Driving onboard with Rivian’s race to autonomy

The robotic swerved by way of the cafeteria of Rivian’s Palo Alto workplace, cabinets adorned with chilled canned coffees — till it didn’t. 5 minutes later, a person fastidiously pushed it out of everybody’s means, the phrases “I’m caught” flashing yellow on the poor droid’s display screen.

It was an inauspicious begin to Rivian’s “Autonomy & AI Day,” a showcase for the firm’s plans to make its autos able to driving themselves. Rivian doesn’t make the cafeteria robotic and isn’t answerable for its talents, however there was a well-recognized message in its foibles: these things is onerous.

Hours later, as I rode in a 2025 R1S SUV throughout my 15-minute demo of Rivian’s new self-described “Giant Driving Mannequin,” I used to be reminded of that message.

The EV geared up with the automated-driving software program drove myself and two Rivian workers on a switchback route close to the firm’s campus. As we glided previous Tesla’s engineering workplace, I seen a Mannequin S in entrance of us sluggish to flip into the rival firm’s lot. The R1S ultimately seen this, too, braking onerous simply before the Rivian worker practically intervened.

Throughout my demo drive, there was one precise disengagement. The worker in the driver’s seat took over as we handed by way of a one-lane part of highway due to some tree-trimming. Minor stuff general. However it wasn’t precisely uncommon both; I noticed a number of other demo rides that had disengagements, too.

The remainder of the drive went nicely sufficient for software program that is not prepared to be shipped, particularly when you think about that Rivian threw out its previous rules-based driver help system and adopted an end-to-end method — which is how Tesla developed Full Self-Driving (Supervised). It stopped at stoplights, it dealt with turns, it slowed for velocity bumps, all with out programmed guidelines telling it to do this stuff.

A quiet pivot in 2021

Rivian’s previous system “was all very deterministic, and it was all very structured,” CEO RJ Scaringe mentioned in an interview Thursday. “All the pieces that the car did was the results of a prescribed management technique written by people.”

Scaringe mentioned that when Rivian noticed transformer-based synthetic intelligence taking off in 2021, he quietly “reconstituted the staff and began with a clear sheet and mentioned, let’s design our self-driving platform for an AI-centric world.”

After spending “a whole lot of time in the basement,” Rivian launched the new ground-up driving software program in 2024 on its second-generation R1 autos, which use Nvidia’s Orin processors.

Scaringe mentioned it was solely lately that his firm began to see dramatic progress “as soon as the information began actually pouring in.”

Rivian is betting it will possibly practice its Giant Driving Mannequin (LDM) on fleet information so rapidly that it’ll enable the firm to roll out what it calls “Common Fingers-Free” driving in early 2026. Meaning Rivian homeowners shall be in a position to take their arms off the wheel on 3.5 million miles of roads in the U.S. and Canada (as long as there are seen painted strains). In the again half of 2026, Rivian will enable “point-to-point” driving, or the client model of the demo we obtained Thursday.

The ‘eyes off’ to ‘arms off’ problem

By the finish of 2026, after Rivian has began transport its smaller, extra inexpensive R2 SUVs, it can ditch the Nvidia chips and outfit these autos with a brand new customized autonomy laptop unveiled Thursday. That laptop, plus a lidar sensor, will ultimately enable drivers to take their arms and eyes off the highway. True autonomy — the place a driver doesn’t have to fear about re-taking management of the car — lies nicely past that and can largely rely on how briskly Rivian can practice its LDM.

This rollout introduces a near-term problem for Rivian. The brand new autonomy laptop and lidar gained’t be prepared till months after the R2 goes on sale. If prospects need a car that may deal with eyes-off driving (or extra), they’ll have to wait. However the R2 is a vital product for Rivian, and the firm wants it to promote nicely — particularly in the wake of declining sales of its first-generation vehicles.

“When tech is shifting as quick because it is, there’s all the time going to be some degree of obsolescence, and so what we wish to do right here is to be actually direct” about what’s coming, Scaringe mentioned. The early R2s will nonetheless get Rivian’s promised “point-to-point” driving, which shall be based mostly on the new software program and shall be hands-off however not eyes-off.

“So [if] you’re shopping for an R2 and you purchase it in the first 9 months, it’s simply going to be extra constrained,” he mentioned. “I feel what’s going to occur is some prospects will say ‘that issues lots to me, and I’m going to wait.’ And a few will say ‘I need the latest, finest issues now, and I’m going to get the R2 now, and possibly I’ll commerce it in a yr or two, and I’ll get the subsequent model later. Fortuitously, there’s a lot demand backlog for R2 that we predict, by being upfront with this, prospects could make the choice themselves.”

“In an ideal world, the whole lot occasions at the similar time, however the timeline of the car and the timeline of the autonomy platform are simply not completely aligned,” he mentioned.

After I first interviewed Scaringe in 2018, before Rivian even confirmed what its autos appeared like, he shared a objective that also rattles round my head. He wished to make Rivian’s autos so able to driving themselves that: “in case you go for a hike, and also you begin at one level and also you end at one other level, you’ve got the car meet you at the finish of the path.”

It was the form of pie-in-the-sky promise about self-driving vehicles that was all the rage seven years in the past, however it caught with me not less than as a result of it was one thing that felt true to Rivian’s entire model of aspirational journey.

Scaringe instructed me Thursday he nonetheless thinks it’s attainable for Rivian to allow a use case like that in the subsequent few years. It definitely gained’t occur till the firm exams and builds its more-capable R2 autos, which is not less than a yr away in a best-case state of affairs.

“We might [do that]. It’s not been an enormous focus,” he mentioned. That would change as the firm will get nearer to degree 4 autonomy, although, since by then the firm may have its LDM skilled on trickier roads with out guiding options like lane strains.

“Then, it turns into a little bit of a like, what’s the ODD [operational design domain]? Grime roads, off highway? Straightforward,” he mentioned. Simply don’t count on a Rivian driving itself up Hell’s Gate in Moab.

“We’re not placing any assets into rock crawling autonomously,” he mentioned. “However when it comes to getting to the path head? For positive.”