Rivian mentioned Thursday it plans to launch a hands-off model of its driver help system for freeway driving “in a number of weeks,” and mentioned an “eyes-off” model in 2026.
The hands-off system will let Rivian compete with corporations like Ford and Normal Motors, which have each launched related techniques 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 palms on the wheel.
The launch comes as Rivian is forecasting one other difficult yr, pushed largely by uncertainty round what modifications the Trump Administration might make to regulatory policy. The corporate did publish its first constructive gross revenue within the fourth quarter of 2024. That was buoyed by a company-wide price slicing effort in 2024 but additionally a rise in software program and companies income.
Rivian’s autonomy ambitions had been front-and-center when the corporate broke stealth in 2018. At the moment, CEO RJ Scaringe was talking about dreamy scenarios the place Rivian house owners might 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 — not less than publicly — as Rivian targeted on finishing its IPO, and launching and scaling three completely different automobiles.
Rivian has now posted back-to-back years of constructing and delivering round 50,000 automobiles, and has some respiration room — because of a significant take care of Volkswagen finalized late final yr — to give attention to rolling out options like a hands-off system.
Rivian is coaching its driver help platform utilizing what’s referred to as “end-to-end” coaching, an identical strategy to Tesla is doing with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software program. As a substitute of writing out hard-coded guidelines, Rivian makes use of knowledge 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. CEO RJ Scaringe mentioned Thursday that, as soon as the eyes-off model launches in 2026, Rivian will slowly enable the motive force help system to broaden past different forms of roads.
“Finally, the tip state, we expect hands-free, eyes-off must be out there primarily all over the place,” Scaringe mentioned.
To succeed in that time, Scaringe mentioned 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 the intention to practice its self-driving fashions — a notable break from how Tesla is spending billions of dollars on GPUs.
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