Once Libian starts accepting orders for 2026 quad motor pickup trucks and SUVs, customers may be seduced by power first, allowing four motors on these rebooted EVs to unleash.
After all, it’s four motors offering a total of 1,025 horsepower and 1,198 pound-feet of torque, and its ability to accelerate from a stop to 60 mph in under 2.5 seconds is hard to ignore.
But they should also pay attention to the software.
“The Quad is the pinnacle of everything Libian has done so far,” the company’s software director wassym Bensador told TechCrunch, providing a quick punch list for acceleration, speed, torque and an estimated 374 miles range. “We currently have a full in-house motor that gives us full control over the stack, hardware and software.”
That control allowed Rivian to introduce some new features. This will be rolled out via Quad-Motor software update this September. (Customers can order quad motor trims starting today, as the company says will start as early as this week.)
A feature that is likely to stimulate most of Tiktok videos and Instagram reels is “Kick Turn.” This is the ability to adjust the power of the internal wheels and rotate the center even when the vehicle is moving. A kick turn tested by TechCrunch during press drive in June allows vehicles under 20 mph in the dirt to kick out the backend and swing right or left without moving the steering wheel. The idea is to give off-road the ability to press a button and turn the trail tightly without going through the boring task of 3-point turns.
Libian fans and followers may recall a promotional, but never released feature called “Tank Turn.” The kick turns, which controls power and tire grip, are real-world and tone-down versions of the tank turns. Libian said TechCrunch Tank Turn was never released as founder and CEO RJ Scaringe and others worried that Tank Turn would ruin the trail. It’s not the best look of a company that makes outdoor activities and preserves the environment.
If the driver stays in the same place and continues rotating the vehicle in a wheel, the kick turns can still be abused. However, Libian has placed several software-powered guardrails in the function, limiting speed limits and only spinning with dirt.
Second generation overhaul
Libian first revealed the second-generation quad motor configuration during a press drive in Washington in May 2024 to showcase the overhaul of the flagship R1 line. That reboot touched every inch inside it, from the battery pack and suspension system to the electrical architecture, interior seats, sensor stacks and software user interfaces.
This effort, which has led the company to build more key components within the company, aims to reduce manufacturing costs and improve the performance and appeal of EVs.
The distribution of new dual motors and performance dual motor trims continued to be in the tri-motor configuration by August 2024, with the most expensive and powerful trim, Quad Motor, developing and improving the software features and embedded systems, and it took a year to develop and refine the embedded systems side by side with the motor, suspension and thermal management.
And there is a high interest in Libian getting the quad motor right. The highly planned and inexpensive R2 vehicle in Libian is not expected to enter production until the first half of 2026. Libian hopes that the new quad motors will start between $125,990 and $115,990 depending on the vehicle’s trim, to boost sales. And software is an important part of that bid.
If the four motors (one on each wheel) are the center of the second generation quad motor, then the software is the brain and all work together.
Bensad pointed to the development of advanced torque vectors and balance algorithms introduced in the second generation quad motor.
“We’re clearly positioning a safety guard while allowing real-time use and decisions based on information from the four wheels and then from the four motors,” he said.
What this really means is that a large number of sensors on the quad motor R1S SUV and R1T trucks are fed into a software model that provides information about the yaw rate, steering angle and other inputs and controls the torque. In other words, Rivian’s internal hardware and software work together in real time to distribute power electronically to each wheel.
Software fills the hardware
This allowed EV makers to introduce kick turns and other software-meat hardware features to their quad motors. This includes a “RAD tuner” that allows users to change the vehicle’s driving dynamics via a central touch screen. The Rad Tuner was developed by a team of engineers, software developers and designers.
According to Bensaid, the origin story began several years ago.
“Every time you test and qualify a software or a car version, there is an engineering screen hidden in secret code,” he said. The exercises are often pushing cars to new limits by Maxcoff, the early Libyan employee and R2 chief engineer Maxcoff and Luk Linch, the R1 chief engineer. “And that evolved into this idea of making this tuner available to customers.”
With the RAD tuner, drivers can create their own customized driving modes from scratch or build on presets such as “Rally” and “Sports.”
“We will have complete control through the software so that users can understand the unique nature of the car,” Benside said.
Bensad emphasized that this is more than a simple change to the user interface, and that it is more than the driver can tinker with balance, stability and ride height.
“I think what really matters is the technology behind it,” he said. “For example, this torque balance, the fact that you can configure this with a very simple slider. This is a long-standing engineering development with a very sophisticated torque vector algorithm.
The company is also deploying a launchcam feature that uses external camera recordings to automatically capture what is called “start mode.” This can catapult a new R1T quad motor from stop to 60 mph in heart pumping seconds under 2.5 seconds. Users can play videos and view real-time statistics such as speed and distance overlays calculated by in-house control software. Users can also export videos to mobile devices, save and share them via USB ports.
NACS charging etc.
2026 R1T and R1S vehicles, including quad motors, are also incorporated into North American charging standards, originally developed and popularized by Tesla.
This will allow owners of the 2026 model to access Tesla’s vast network of fast chargers known as superchargers. Libian also offers free CCS DC adapters to Quad Motor customers. Until recently, this was a long-standing standard for EV charging.
As part of this hardware upgrade, the company has updated its software, particularly its EV charging trip planner functionality. Now, when a customer opens a travel planner and selects a NACS station, the information will be updated in the travel planner to reflect that no adapter is required.
