A software update bricked Rivian infotainment systems

Welcome to the future, where your car is a computer and a “fat finger” can grind your tunes to a halt.

On Monday, Rivian put out — then abruptly canceled — an over-the-air software update that offered bug fixes and improvements to a feature called proximity locking. Instead, the update screwed up some Rivian R1T and R1S infotainment systems.

“This is on us – we messed up,” Rivian told drivers. The company blamed “a fat finger where the wrong build with the wrong security certificates was sent out.” Rivian said it canceled the update, and that its service staff will reach out to folks with bricked systems to resolve the issue. Doing so “may require physical repair in some cases,” the company said.

Proximity locking automatically locks or unlocks the doors when you exit or approach your vehicle. In the past year, the feature’s been the subject of numerous complaint threads on Reddit.

The software flaw was present in Rivian’s 2023.42.0 update. The company told TechCrunch, “In most cases, the rest of the vehicle systems are operational.” Rivian didn’t say how many vehicles were affected by the error.