Over the river, through the woods, or right down the highway. According to the automaker’s CEO, Rivian’s mobile services team will come to you no matter where you are, and that’s the goal.
During an exclusive personal interview in Park City, Utah drivecast Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe explains, with the R2 launch as a backdrop drive“So if you need service and you’re on the side of the mountain, we can send a truck there.” Bold claim, but also one that few, if any, automaker CEOs would probably make.
Listen to the entire conversation, starting from the moment Scaringe addressed the mobile service, below.
Service has been a hot topic for Rivian since day one. At one time the automaker’s customers had to wait for 40 to 50 days to get their vehicles repaired at a shop. However, Scaringe said those days are over. Part of the solution is the company’s mobile service setup.
Scaringe said, “You know, one thing about service that we haven’t talked about enough, and I’m seeing it start to emerge in customer forums, is that more than half of our service is done with mobile service. And so the goal is to grow that to a very high percentage. We’d like it to be 75, 80% of our service activities.”
Mobile service is exactly what it sounds like. Scaringe explained the program this way, “For those who haven’t experienced it, your car is sitting in your driveway, it has a problem, you flag a ticket or you say, want to work on it. And we send a technician to your home. And we have a fleet of about 800 mobile service vehicles, so it’s mostly our vans, which are like a service station inside a van. We also have some that we RST, says Rivian Service Truck.”
“The nice thing about trucks is they can go anywhere. So if you need service and you’re on the side of a mountain, we can send a truck there,” Scaring said.
While the goal is to make 75% to 80% of the service mobile, according to Scaring, that number is less than 60%. “The beauty of it is you don’t need a loaner, you don’t have to worry about leaving. You don’t even have to be there. We can let ourselves go in the car,” Scaring said.
Scaringe considered the automaker’s mobile service aspect to be “super convenient.”
In a past life, Jeep’s then-senior vice president Mike Kowal Jr. told me at the 2025 Chicago Auto Show that the automaker was preparing to launch a mobile service program in 2025. This never happened. Tesla pioneered the concept of mobile service, and some older automakers including Ford and Lincoln followed suit.
If your Rivian breaks down on a mountainside we want to hear about your experience, especially if the automaker sends a team to fix the vehicle.
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