Rivian continues to develop its advanced driver assistance software. During a recent interview on Bloomberg Talks regarding the initial production of the new R2 SUV, CEO RJ Scaringe detailed an aggressive timeline for rolling out both Level 2 and Level 3 autonomous driving capabilities across the company's vehicle lineup.
Point-to-Point Level 2 This Year
While much of the interview focused on the successful launch of the R2, Scaringe quickly pivoted to the software capabilities native to both the R2 and the existing Gen 2 R1 vehicles.
According to the CEO, Rivian will begin rolling out point-to-point Level 2 autonomy later this year. Scaringe described this upcoming update as a hands-off-the-wheel, eyes-on-the-road experience. Once active, a driver will simply type their destination into the navigation system, and the vehicle will handle the entire driving task from start to finish, provided the human driver remains attentive and ready to take over.
Jumping to Level 3
The most significant news from the interview, however, was the timeline for true "hands-off, eyes-off" autonomous driving. Scaringe confirmed that moving into next year, Rivian will begin rolling out Level 3 capabilities for specific domains, starting with highway driving.
Achieving Level 3 autonomy means the driver is legally permitted to take their eyes off the road while the vehicle is operating within its approved domain, meaning within permitted roads and weather conditions.
Scaringe noted that this Level 3 capability will be available on the Gen 2 R1, the current launch edition of the R2, and future R2 variants equipped with the higher-compute stack and LiDAR sensors.
The Large Driving Model
To power this rapid software evolution, Rivian is leaning heavily on its growing fleet of vehicles. Scaringe explained that the high-volume R2 acts as a critical component of the company's data flywheel.
By utilizing the advanced perception hardware and enhanced inference chips across the fleet, Rivian is actively capturing millions of driving miles to train what it calls its large driving model.
As this large driving model continues to learn from real-world edge cases, Rivian expects the ceiling of what its autonomous platform can achieve to constantly rise, eventually paving the way for even broader Level 3 domain approvals and potential software licensing deals in the future.
