The Tech Behind Rivian’s 2026 Quad Motor Truck And Suv — And That Kick Turn

1 week ago

As Rivian starts accepting orders for its 2026 Quad Motor pickup motortruck and SUV, customers whitethorn initially beryllium enticed by nan powerfulness and tricks nan 4 motors successful these rebooted EVs tin unleash.

After all, 4 motors delivering a mixed 1,025 horsepower and 1,198 pound-feet of torque — and nan expertise to accelerate from a standstill to 60 miles per hr successful little than 2.5 seconds — is difficult to ignore.

But they should besides salary attraction to nan software.

“The Quad is really nan pinnacle of everything that Rivian has done truthful far,” Wassym Bensaid, nan company’s caput of software, told TechCrunch, quickly providing a punch database connected acceleration, speed, torque, and an estimated 374-mile range. “Now that we person afloat in-house motors, we person afloat power connected nan stack, hardware and software.”

That power has allowed Rivian to present respective caller features, which will rotation retired via package updates successful nan quad-motor this September. (Customers tin bid nan quad-motor trim starting coming pinch deliveries opening arsenic early arsenic adjacent week, according to nan company.)

The characteristic that will apt animate nan astir TikTok videos and Instagram reels is “kick turn,” a characteristic that adjusts nan powerfulness to nan wrong wheels and lets nan conveyance rotation astir its halfway — moreover arsenic it’s moving. Kick turn, which TechCrunch tested during a property thrust successful June, allows a conveyance walking nether 20 mph connected ungraded to footwear retired its backmost extremity and plaything it to nan correct aliases near without moving nan steering wheel. The thought is to springiness off-roaders nan expertise to make tight turns connected trails by pushing a fastener and without going done nan tedious task of a three-point turn.

Rivian fans and followers mightiness callback a promoted, but ne'er released, characteristic called “tank turn.” Kick turn, which controls powerfulness and tyre grip, is nan real-world and toned down type of vessel turn. Rivian told TechCrunch that vessel move was ne'er released because its laminitis and CEO RJ Scaringe and others worried that vessel move would ruin trails. Not nan champion look for a institution that has made outdoor activities and preserving nan situation a large portion of its brand.

Kick move could still beryllium abused if nan driver stayed successful nan aforesaid spot and continued to rotation nan conveyance successful a circle. However, Rivian has placed immoderate software-powered guardrails connected nan feature, including limiting nan velocity and only allowing it to rotation only successful dirt.

Second-generation overhaul

Rivian first revealed its second-generation quad-motor configuration during a May 2024 property thrust successful Washington, successful a bid to showcase nan overhaul of its flagship R1 line. That reboot touched each inch of its insides from nan artillery battalion and suspension strategy to nan electrical architecture, interior seats, sensor stack, and package personification interface.

The effort, which has led nan institution to build much of its awesome components in-house, is aimed astatine reducing nan costs of manufacturing and improving nan capacity and entreaty of its EVs.

Deliveries of nan caller dual-motor and capacity dual-motor trims began almost immediately, pinch nan tri-motor configuration pursuing by August 2024. The quad-motor, which is its astir costly and powerful trim, took different twelvemonth to create and refine nan package features and embedded systems, and really they worked alongside nan motors, suspension, and thermal management, according to nan company.

And nan stakes are precocious that Rivian gets nan quad-motor right. Rivian’s highly anticipated and cheaper R2 vehicles aren’t expected to spell into accumulation until nan first half of 2026. Rivian is hoping nan caller quad-motor, which starts betwixt $125,990 and $115,990 depending connected nan conveyance trim, will springiness income a boost. And nan package is simply a captious portion of its bid.

If nan 4 motors (one located astatine each wheel) are nan bosom of nan second-generation quad-motor, nan package is nan encephalon making it each activity together.

Bensaid pointed to nan improvement of precocious torque vectoring and balancing algorithms that person been introduced successful nan second-generation quad-motor.

“Think astir it arsenic ace analyzable mathematical processing down nan scenes to let real-time usage and decisions based connected accusation from nan 4 wheels and past nan 4 motors, while evidently keeping information guards successful place,” he said.

What this intends successful believe is galore sensors connected nan quad-motor R1S SUV and R1T motortruck supply accusation connected yaw rate, steering angles, and different inputs, which are past fed into package models to power torque. In different words, Rivian’s in-house hardware and package activity together successful existent clip to administer powerfulness astatine each instrumentality electronically.

Software meets hardware

That has allowed nan EV shaper to present footwear move arsenic good arsenic different software-meets-hardware features to nan quad-motor, including its “RAD Tuner,” which lets users alteration nan vehicle’s driving dynamics via nan cardinal touchscreen. The RAD Tuner was developed by a squad of engineers, package developers, and designers nicknamed nan “Rivian Adventure Department.”

The root communicative began respective years ago, according to Bensaid.

“Every clip we would spell and trial and suffice type of nan package aliases nan car, we person an engineering surface which is hidden pinch nan concealed code,” he said. It was present that early Rivian worker and R2 main technologist Max Koff and R1 main technologist Luke Lynch would configure nan car arsenic they wished — an workout that often pushed nan vehicles to caller limits. “And that evolved into this thought of making this tuner disposable to customers.”

With RAD Tuner, drivers tin create their ain customized driving mode from scratch aliases build upon presets for illustration “Rally” aliases “Sport.”

“We really springiness users afloat power done package truthful that they tin fig their unsocial characteristic of nan car,” Bensaid said, adding this peculiar characteristic is really meant for master drivers.

Bensaid emphasized this is much than a elemental alteration to nan personification interface that lets drivers tinker astir pinch balance, stability, and thrust height.

“I deliberation what’s really important is nan exertion down it,” he said. “For example, this torque balance, nan truth that we’re capable to configure this pinch a very elemental slider — this is years of engineering improvement to person a very blase torque vectoring algorithm pinch really a high-precision power that allows america to alteration values while we’re driving. It’s technically extremely, highly difficult to do this type of changes.”

The institution is besides rolling retired a motorboat cam feature, which uses an exterior camera signaling to automatically seizure “Launch Mode,” which that tin catapult nan caller R1T quad-motor from a standstill to 60 miles per hr successful little than 2.5 heart-pumping seconds. Users tin replay nan videos and position real-time stats for illustration velocity and region overlays calculated by in-house controls software. Users tin besides export videos to a mobile instrumentality via USB larboard to prevention and share.

NACS charging and more

The 2026 R1T and R1S vehicles, including nan quad-motor, besides travel built successful pinch nan North American Charging Standard, which was primitively developed and popularized by Tesla.

This gives owners of nan 2026 models entree to Tesla’s immense web of accelerated chargers, known arsenic Superchargers. Rivian is besides supplying quad-motor customers pinch a complimentary CCS DC adapter, which was nan long-standing EV charging modular until recently, allowing them to plug into different networks.

As portion of this hardware upgrade, nan institution has besides updated its software, specifically nan EV charging travel planner feature. Now erstwhile a customer opens nan travel planner and selects an NACS station, nan accusation is updated successful nan travel planner to bespeak that they don’t request an adapter.