The robotic swerved by 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 approach, 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 corporate’s plans to make its autos able to driving themselves. Rivian doesn’t make the cafeteria robotic and isn’t accountable for its talents, however there was a well-recognized message in its foibles: these things is difficult.
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 outfitted with the automated-driving software program drove myself and two Rivian staff on a switchback route close to the corporate’s campus. As we glided previous Tesla’s engineering workplace, I seen a Mannequin S in entrance of us gradual to show into the rival firm’s lot. The R1S finally seen this, too, braking laborious simply earlier than the Rivian worker practically intervened.
Throughout my demo drive, there was one precise disengagement. The worker within the driver’s seat took over as we handed by a one-lane part of street as a result of some tree-trimming. Minor stuff general. But it surely wasn’t precisely uncommon both; I noticed a number of different demo rides that had disengagements too.
The remainder of the drive went properly sufficient for software program that isn’t able to be shipped, particularly when you think about that Rivian threw out its outdated rules-based driver help system and adopted an end-to-end method — which is how Tesla developed Full Self-Driving (Supervised).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Rivian’s outdated system “was all very deterministic, and it was all very structured,” CEO RJ Scaringe stated in an interview Thursday. “All the pieces that the automobile did was the results of a prescribed management technique written by people.”
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Scaringe stated that when Rivian noticed transformer-based synthetic intelligence taking off in 2021, he quietly “reconstituted the staff and began with a clear sheet and stated, let’s design our self-driving platform for an AI-centric world.”
After spending “quite a lot of time within the basement,” Rivian launched the brand new ground-up driving software program in 2024 on its second-generation R1 autos, which use Nvidia’s Orin processors.
Scaringe stated it was solely just lately that his firm began to see dramatic progress “as soon as the info began actually pouring in.”
Rivian is betting it could possibly practice its Giant Driving Mannequin (LDM) on fleet information so shortly that it’s going to enable the corporate to roll out what it calls “Common Palms-Free” driving in early 2026. Meaning Rivian homeowners will be capable to take their palms off the wheel on 3.5 million miles of roads within the U.S. and Canada (as long as there are seen painted strains). Within the again half of 2026 Rivian will enable “point-to-point” driving, or the buyer model of the demo we acquired Thursday.
The ‘eyes off’ to ‘palms off’ problem
By the top of 2026, after Rivian has began transport its smaller, extra inexpensive R2 SUVs, it’ll ditch the Nvidia chips and outfit these autos with a brand new customized autonomy pc unveiled Thursday. That pc, plus a lidar sensor, will finally enable drivers to take their palms and eyes off the street. True autonomy — the place a driver doesn’t have to fret about re-taking management of the automobile — lies properly past that and can largely depend upon how briskly Rivian can practice its LDM.
This rollout introduces a near-term problem for Rivian. The brand new autonomy pc and lidar received’t be prepared till months after the R2 goes on sale. If prospects need a automobile that may deal with eyes-off driving (or extra), they’ll have to attend. However the R2 is an important product for Rivian, and the corporate wants it to promote properly — particularly within the wake of declining gross sales of its first-generation autos.
“When tech is shifting as quick as it’s, there’s all the time going to be some degree of obsolescence, and so what we need to do right here is to be actually direct” about what’s coming, Scaringe stated. The early R2s will nonetheless get Rivian’s promised “point-to-point” driving, which might be based mostly on the brand new software program and might be hands-off however not eyes-off.
“So [if] you’re shopping for an R2 and you purchase it within the first 9 months, it’s simply going to be extra constrained,” he stated. “I feel what’s going to occur is a few prospects will say ‘that issues so much to me, and I’m going to attend.’ And a few will say ‘I need the latest, greatest issues now, and I’m going to get the R2 now, and perhaps I’ll commerce it in a 12 months or two, and I’ll get the following model later. Happily, 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, every little thing occasions on the identical time, however the timeline of the automobile and the timeline of the autonomy platform are simply not completely aligned,” he stated.
After I first interviewed Scaringe in 2018, earlier than Rivian even confirmed what its autos regarded like, he shared a purpose 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 may have the automobile meet you on the finish of the path.”
It was the sort of pie-in-the-sky promise about self-driving automobiles that was all the fashion 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 advised me Thursday he nonetheless thinks it’s potential for Rivian to allow a use case like that within the subsequent few years. It definitely received’t occur till the corporate assessments and builds its more-capable R2 autos, which is not less than a 12 months away in a best-case situation.
“We may [do that]. It’s not been an enormous focus,” he stated. That would change as the corporate will get nearer to degree 4 autonomy, although, since by then the corporate may have its LDM educated 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]? Dust roads, off street? Simple,” he stated. 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 stated. “However by way of attending to the path head? For certain.”
