Rivian Fixes Cloud Glitch That Disabled Highway Assist, Rolls Out Hotfix to EV Owners

Published: Jun 08 2026, 02:40 AM EDT

Rivian has fixed a cloud-based software glitch that disabled its Highway Assist driver-assistance system and is rolling out an over-the-air hotfix to affected electric vehicle owners.

The issue seems to have stemmed from a cloud-side problem with precise location services that caused some privacy settings to toggle on and off, freezing location data used by Highway Assist and related autonomy features.

As a result, Highway Assist, Lane Change on Command, and location information in the Rivian mobile app were temporarily unavailable for impacted drivers. Rivian has now addressed the cloud bug and says those functions are being restored as the hotfix reaches vehicles.

The company is delivering the fix as a software update identified as version 2026.15.01 for first-generation R1 vehicles and 2026.15.30 for second-generation models, according to Fast Company.

Rivian Rolls Out Cloud Glitch Fix

The rollout began late this week and focuses on resolving the rare privacy-setting toggle affecting location and autonomy features while also bringing improvements to the Rivian Assistant.

Release notes seen by third-party trackers advise owners to review their privacy and sharing settings after installation to confirm that precise location access is enabled. Rivian owners are being prompted to re-enable precise location when the vehicle requests it following the update.

Guidance circulating in owner communities indicates that drivers should accept any prompt to restore precise location and then verify their sharing preferences in the settings menu to ensure Highway Assist and related features can operate normally.

The company's hotfix is delivered entirely over the air, so affected vehicles do not need to visit service centers for this issue. The update also lowers the minimum speed at which Rivian's driver-assistance functions can engage, Electric Vehicles reported.

Correcting Previous Issues

Universal Hands-Free, Highway Assist, and Adaptive Cruise Control can now activate from 5 mph, down from higher thresholds, which could make the systems usable in slower traffic conditions once the fix is installed. These changes apply across the affected R1 fleet as the 2026.15 builds propagate.

The cloud glitch follows earlier software challenges for Rivian's driver-assistance stack, including a separate recall of more than 24,000 R1S and R1T vehicles in 2025 over a Highway Assist defect that could misidentify leading vehicles.

In that case, Rivian also relied on an over-the-air update to correct the problem, with regulators noting that the defect had not been linked to reported crashes or injuries at the time.

The latest hotfix continues the company's pattern of addressing software-driven safety and usability issues through remote updates rather than hardware changes, as per Guru Focus.