Rivian fixes infotainment software bug via OTA, around 3% affected
I spoke with Rivian software head Wassym Bensaid today about his last harrowing 36 hours. Rivian’s software team scrambled after an incorrect OS update build was sent out to the company’s fleet with an incorrect certificate. The update hung before it could complete, disabling most of the consumer-facing infotainment features on around 3% of the company’s consumer vehicles, according to Bensaid.
Rivian made Bensaid available to discuss the incident and the OTA fix, which will be going out to customers as early as 9:30 a.m. PT (12:30 p.m. ET).
I think, as a Rivian owner, I’m glad it is going to be able to be fixed via an OTA, but I’m more concerned that this could even actually happen. And it CANNOT happen again.
I asked Bensaid what went wrong, and my understanding is that the software was tested on at least two “developer-build” Rivians that were not affected by the bad certificate before it went out. Of course, the correct version had been tested for over a month on a fleet of at least 1000 test vehicles. But that prerelease subgroup seems like way too few and limited a subset of vehicles to push a live OTA OS update on.
Since the past month, what happened in the final push is the wrong link was selected, unfortunately, with the wrong certificate. So this is what caused the issue. Initially, when we got the reports, there was so we started getting reports around like 5:30pm. Pacific, the reports were a bit confusing in the sense that some people reported bricked cars, others that the cluster and then the camera are still working. So as we were scrambling to get the reports, we wanted to be super conservative, and there was multiple solution paths for us. If cars were truly broken, that would have been a service visit. If parts of the car were still alive, that would have mean, meant probably a way to get them fixed through our mobile service vehicles. And then basically, the team used this opportunity to really zoom out and they came up with a super creative solution, which basically allows us now to fully fix the issue through an over the air update. So we will be sending out a new OTA today, which addresses the issue entirely. So it repairs basically the corrupted image.
Wassym Bensaid
Bensaid noted that Rivian is reevaluating its whole process so that human error can’t ever do something like this again. That means having normal consumer vehicles get the OTA update and tested before sending the update out to more vehicles.
We did not want to go into that line of communication initially, because whether it’s 3% 10% 1% 0.5%, it’s still super important for us. Every user, every customer matters. And Job number one says the last 36 hours was how can we as a team, find the best possible fix for our customers, and then the ranking, the best possible is a remote solution. The worst possible is basically they have to go to service or or they need to tow the vehicle and then the team basically spend a lot a lot of effort. And we managed to come up with really a great solution that helps us to address it remotely. It’s also because we have in place an architecture that has a lot of redundancies and that really allows us to do this kind of operations and actually shows up like once we started understanding what was happening in the field. The vehicle was still operational, the app was still operational on the critical parts of the system was still operational. So the the safety based In redundant based design that we have in place has actually protected us. And then we have used that as a way to basically inject in this case, the recovery solution through a remote fix by leveraging on these safety systems, which is what we will be deploying today.
Wassym Bensaid
The build that was supposed to go out was tested for months on regular vehicles, but a single human copy-paste error sent the wrong build out. That process is also being overhauled so that multiple checks of the build go out before it is released to the wider customer group.
Owners who are affected (again, around 3% of the fleet, according to Rivian) should see an update on their phone app and should initiate the process from there. For those few who don’t use an app with their Rivian, they must call the Rivian service line to initiate the update from there.
Electrek’s Take
All of the above is what I want to hear as a Rivian owner, but as a reporter, I would have also liked the communication from Rivian to be more official. The original Reddit post was timely and better than nothing, but it was also a process to verify the user was really Bensaid. It was over 10 hours before the PR team was even able to acknowledge there was a problem, and only after we had shown them the Reddit post.
I think the whole Rivian team can do better here, and from the vibe I’m getting, they do too.
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Environment
Pro-Trump techies enraged by president’s crypto reserve announcement, causing early rift
David Sacks, U.S. President Donald Trump’s “AI and Crypto Czar”, speaks to President Trump as he signs a series of executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
The Trump-tech alliance is showing its first real sign of distress. And it’s because of crypto.
President Donald Trump counted on crypto execs and investors for a hefty portion of his 2024 campaign funds. He promised to reward them handsomely if elected by slashing regulations and by turning the U.S. into “the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.”
The president got off to a quick start, signing an executive order calling for the establishment of a working group on digital assets and pardoning Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. The SEC also dropped its years-long probe into Coinbase.
While those moves were lauded by the most vocal techies who backed Trump’s candidacy, over the weekend the president took it a step too far in their view. In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump announced the creation of a strategic crypto reserve for the U.S. that would include not just bitcoin but several other digital currencies — ether, XRP, Solana’s SOL token and Cardano’s ADA.
For the most part, Trump’s crypto backers all wanted a strategic bitcoin reserve. Such a move would entail using cash to buy bitcoin, which is widely viewed by crypto enthusiasts as a smart way to deploy capital into a decentralized currency that’s an alternative to hard money. As Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on X, bitcoin offers a “clear story as successor to gold.”
By going well beyond bitcoin, the critics say, Trump would be using U.S. taxpayer money to buy much riskier assets that have unproven value and have the potential to bolster the net worth of a select few investors who own the coins. That’s all the more problematic to those who want to axe government spending by trillions of dollars, in support of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting mission at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
“Taxation is theft,” wrote Joe Lonsdale, founder of venture firm 8VC and a vocal Trump supporter, in a post on X. “It should be kept to a minimum. It’s wrong to steal my money for grift on the left; it’s also wrong to tax me for crypto bro schemes.”
David Sacks, the venture capitalist who was tapped by Trump to be the “White House AI and crypto czar,” took exception to Lonsdale’s comment, suggesting it’s premature to jump to any conclusions. Sacks and Lonsdale are part of the same conservative circle in the tech world, with Musk and Peter Thiel at the center.
“Nobody announced a tax or a spending program,” Sacks wrote, in response to Lonsdale’s post. “Maybe you should wait to find out what’s actually being proposed.”
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But Lonsdale was far from alone.
Naval Ravikant, a longtime tech investor and early crypto evangelist, wrote after the announcement that, “The US taxpayer should not be exit liquidity for cryptocurrencies that are decentralized in name only.” And Vinny Lingham, creator of blockchain startup Civic and a big crypto influencer, wrote, “Call me old fashioned but I don’t think the government should be pumping our crypto bags with taxpayer money while we are running a near $2trn deficit.”
Agreement across the industry
A major Trump supporter and big name in crypto joined the chorus on Monday. Billionaire bitcoin investor Tyler Winklevoss, who wrote just before the November election that you should vote for Trump “if you care about the future of crypto, free speech, justice, liberty, and democracy,” came out against the president’s crypto reserve plan.
“I have nothing against XRP, SOL, or ADA but I do not think they are suitable for a Strategic Reserve,” Winklevoss wrote. “Only one digital asset in the world right now meets the bar and that digital asset is bitcoin.”
David Marcus, the former head of Facebook’s failed crypto project, suggested that the majority of his peers in the crypto community have the same view.
“Most—if not all—of the non-conflicted industry leaders are agreeing about this,” Marcus wrote, in reposting Winklevoss’ comment.
Marcus, who’s now CEO of payments infrastructure startup Lightspark, declared in July that he was “crossing the Rubicon” and shifting his support to Trump and away from Democrats.
Anthony Pompliano, a loud pro-Trump voice in crypto investing, committed over 1,500 words in his newsletter on Monday to the topic. He says Trump is willing to propose an agenda of buying risky tokens on behalf of the U.S. because the wrong people got to him.
“We watched crypto projects, lobbyists, and special interest groups co-opt the President of the United States,” Pompliano wrote. “They told the President that any crypto-related reserve should hold tokens that were ‘made in America.’ This pitch was the perfect trap for a President who ran on the America First agenda.”
Some of the wrath online was directed specifically at Sacks, who touted and backed various cryptocurrencies as a VC prior to joining the Trump administration, and whose firm, Craft Ventures, is an investor in crypto index fund manager Bitwise.
A cartoon image of US President-elect Donald Trump with cryptocurrency tokens, depicted in front of the White House to mark his inauguration, displayed at a Coinhero store in Hong Kong, China, on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025.
Paul Yeung | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Sacks wrote in a post on X that he sold all of his crypto, including bitcoin, ether and SOL, before taking on his new role and “will provide an update at the end of the ethics process.”
By late afternoon Monday, crypto prices had staged a dramatic reversal from their weekend rally that followed Trump’s announcement. Bitcoin fell about 9%, while ether slid 15%. XRP and SOL dropped even more.
The slide appeared tied to President Trump’s confirmation of forthcoming tariffs, which hammered risky assets across the board and sent the Nasdaq down almost 3% at the close of trading.
There were some voices in crypto who were less willing to publicly slam Trump’s reserve plan.
Michael Saylor, the chairman of Strategy, which has effectively emerged as a bitcoin proxy due to its roughly $43 billion stash, told CNBC on Monday that he wasn’t surprised about Trump’s decision to include additional cryptocurrencies.
“There’s no way to interpret this other than this is bullish for bitcoin and bullish for the entire U.S. crypto industry,” Saylor said. “I believe the best thing for the country is to move forward with an enlightened progressive policy toward digital assets.”
Jonathan Jachym, global head of policy and government relations at Kraken, told CNBC that the crypto exchange is “encouraged to see that announcement” and that it shows the president is “staying true to commitments.”
Even among the skeptics, Trump doesn’t appear to be losing broader support for his agenda just because of this one announcement. Backers like Lonsdale have been quick to post about other matters, complimenting actions taken by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump for pressuring Mexican drug cartels.
But coming just six weeks into Trump’s second administration, the reaction shows how quickly the outrage machine can activate when a proposal touches the nerve of a critical group of supporters. The debate adds interest to Trump’s first White House Crypto Summit on Friday, when investors will eagerly be awaiting more details.
As Sacks wrote on March 2, in his first post about the announcement of the strategic reserve, “More to come at the Summit.”
A dozen Tesla vehicles burned at a store in Toulouse, France. Arson is suspected amid global protests and vandalism attacks against Tesla and Elon Musk.
Last night, a dozen Tesla vehicles burned down at Tesla’s retail and service location in Plaisance-du-Touch near Toulouse, France.
Firefighters arrived on the scene at around 4 a.m. and contained the fire to the vehicles. Eight of them were completely destroyed, and four were greatly damaged. The damages are estimated at over 700,000 euros.
According to the local news (translated from French), the police suspected arson as a hole was found in a fence, and threats had been made over the last few weeks. The Tesla location remained closed all day.
Tesla is currently being protested by anti-fascist groups around the world, especially in the US, where many are targeting Tesla to protest against Elon Musk’s involvement in the US government.
In France, there were a few protests planned, but some extremist groups are calling for widespread arson against Tesla stores:
I won’t share the link to the article since it gives step-by-step instructions on how to burn down Tesla stores without getting caught, but the manifesto explains that they are going after Tesla as a “symbol of capitalism,” although they also list a dozen other reasons including the fact that they think it’s “doable and cheap.”
Electrek’s Take
This is getting nuts. It’s not only dangerous, but it’s also not super effective in achieving the goal they claim to want to achieve.
Have they never heard of insurance? Tesla is having issues selling cars right now. You are burning unsold inventory that they can then claim to their insurance.
Sure, it disrupts their operations for a short period of time, but it’s not worth it.
Their manifesto does say to avoid violence and not to target vehicles owned by individuals – though it doesn’t sound like a strict rule for them, but I think these people are likely going to end up in jail for having achieved nothing.
The protests and boycotts are going strong. You don’t need to burn cars to make yourself heard.
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