Rivian Automotive, the electric vehicle manufacturer, just this week proclaimed its second “Autonomy & AI Day.” At the show, they officially released their lofty goal to create completely autonomous driving technologies. The event highlighted Rivian’s commitment to creating autonomous technology. This truly ambitious goal was promised by CEO RJ Scaringe back in 2018. The company aims to have “Universal Hands-Free” driving ready by early 2026. In reality, this specific innovation will allow drivers to remove their hands from the steering wheel on 3.5 million miles of roads across the U.S. and Canada.
To deliver on these ambitious aims, Rivian has released all-new, ground-up driving software. This software is tuned to work with its second-generation R1 vehicles and powered by Nvidia’s Orin processors. This state-of-the-art software will be the engine behind Rivian’s Large Driving Model (LDM). It uses real-world data gathered from Rivian’s fleet to train. Scaringe felt certain this data-driven approach would greatly accelerate the company’s advancement toward autonomy.
Rivian’s also planning for the roll out of “point-to-point” driving by the second half of 2026. This new feature will make hands-off driving possible, while requiring drivers to stay focused on their surroundings. The new autonomous computing and lidar tech will be key for pushing the envelope in Rivian’s upcoming R2 vehicles. The problem is, it wouldn’t be ready until many months after the R2 rollout—which is key to the company’s long-term success as sales of its current-gen models taper off.
As of today, the LDM represents a profound change for Rivian. As Scaringe acknowledged, the previous paradigm relied to a significant extent on man-made, planned, deterministic control strategies. He declared that the new model is already showing great results. This increase was first realized when data began to flow in from Rivian’s vehicles already in service on the highways. He stressed the importance of testing the LDM in high-density vehicle scenarios. This involves roadways with clear guiding infrastructure, like lane lines, a key component for realizing level 4 autonomy.
“Everything that the vehicle did was the result of a prescribed control strategy written by humans.” – RJ Scaringe
Rivian’s vision for autonomous driving goes further than traditional use cases. For the future of autonomous driving, Scaringe mentioned these use cases including robotaxis as being potentially viable in the next few years. As he admitted, the timelines of vehicle production and autonomy platform development don’t match up easily.
“In a perfect world, everything times at the same time, but the timeline of the vehicle and the timeline of the autonomy platform are just not perfectly aligned.” – RJ Scaringe
The upcoming R2 vehicles are crucial to Rivian’s success on the market, especially as consumer interest has dried up for its first products. Scaringe emphasized that people who purchase an R2 soon after its introduction may experience some shortcomings. He admitted that they are behind schedule in getting full autonomy capabilities.
“So [if] you’re buying an R2 and you buy it in the first nine months, it’s just going to be more constrained.” – RJ Scaringe
Customers will either have to wait until the expanded features come online or get on the R2 right as it’s released. Now the decision is in their hands!
“I think what will happen is some customers will say ‘that matters a lot to me, and I’m going to wait.’ And some will say ‘I want the newest, best things now, and I’m going to get the R2 now, and maybe I’ll trade it in a year or two, and I’ll get the next version later.’” – RJ Scaringe
So far, Rivian appears to be very much in the process of reorienting its strategy for the R2 SUVs. By end of 2026, the company hopes to replace Nvidia chips with an in-house built autonomy computer. This development is part of a continuing strategy to improve performance and reliability in their autonomous systems.
Rivian has promised big things from its vehicles. It’s learned how critical it is to target its resources strategically. Scaringe noted that off-road autonomous driving is a possible direction, although it’s far from the focus today.
“We’re not putting any resources into rock crawling autonomously.” – RJ Scaringe
He still agreed that the goal of autonomous vehicles at trailheads is realistic.
“But in terms of getting to the trail head? For sure.” – RJ Scaringe
Rivian’s LDM development indeed becomes crucial. To be able to do this, it plans to develop a craft that can seamlessly operate in the most complex, varied, and dynamic environments. Part of the emphasis is on making sure that Rivian’s vehicles are capable of handling situations without predefined road elements to follow.
As Rivian pursues a path toward autonomy, there is this recognition that technology is moving so fast that you don’t want to build something that’s going to be obsolete. Going forward, transparency with customers about the status of these developments, Scaringe added, is key.
“When tech is moving as fast as it is, there’s always going to be some level of obsolescence, and so what we want to do here is to be really direct.” – RJ Scaringe
