Rivian’s Gambit for Full Autonomy

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/two-men-in-dark-blue-shirts-watch-suvs-being-put-together-on-an-assembly-line.jpg?id=67724197&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=62%2C0%2C63%2C0"/><br/><br/><p><strong>I’m sitting in a Rivian</strong> R1S SUV as it drives itself down the leafy streets of <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/palo-alto" target="_self">Palo Alto, Calif.</a>, through areas crowded with touchstones of tech history. At one point I pass the landmark <a href="https://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/publications/garage/innovation.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">HP Garage</a>, the one-car workshop where Hewlett-Packard, and, arguably, Silicon Valley, was founded in 1939. I skirt Stanford University, where a team led by computer science professor Sebastian Thrun won a US $2 million <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/darpa-grand-challenge" target="_self">DARPA Grand Challenge</a> in 2005. The team’s Volkswagen SUV, named Stanley, became the world’s first vehicle to navigate a grueling 212-kilometer Mojave Desert course with no human intervention.</p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe height="110px" id="noa-web-audio-player" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=q5m19e&id=https://spectrum.ieee.org/rivian-self-driving?draft=1&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=1b1b1c&playColor=1b1b1c&progressBgColor=F5F5F5&progressBorderColor=bdbbbb&titleColor=1b1b1c&timeColor=1b1b1c&speedColor=1b1b1c&noaLinkColor=556B7D&noaLinkHighlightColor=FF4B00&feedbackButton=true" style="border: none" width="100%"></iframe></div><p><span>The Rivian I’m in might look like any other electric SUV in this affluent town, with its concentration of tech bros, venture capital, and startups. But inside this boxy EV is something special: an Autonomy+ system that will allow owners to enter an address, sit back, and let the vehicle drive to any mapped destination in the U.S. and Canada. This point-to-point system is one of the most advanced semiautonomous-driving systems coming to market. It is also a precursor of the company’s bid to make self-driving cars a reality, for robotaxis and—eventually—for everyday car buyers. After years of incremental advances and frustrating setbacks, self-driving has been swept up in the great AI resurgence, and is now a top priority for </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/video/series/wsj-the-future-of-everything/how-uber-plans-to-win-the-self-driving-car-race/10F91546-7884-4404-8B65-E252B6C514A3" target="_blank">investors and global automakers</a><span>, who envision vast new streams of profits.</span></p><p>So here I am, 21 years after that DARPA challenge, riding shotgun in Stanley’s vastly more advanced descendant. Rivian’s Autonomy+ is intended to operate seamlessly on suburban streets like these, sensing and responding to traffic lights, crosswalks, and stop signs. That point-to-point system is set to debut on Rivian’s <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/rivian/r2" target="_blank">all-new R2 SUV</a> by roughly the end of this year, and via over-the-air updates for its newest R1S and R1T models. Rivian says it will charge $49.99 a month, or $2,500 up front, versus Tesla’s $99 per month for its rival system, which is somewhat misleadingly called <a href="https://www.tesla.com/support/full-self-driving-subscriptions" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Full Self-Driving</a> (Supervised), or FSD. <a href="https://group.mercedes-benz.com/en/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mercedes</a>, meanwhile, plans to charge $3,950 for a three-year subscription for the forthcoming MB.Drive Assist Pro on its CLA-Class EV; that system still requires at least one hand on the steering wheel.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube"> <span class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6ee138a9f760fb4c59f47d3e6db623e4" style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kyV9ANZlXb0?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe></span> <small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Video released by Rivian shows the company’s R1 SUV being driven on a variety of urban and rural roads, according to the company. Rivian plans to introduce this self-driving system to compete with Tesla’s offering before the end of 2026.</small> <small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Rivian</small> </p><p>Impressive as it is, Autonomy+ is only a Level 2+ system in the classification system established by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Level 2+ means that a human driver must be ready to retake control at any moment. Rivian, along with a horde of deep-pocketed rivals, is aggressively working toward more impressive (and potentially lucrative) levels of autonomy. At Level 3, drivers could “check out” behind the wheel for limited periods, to scroll through emails or watch a movie—but not to sleep.</p><p>The big race right now is to deliver <a href="https://www.sae.org/news/blog/sae-levels-driving-automation-clarity-refinements" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Level 4 autonomy</a>: A car you could (in theory) dispatch to pick up a pizza, and have it carted home on the heated, unoccupied driver’s seat—or in which you could spend the ride lounging alone in the back seat, enjoying a private slice while reading a newspaper.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"> <img alt="A man wearing a green T-shirt and blue jeans stands at a table with a keyboard and a cup of coffee staring at a computer monitor." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="468f345fe82bee9623c3f7e905873241" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="ed9de" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-man-wearing-a-green-t-shirt-and-blue-jeans-stands-at-a-table-with-a-keyboard-and-a-cup-of-coffee-staring-at-a-computer-monitor.jpg?id=67724449&width=980"/> <small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">At Rivian’s software lab in Palo Alto, Calif., a technician evaluated code for the company’s self-driving system.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Jason Henry/Bloomberg/Getty Images</small></p><p>Robotaxis currently roaming the U.S., China, and the Middle East have proved that driverless, Level 4 autonomy is possible. These cars operate in relatively tiny numbers in a <a href="https://insideevs.com/news/776837/china-us-robotaxi-fleet-comparison/" target="_blank">couple of dozen cities</a>, and within the specific constraints of commercial services. Now Rivian and its many rivals—including Tesla, <a href="https://www.toyota.com/cars/" target="_blank">Toyota</a>, Mercedes, <a href="https://www.vw.com/en/corporate.html" target="_blank">Volkswagen</a>, and <a href="https://www.byd.com/en" target="_blank">China’s BYD</a> are racing to bring that level of self-guided mobility to the masses. Rivian’s strategy combines a suite of cameras, radar, and lidar; a custom set of silicon chips, developed in-house, to process sensor data; and an AI autonomy model running on those chips. With $1.25 billion in backing from Uber, Rivian plans to graduate to a fleet of self-driving, Level 4 robotaxis starting in 2028. Those taxis, in turn, will be the literal training wheels for extending Level 4 ability to consumer vehicles.</p><p>Meanwhile, millions of connected cars, as they cruise every nook and cranny of the globe, are already sending data to train automakers’ systems. The race is on to funnel those data through fast-improving AI models with “end to end” capability: an AI architecture, powered by deep learning, that processes raw sensor data directly into physical vehicle commands. So equipped, engineers anticipate they’ll be able to solve the tricky edge cases—tangled urban streets, unique geographies, swarms of pedestrians, inclement weather—that skeptics once deemed intractable.</p><h2>Rivian’s Plan for Level 4 Self-Driving </h2><p>Despite the company’s high media profile, including a spotlight on RJ Scaringe, its MIT-doctorate founder and chief executive, Rivian holds a relatively tiny slice of the U.S. passenger-vehicle market. It sold just <a href="https://rivian.com/newsroom/article/rivian-releases-fourth-quarter-full-year-2025-financial-results" target="_blank">42,000</a> vehicles last year across its three models, the adventure-minded R1S SUV and R1T pickup, and the Electric Delivery Van. Tesla sold about 1.6 million units. Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, sold more than 11 million.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"> <img alt="A man with a goatee wearing a blazer stands next to a bench with printed circuit boards and computer monitors." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4cf58c9d4d7fed510e1cfeb23cbcfa3f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="9341b" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-man-with-a-goatee-wearing-a-blazer-stands-next-to-a-bench-with-printed-circuit-boards-and-computer-monitors.jpg?id=67724455&width=980"/> <small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">The first generation of the Rivian Autonomy Processor, an AI processing chip developed in-house, was tested at Rivian’s Palo Alto, Calif., lab in December, 2025. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Jason Henry/Bloomberg/Getty Images</small></p><p>Rivian’s underdog strategy is to leverage software and tech to make itself a serious player. Volkswagen, among the world’s largest automakers, saw enough value there to invest up to $5.8 billion in a joint venture called Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies. The joint venture gives Rivian crucial capital for development. It gives Volkswagen access to Rivian’s electrical architecture and to the software for the R2, new-generation Rivian SUV that went on sale in June.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image rm-float-left rm-resized-container rm-resized-container-25" data-rm-resized-container="25%" style="float: left;"> <img alt="A blue SUV is seen from a head-on perspective. At the top center of the windshield is a small trapezoidal enclosure containing a lidar unit." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="58e2d902b6c3e7f65eaaa7a113d17751" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="fabaf" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-blue-suv-is-seen-from-a-head-on-perspective-at-the-top-center-of-the-windshield-is-a-small-trapezoidal-enclosure-containing-a.jpg?id=67724629&width=980"/></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image rm-float-left rm-resized-container rm-resized-container-25" data-rm-resized-container="25%" style="float: left;"> <img alt="A small, sleek trapezoidal enclosure is mounted on a vehicle at the front center of the roofline, where it meets the windshield." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ba2e3efa4ac7f1f35e46bc8dbb23b2a4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="8e01d" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-small-sleek-trapezoidal-enclosure-is-mounted-on-a-vehicle-at-the-front-center-of-the-roofline-where-it-meets-the-windshield.jpg?id=67724625&width=980"/></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image rm-float-left rm-resized-container rm-resized-container-25" data-rm-resized-container="25%" style="float: left;"> <img alt="An enclosure with a trapezoidal front sensor and a twisted pair of wires connected to the back." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b8fc04bed8acf80b044b35806141f0b0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="6fa5c" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/an-enclosure-with-a-trapezoidal-front-sensor-and-a-twisted-pair-of-wires-connected-to-the-back.jpg?id=67724619&width=980"/><small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Unlike traditional lidar units, which protrude like a layer cake from the roof of a vehicle, Rivian’s unit on the new R2 SUV is housed in a small, sleek enclosure where the windshield meets the roof.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Rivian (2);Jason Henry/Bloomberg/Getty Images</small></p><p><span>“Rivian developed an architecture so important that VW is spending billions to buy it, as opposed to trying to re-create it themselves,” says </span><a href="https://ctl.mit.edu/people/reimer-bryan" target="_blank">Bryan Reimer</a><span>, a research scientist in MIT’s </span><a href="https://ctl.mit.edu/" target="_blank">Center for Transportation and Logistics</a><span>.</span></p><p>But the joint venture doesn’t give VW access to Rivian’s autonomous tech. In March, that R2 architecture underpinned Rivian’s <a href="http://google.com/search?q=rivian+uber+%241.25+billion+deal+news&oq=rivian+uber+%241.25+billion+deal+news&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAjIHCAIQIRiPAtIBCTE0NTA5ajBqNKgCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank">$1.25 billion deal</a> to supply Uber with up to 50,000 robotaxis. The companies plan to initially deploy 10,000 taxis, beginning in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, before expanding across 25 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.</p><p>Rivian’s vulnerabilities include struggles with reliability, along with expensive body repair costs that the company says it strove to reduce for its new R2. As impressive as Rivian’s in-house tech may appear, the company has miles to go to catch up with Tesla, which recently announced it has 1.1 million active users of its FSD system. Toyota is also jumping into the game; its <a href="https://woven.toyota/en/" target="_blank">Woven by Toyota</a> subsidiary has partnered with the Alphabet-owned Waymo to develop an autonomy platform for robotaxis <em><em>and</em></em> consumer cars.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"> <img alt="A white SUV has a large black cylindrically shaped enclosure mounted to its roof." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bedf91626a1a16856fe94999f18222e0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="88663" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-white-suv-has-a-large-black-cylindrically-shaped-enclosure-mounted-to-its-roof.jpg?id=67724733&width=980"/><small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">The lidar unit on a Waymo robotaxi protrudes noticeably from the roof of the vehicle.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance/Getty Images</small></p><p>Until recently, most observers would have gone all-in on Tesla as the winner of the autonomous race. Elon Musk’s company has begun operating a small test fleet of <a href="https://www.tesla.com/robotaxi" target="_blank">Model Y robotaxis</a> in three Texas cities and in Florida. Tesla has also begun producing a dedicated autonomous vehicle, the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-24/musk-says-tesla-has-begun-production-of-its-cybercab-robotaxi" target="_blank">Cybercab robotaxi</a>. But in April, Musk pushed back his timeline for Level 4 autonomy for general consumers: “I’m just guessing here, but probably in the fourth quarter” of 2026, <a href="https://electrek.co/2026/04/22/tesla-elon-musk-unsupervised-fsd-consumer-cars-q4-delay-again/" target="_blank">he said</a>. It was the latest in a series of deflating walkbacks from the man who once promised 1 million robotaxis on the road by 2020.</p><p>Scaringe, during an unveiling of his company’s make-or-break R2 SUV at a Utah state park, says that showroom Rivians will start adopting some of its robotaxis’ Level 4 capabilities no later than 2030, perhaps beginning with self-parking functions.</p><h2>How Self-Driving Systems Are Learning From Humans</h2><p>Like most autonomous cars, Rivian’s system fuses data from multiple sensors to create a robust picture of a fast-moving environment and its obstacles. Data is fed to a neural network—what Rivian refers to as its “<a href="https://www.wardsauto.com/news/rivian-announces-new-ai-hardware-software-autonomy-day-event-r2/807844/" target="_blank">Large Driving Model</a>,” or LDM—that churns through hundreds of trillions of operations per second to interpret and fuse data from cameras, radar, and lidar. That network is <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8576190" target="_blank">end to end</a>, meaning that it processes multiple streams of raw sensor data (such as camera pixels) and outputs driving controls (for steering, braking, and acceleration) through a single data pipeline. More traditional systems coded distinct steps for data collection, feature extraction, prediction, and decision-making.</p><p>That proprietary AI driver identifies features in images and point clouds, groups them into objects, and tracks them across frames, time-stamped to the millisecond to account for differing frame rates. The AI thus builds confidence over time, acting on object detections that persist across several frames, rather than, say, slamming the brakes due to a camera blip on a single frame. The virtual driver can then navigate safely even when sensors disagree, by favoring the persistent data. The output— commands for electric motors and other systems—is backed by redundant hardware for by-wire systems such as steering and brakes.</p><p>During my demo of Rivian’s point-to-point Autonomy+ system, a company test driver sits behind the wheel. Nick Nguyen, the engineer who directs Rivian’s products and programs related to autonomy, watches from the back seat. Compared to, say, a large language model that writes news or fiction, Nguyen says, an autonomous-driving AI is easier to evaluate, so there’s little room for error. “We want cliché. We want boring. Just safe, repeatable driving,” he says.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"> <img alt="Teal SUV driving on a winding mountain road at sunset." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d064c168f34647d985d9e021b1fe5e1c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="b3963" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/teal-suv-driving-on-a-winding-mountain-road-at-sunset.png?id=67731272&width=980"/> <small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">The Rivian R2 is a mid-size SUV with self-driving and off-road capabilities. It competes with the more urban-oriented Tesla Y. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Rivian</small></p><p>From my brief drive, I’d say suburban boredom is achieved in this Rivian R1S. Unlike <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/cars/technology/electric-vehicles/2025/10/30/tesla-mad-max-mode/86805474007/" target="_blank">some modes</a> of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised), Rivian’s system drives like a soccer dad, obeying speed limits to the digit, stopping gracefully at traffic lights, and easing over speed bumps like a driver delivering antiques. For robotaxi companies in the U.S. and China, these types of ho-hum trips are boosting optimism and investment to dizzying heights. <a href="https://waymo.com/" target="_blank">Waymo</a> claims <a href="https://waymo.com/safety/impact/" target="_blank">92 percent fewer fatal or serious-injury accidents</a> than human drivers, based on 170 million miles of autonomous ride data. But the real challenge is how well the higher levels of autonomy will work when they reach consumer cars <span>[see Sidebar, “<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/are-self-driving-cars-safe" target="_blank">The Growing Proof That Autonomous Cars Save Lives</a>”]</span>.</p><p>Rivian’s core LDM currently ingests cloud data from up to 125,000 cars for analysis and validation, which then fine-tunes the model through simulations. Onboard computing is smart enough to trigger recording only for unusual scenarios. Owners have to agree explicitly to data collection beforehand. Updated LDMs will be beamed back to customer cars via monthly over-the-air updates, part of that self-reinforcing data flywheel.</p><p>As is true for some of its rivals, Rivian no longer needs to equip its vehicles with an onboard high-definition map or even a cellular link as a backup to pinpoint the car for navigational purposes. That strategic shift reduces data demands, and ensures steady driving in urban canyons or tunnels with no connections. Instead, the Rivian recognizes and responds to its surroundings through recognition and repetition, just as a human would do (and also just as Tesla’s FSD does): interpreting street signs, following lane markers, being alert to hazards. The Rivian R2 features 11 high-definition cameras and five radars. It will integrate a lidar unit early next year to lay the groundwork for future autonomy. That miniaturized lidar will integrate smoothly into the R2’s existing roofline, an improvement over the <a href="https://www.tangramvision.com/blog/sensing-breakdown-waymo-jaguar-i-pace-robotaxi" target="_blank">bulky, drag-producing</a> units seen on Waymo Jaguars, and older partially autonomous models. <a href="https://www.sonatus.com/resources/vidya-rajagopalan-of-rivian/" target="_blank">Vidya Rajagopalan</a>, Rivian’s senior vice-president of electrical engineering hardware, says lidar costs have fallen from above $10,000 to a few hundred dollars in under a decade.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"> <img alt="A dark-haired woman in a blue cardigan holds a green computer chip module." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9ffb39c7bf259719c77cb314c68141b0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="0e9f6" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-dark-haired-woman-in-a-blue-cardigan-holds-a-green-computer-chip-module.jpg?id=67724528&width=980"/> <small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Vidya Rajagopalan, Rivian’s senior vice president of electrical engineering hardware, holds a RAP1 AI processor chip.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Jason Henry/Bloomberg/Getty Images</small></p><p>A mix of sensors plays up the strengths and diminishes the weaknesses of each, Rajagopalan says. Cameras capture color and texture and can distinguish between objects, but they struggle in darkness and low-contrast lighting. Lidar is unaffected by darkness or blinding sunlight, and senses shapes in three dimensions. This inherent 3D capability makes lidar more reliable for slowing or halting a car for random objects—“a tire in the road, or maybe a large dinosaur,” Nguyen quips. Multiple cameras can further contribute 3D data, after a short delay for processing.</p><p>Sensors with 360-degree vision can outperform human senses in key situations. Radar and lidar can spot nighttime pedestrians or animals hundreds of meters down the road, something no human can do. But lidar can be thrown off by dust, fog, and snow. Radar can “see” through rain or snow, but with relatively low spatial resolution.</p><h2>Why Rivian Ditched Nvidia</h2><p>To handle the flood of sensor data, Rivian has taken on an ambitious challenge: designing its own custom autonomy chip in-house. The Rivian Autonomy Processor (RAP1) is a 5-nanometer processor that can execute 800 trillion operations per second (TOPS), three times as fast as the Nvidia <a href="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/jetson-orin/" target="_blank">Jetson Orin</a> chip used in its earlier models. The chip will be built to Rivian’s specs by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. , which also makes custom chips for Tesla.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"> <img alt="A densely packed green circuit board contains two silver-colored processors and scores of other chips and components." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="14600b88ebe28b974b67ef2ed6c381f9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="51aef" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-densely-packed-green-circuit-board-contains-two-silver-colored-processors-and-scores-of-other-chips-and-components.jpg?id=67724560&width=980"/> <small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Rivian’s autonomy module contains two Rivian Autonomy Processors, each capable of 800 trillion operations per second.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Rivian</small></p><p>Nvidia’s latest automotive system-on-a-chip, the <a href="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/solutions/autonomous-vehicles/in-vehicle-computing/" target="_blank">Drive AGX Thor</a> processor, is being adopted by the likes of BTD, Hyundai, Lucid, Mercedes, Nissan, Volvo, and <a href="https://www.xiaomiev.com/" target="_blank">Xiaomi</a>, along with the <a href="https://aurora.tech/" target="_blank">Aurora</a> and <a href="https://waabi.ai/" target="_blank">Waabi</a> autonomous-trucking companies.</p><p>On paper, a single AGX Thor chip is slightly faster in terms of TOPS, at 1,000 trillion operations per second. But Rivian combines a pair of chips in each autonomy module, giving it 1,600 TOPS and execution rates around 5 billion pixels of data per second, versus 3.5 billion for Nvidia’s Thor.</p><p>Rajagopalan says developing the chip and AI software simultaneously shaved a critical full year from development. Experts say it’s the kind of fast-to-market speed that China has mastered and that legacy automakers are struggling to match. The in-house design allows Rivian to custom-tailor its software to the chip, and vice versa. Nvidia’s general-purpose chip, designed to satisfy multiple customers with various needs, must devote computing power to onboard infotainment, displays, or other systems. Rivian’s chip is designed to run autonomy and nothing but.</p><p>During my visit to Rivian’s Silicon Valley campus, Rivian engineers <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=E4LGf_QAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">Prasun Raha</a> and <a href="https://www.chipstrat.com/p/an-interview-with-rivians-mukund" target="_blank">Mukund Chavan</a> tutored me on the rapid pace of the company’s autonomy evolution. A cluttered wallboard displays a first-gen architecture that Rivian debuted just five years ago. The initial R1S SUV and R1T pickup used nearly a score of electronic control units (ECUs), the “black boxes” that traditionally control vehicle functions. For its latest R1 models, Rivian reduced the ECU count to seven. The zonal architecture organizes nearly every vehicle function into three zones, hugely consolidating the electronics and simplifying manufacturing. Rivian also leaned into an autonomy trend called “early fusion”: mixing raw, time-and-space-aligned sensor data into a shared view before the neural network acts upon it. In late fusion, each sensor performs solo recognition before it’s combined into a single picture.</p><p class="pull-quote">The self-driving revolution will really begin when the technology migrates from controlled taxi fleets to consumer cars, giving owners back the precious time they waste on commuting. </p><p>Early fusion preserves the richest sensor data for maximum accuracy in self-driving. But it demands the enormous computing power the RAP1 can deliver. Raha says the approach helps the multimodal system degrade gracefully and continue to operate with certainty even if, say, a camera’s lens gets covered with mud.</p><p>Together, these elements make up Rivian’s <a href="https://rivian.com/newsroom/article/rivian-unveils-custom-silicon-next-gen-autonomy-platform-deep-ai-integration" target="_blank">third-generation autonomy platform</a>. Displayed on a test bench, a new Autonomy Compute Module pairs two RAP1 supercomputing chips. The module is eight times as powerful as before but 60 percent smaller, according to the company. Raha says the system was designed expressly to expand Rivians to Level 4 autonomy from today’s Level 2+. RivLink, the automaker’s interconnect technology, can bridge multiple RAP modules to scale processing power. “It lets us build this extensible system, with perhaps two more chips for Level 3 or four for Level 4, depending on how the model scales,” Raha says.</p><h2>Rivian’s Road Map to Full Autonomy</h2><p>Rivian’s next planned milestone toward self-driving will be Level 3 autonomy—a hands-off and <em><em>eyes-off </em></em>system, but for highways only. (Remember, Tesla’s current FSD is technically a Level 2 system: hands off but <em><em>not</em></em> eyes off.) On the freeway, Nguyen points out, drivers would be spared the drudgery of dealing with stop-and-go traffic, allowing them to boost productivity or just goof off.</p><p>Some autonomy critics are leery of Level 3, envisioning a limbo zone in which drivers are lulled into a <a href="https://www.autonews.com/technology/an-automakers-turn-to-level-3-autonomy-amid-robotaxi-hype-0116/" target="_blank">false sense of security</a> when a car drives for long stretches with no human attention required. Ford and GM are among the automakers pivoting toward limited eyes-off functions.</p><p>Rivian’s senior vice-president of autonomy, James Philbin, sees Level 3 as an inevitable stepping-stone to Level 4. The company expects it will initially be limited to highways, not the cut-and-thrust of city traffic. If a driver fails to respond to alerts, the system will slow the vehicle, pull off on a shoulder, or call 911. Rivian has not announced a timeline for this Level 3 system.</p><h2>Navigating a Tricky Liability Shift on the Way to Immense Profits</h2><p>Ready or not, these much more autonomous systems are coming, a natural evolution of today’s semiautonomous helpers. In developed markets, adoption of showroom cars with partial-to-full automation is projected to jump from 8 percent in 2024 to 28 percent by 2030, <a href="https://www.morganstanley.com/insights/articles/self-driving-vehicles-industry-growth" target="_blank">according to Morgan Stanley</a>.</p><p>“One in four cars sold globally may be equipped with smart-driving technology in five years, versus one in eight cars now,” wrote <a href="https://www.morganstanley.com/asiaresearch/country-and-region/taiwan.html" target="_blank">Tim Hsiao</a>, a Morgan Stanley analyst, in <a href="https://www.morganstanley.com/insights/articles/self-driving-vehicles-industry-growth" target="_blank">a note posted on the company’s website</a>.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube"> <span class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="68cb032c1012fb0f928fbc7710f10a37" style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pG70CGeIhbQ?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe></span> <small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Combining cameras, lidar, and radar gives a self-driving car a better view of people and objects in front of it, according to Rivian. The company expects to release a self-driving system before the end of 2026 that will compete with Tesla’s, which uses cameras alone.</small> <small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Rivian</small> </p><p>MIT’s Reimer believes the self-driving revolution will really begin when the technology migrates from controlled taxi fleets to consumer cars, giving owners back the precious time they waste on commuting. If owners could truly send their autonomous car to safely chauffeur children, keep aged parents mobile, or run errands—while owners keep working or playing—the automakers who first help make that happen will enjoy a massive competitive edge, he says. As automakers struggle to convert buyers to subscription models, self-driving appears to be the one advance for which consumers might actually pay plenty.</p><p>But the greatest impediment to that revolution has little to do with technology. Public skepticism over self-driving is rampant; and the fate of fully autonomous testing in <a href="https://www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/04/06/waymo-driverless-cars-testing-roads-autonomous-vehicle/" target="_blank">New York City is uncertain</a>. Even going from Level 2 to <a href="https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/level-3-autonomy-what-car-buyers-need-know/" target="_blank">Level 3</a> might shift legal liability for accidents in some cases to automakers from drivers, but with Tesla still fighting lawsuits over its rudimentary Autopilot systems, those questions aren’t anywhere near settled.</p><p>Experts worry that self-driving cars may become as politicized as EVs. Labor unions are pushing back, fearing job losses from taxis to trucking. A crazy quilt of state or local regulations has failed to create coherent industry guidelines. Publicized failures—even ones that don’t result in injuries, such as Waymos driving onto a flooded street or impeding emergency workers—give the industry a black eye. Companies like Tesla and even Waymo, Reimer says, have too often relied on an arrogant “Trust me” approach, resisting regulation and oversight.</p><p>Nevertheless, the momentum toward real, Level 4, eyes-off, autonomy has reached a point from which there’ll be no backing off. The rest of the journey will depend as much on social and regulatory issues as technical ones, and so Reimer has a bit of advice.</p><p>“Do it right, and share all your data,” he says. “Earn the right to scale…. It’s about establishing trust, and developing a framework in which we truly believe these systems can operate as a trusted part of our transportation network.” <span class="ieee-end-mark"></span></p>