- Rivian will allow owners to set their car’s wheel size in the software without going to a service center.
- Software version 2025.06 includes this change and will be released “soon.”
Rivian’s electric trucks and SUVs are known for their impressive off-roading abilities. The R1S and R1T are marketed as adventure vehicles, and if you know the world of overlanding and off-roading, you know that people like to put bigger wheels on their cars to better cope with big obstacles.
The problem is that Rivian owners have to schedule a service visit to have their cars’ brains updated so they know what wheels they’re running. The cars still run fine without having their software updated, but the range estimates will be off.
That’s a big pain, especially if the closest service center is several hours away. The good news is that an upcoming software update will take the service visit out of the equation. According to Rivian’s head of software development, Wassym Bensaid, software version 2025.06 will allow owners to set the tire size on the car’s infotainment screen. This will recalibrate the EV’s brain so that the range estimates are as accurate as possible.
Wassym also confirmed that Gen2 wheels—that’s the facelifted 2025 and beyond models of R1S and R1T—will work on Gen1 models. That’s good news for owners of older R1T and R1S models who want to spice up the appearance of their cars without going down the aftermarket route.
Rivian’s head of software said that the update will be pushed to vehicles over the air “soon” but didn’t provide a date, as noticed by RivianTrackr. The latest software version on Gen1 and Gen2 R1T and R1S EVs is 2024.51. It was released in the second half of January and includes improvements to the vehicle alarm, Apple Music integration and driveability in reverse, as well as several bug fixes.
The 2025 Rivian R1S and R1T debuted in June of last year. Visually, they’re largely unchanged compared to the first versions, but Rivian made significant changes under the skin. There’s a new tri-motor version available, a new zonal electrical architecture that allows for fewer ECUs and a lot less wiring—1.6 miles down from the pre-facelift.
But this move also shows why Volkswagen is so interested in partnering with Rivian on software. It’s an easy, over-the-air fix to something small, but clearly sought after by owners. Many other car companies envy this ability to fix things or add new features wirelessly; get good at that, and there’s no telling what they can pull off.
