Rivian stated Thursday it plans to launch a hands-off model of its driver help system for freeway driving “in a couple of weeks,” and an “eyes-off” model in 2026.
The hands-off system will let Rivian compete with corporations like Ford and Basic Motors, which have each launched comparable programs prior to now few years. (Ford has named its system BlueCruise, whereas GM has SuperCruise.) Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (supervised) system, which isn’t absolutely autonomous regardless of its identify, requires customers to maintain their arms on the wheel.
The launch comes as Rivian is forecasting one other difficult 12 months, pushed largely by uncertainty round what adjustments the Trump administration may make to regulatory coverage. The corporate did put up its first optimistic gross revenue within the fourth quarter of 2024. That was buoyed by a company-wide cost-cutting effort in 2024 but additionally a rise in software program and providers income.
Rivian’s autonomy ambitions had been front-and-center when the corporate broke stealth in 2018. At the moment, CEO RJ Scaringe was speaking about dreamy situations the place Rivian homeowners may begin a hike and have their automobiles drive autonomously to fulfill them on the end. However autonomy took a again seat within the years since — at the least publicly — as Rivian centered on finishing its IPO, and launching and scaling three totally different automobiles.
Rivian has now posted back-to-back years of constructing and delivering round 50,000 automobiles, and has some respiratory room — due to a significant cope with Volkswagen finalized late final 12 months — to concentrate on rolling out options like a hands-off system.
Rivian is coaching its driver help platform utilizing what’s often called “end-to-end” coaching, the same method to what Tesla is doing with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software program. As an alternative of writing out hard-coded guidelines, Rivian makes use of information from the cameras and radar sensors to coach the fashions that energy its driver-assistance system.
Very like Ford and GM, Rivian is beginning out by permitting the hands-off characteristic to solely be used on highways. Scaringe stated Thursday that, as soon as the eyes-off model launches in 2026, Rivian will slowly permit the motive force help system to develop past different kinds of roads.
“In the end, the tip state, we expect hands-free, eyes-off must be obtainable primarily in every single place,” Scaringe stated.
To succeed in that time, Scaringe stated Rivian is evaluating a “number of actually artistic methods we will entry a considerable quantity of GPUs with out having to deploy the capex ourselves” with a view to prepare its self-driving fashions — a notable break from how Tesla is spending billions of {dollars} on GPUs.
