily abused and so hard to make sure that we don't tear up trails and do things that are in contrast to what we stand for as a company," Scaringe said about the feature.

Bensaid reiterated the same in his discussion with owners and said that there are two challenges to implementing the feature: driver safety and respect for the environment. The company debated internally about the feature and has decided it is against its principles to offer the feature as proposed initially, the senior executive said.

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