U.S. auto safety regulators have launched a major preliminary investigation into nearly 115,000 Rivian electric vehicles over a defective suspension part that can cause the cars to swerve violently while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the probe on Thursday morning, immediately sending shockwaves through the electric vehicle market. The investigation focuses directly on Rivian’s flagship consumer models, the R1T pickup truck and the R1S sport utility vehicle, built between t022 and 2025.
The technical core of the federal probe involves a critical rear suspension component, the rear toe link. The government’s Office of Defects Investigation opened the case after receiving two highly concerning questionnaires from vehicle owners. Both drivers reported that their left rear toe link completely separated from the chassis while they were driving at high speeds on the highway. This sudden separation caused their heavy electric vehicles to swerve uncontrollably across multiple lanes of fast-moving traffic.
These suspension failures carry extreme safety risks. The federal agency’s report revealed that one of the reported incidents resulted in a serious collision. The driver of the failing Rivian completely lost steering control and slammed into an adjacent vehicle before crashing directly into a concrete roadside barrier. While that specific crash did not result in any reported fatalities, safety advocates warn that a sudden steering failure at highway speeds of 70 miles per hour can easily turn deadly.
The safety agency’s investigation covers exactly 114,922 Rivian vehicles operating across the United States. Federal investigators will actively assess the structural sensitivity of the rear toe link joint to foreseeable road vibrations and normal service conditions. They will also evaluate Rivian’s current toe link repair procedures. They will spend the next few months analyzing engineering data and testing the physical parts under extreme laboratory stress before making a final decision. If investigators find a systemic design or manufacturing deficiency, they can force the California-based automaker to launch a massive, highly expensive recall.
This new safety probe strikes Rivian at a highly vulnerable financial moment. The company, which currently holds a market capitalization of approximately $18.2 billion, has spent billions of dollars attempting to scale its manufacturing operations. Industry analysts warn that a potential mandatory recall and repair campaign for over 114,000 vehicles could easily cost the struggling automaker upwards of $150 million in engineering and replacement fees, representing a significant hit to its cash reserves.
Nervous Wall Street investors reacted quickly to the news on Thursday morning. Before the safety agency published the investigation documents, Rivian’s stock price hovered around $14.22 per share, up 0.49% in early-morning trading. However, once the government confirmed the active suspension probe, the stock quickly gave up those modest gains, joining a broader 1.5% slide across the electric vehicle sector as investors fretted over rising regulatory risks.
This suspension investigation is not the first time Rivian has faced serious regulatory trouble. The automaker has struggled with several high-profile product recalls in recent months. Back in January 2026, Rivian recalled nearly 20,000 previously serviced R1S and R1T vehicles over a different mechanical issue. To make matters worse, the company voluntarily recalled nearly 35,000 electric delivery vans in late 2025 due to a defective driver-side seat belt pretensioner cable that could fail during a crash. That seat belt issue was particularly embarrassing because the company had to build an entirely new software patch to monitor driver behavior.
The previous seat belt recall covered exactly 34,824 light-duty commercial delivery vans, most of which operate inside Amazon’s massive shipping fleet. Amazon originally ordered 100,000 of these electric delivery vehicles from Rivian back in 2019 to completely decarbonize its delivery operations by 2030. To fix that seat belt issue, Rivian had to deploy an over-the-air software update to detect if drivers were repeatedly sitting on buckled belts to silence the safety alarms while making rapid deliveries. The company has delivered over 20,000 of those vans so far, and any vehicle downtime costs Amazon millions of dollars in lost delivery productivity.
As the federal investigation in Washington gets underway, Rivian must find a way to cooperate with safety regulators while keeping its production lines moving. The company is preparing to launch its highly anticipated mass-market R2 model in late 2026, a project vital to its future profitability. Until the safety agency releases its final findings, the cloud of this suspension probe will hang heavily over the automaker, serving as a stark reminder that building advanced electric vehicles requires absolute perfection.
