The Rivian R1T electric truck has a ton of exciting features, but one that received a lot of negative attention is the powered tonneau bed cover. After months of complaints about faulty or breaking bed covers and promises of a replacement, it looks like Rivian is finally ready to redesign it.
Owners everywhere have complained about the powered retractable tonneau cover making funny noises, getting stuck halfway open, not always working, or downright breaking completely. So much, that Rivian just announced it has officially discontinued the powered tonneau cover, will not give it to current reservation holders, and is busy redesigning the entire feature.
Moving forward, Rivian will let reservation holders choose to get a manual cover or have no cover at all. Then, in the future, it’ll re-introduce a new and improved option for owners. Here’s part of an email going out to owners and reservation holders this week:
“We are removing the powered tonneau cover from production. We plan to re-introduce this feature later, but a date has not been set. For the foreseeable future, all R1Ts will come with either a manual tonneau cover or no tonneau cover.
Since you have selected a powered tonneau cover, your configuration will need to be updated to either a manual tonneau cover or no tonneau cover. It’s important to note this choice will not impact your delivery timing estimate coming later this month.”
Basically, the company has confirmed the current product does not meet expectations and immediately discontinued the accessory from production lines. So while it’ll probably return eventually, we’re not sure when.
The manual tonneau cover is fully lockable and offers protection against light weather, similar to other covers available on the market. However, being able to instantly control it with a button on the bed rail near the taillights made it a nice feature. Well, when it worked.
It’s worth noting that Rivian is a brand-new company and still working out some kinks. The company recently dealt with its first big recall, and now they’re working through replacing faulty tonneau covers and producing a quality product that will meet expectations. A rep confirmed to Electrek that they’re redesigning the product and launch edition reservation holders will see a price adjustment. Unfortunately, that’s about all we know right now.
via InsideEVs
