An app for electric adventures

It was the fall of 2021. Rivian was now a publicly traded company and the first phase of our new website was live. We were taking pre-orders in droves and excitement was high. That's when all focus shifted toward delivering our first vehicles.

A large team was dedicated to designing the software for the vehicle screens but the mobile app, and it's role in the ownership experience, remained very ambiguous. We knew it needed to unlock the vehicle. And it should probably show some data when charging. Beyond that? Who knows.

As design lead this was my task: find a reason for the mobile app to exist. That reason needed to feel true to the brand, helpful for owners, and differentiate Rivian in the market. And then work with engineers to build it.

I'm super proud of what we created.
Rivian's brand promise is to explore the world and be adventurous. However, through research we uncovered a few key insights that kept EV owners from actually living that way. These key insights informed everything we did as we designed the app.

We learned that roadtrips in an EV can feel like the Wild West—planning routes, finding chargers, and venturing off-grid is very intimidating. Rivian’s vehicles are made to go anywhere, but they needed the right digital tools to make that effortless. Once we learned this, my task was to lead a small team to design an experience that makes navigating, charging, and planning adventures easy.