Rivian officially announces the Rivian Adventure Department (RAD) team to be part of its engineering works. The RAD will be focusing on pushing the company’s trucks and SUVs to their limits in extreme conditions, noting each event’s learned lesson so that they can be used in production vehicles.
The RAD were previously an informal testing group, and with the inclusion to be part of the Rivian engineering team, they will be tasked with sending Rivian vehicles into harsh environments so that they can stress-test every system in the cars.
Their name isn’t just new on Rivian; they had previously scored an impressive class win at the 2023 Rebelle Off-Road Rally and even set a production EV truck record at Pikes Peak. Rivian treated this event’s happenings as real-world R&D rather than taking it as mere publicity stunts, deploying the lessons learned directly into their future software updates and hardware tweaks.
The Rebelle Rally win that made Rivian number 1 EV is an example of the RAD lesson being applied to production vehicles, where it provided the needed data to create a new “Desert Rally” Drive mode that really plays a big role during off-road maneuvering.
To make the R1 truck handle Colorado’s Pikes Peak, at 14,000 ft, like a rally car, the team was involved in building a custom software tool that allowed them to adjust the truck’s “brain,” stability control, torque vectoring, and suspension stiffness on the fly while they were still on the mountain. They were able to create on-the-go software that instantly tweaks the truck’s performance, ensuring it could take tight corners with the agility of a sports car.
The software was eventually applied to the road car via update 2025.46 for the Gen 2 Quad Motor vehicles. Now the software creates an interface where the driver can craft custom drive modes in real time, adjusting parameters like power output, torque split, stability control, and regeneration.
Rivian also brought along the RAD team at the 2026 FAT Ice Race; this is a good condition for testing because of its frozen ground.
They took the Quad Motor Rs1 into the competition, and the RAD team was involved in monitoring its performance. Rivan wasn’t just at the race to win a trophy or show off but was there to give the engineers ground to collect valuable data on how the car handles and reacts to extreme over-ice maneuvering.
The data collected was used to write smarter software codes and sent to all Rivian owners via an update, maybe over-the-air or by individually visiting a dealership center. The update helps drivers get better, safer handling of their car when they are driving to work, the grocery store, or on their next adventure even if it’s in snowy conditions.
