Rivian is making big progress on autonomy, with custom silicon, lidar technology, and a hint of robotaxis

Rivian on Thursday explained how it plans to make its electric vehicles increasingly autonomous — an ambitious effort that includes new hardware, including lidar and custom silicon, and, eventually, a potential entry into the self-driving ride-hailing market, according to CEO RJ Scaringe.

The announcements at the company’s first “Autonomy and AI Day” event in Palo Alto, California, shed new light on Rivian’s technological development, much of which has been kept secret as it seeks to begin production of its affordable R2 SUV in the first half of 2026. Rivian’s event is also a very public signal to shareholders that it is keeping pace with, or even surpassing, the automated driving capabilities of its industry rivals such as Tesla, Ford, and General Motors, as well as automakers from Europe and China.

Rivian said it will expand the hands-free version of its driver-assistance software to “more than 3.5 million miles of roads across the U.S. and Canada” and will eventually expand beyond highways to surface streets. This expanded access will be available for the company’s second-generation R1 trucks and SUVs. It’s calling the expanded capabilities “universal hands-free,” and will launch in early 2026. Rivian says it will charge a one-time free fee of $2,500 or $49.99 per month.

“What that means is you can get into the car at your house, enter the address of where you’re going, and the entire car will drive you there,” Scaringe said Thursday, describing the point-to-point navigation feature.

After that, Rivian plans to allow drivers to take their eyes off the road. “This gives you back your time. You can be on your phone, or reading a book, and no longer need to be actively involved in operating the vehicle.”

Rivian’s driver assistance software won’t stop there; The electric car maker on Thursday laid out plans to boost its capabilities up to what it calls “L4 Personal,” a reference to the level set by the Society of Automotive Engineers that means a vehicle can operate in a certain area without human intervention.

Next, Scaringe hinted that Rivian would look to compete with the likes of Waymo. “While our initial focus will be on personally owned vehicles, which today account for the vast majority of miles driven in the United States, this also enables us to pursue opportunities in the ride-sharing space,” he said.

To help achieve these lofty goals, Rivian has built a “grand driving model” (think: LLM but for real-world driving), part of a move away from the rules-based framework for self-driving vehicle development that Tesla has spearheaded. The company also showed off its custom 5nm processor which it says will be built in collaboration with both Arm and TSMC.

This custom chip powers what Rivian refers to as its third-generation “autonomous computer,” or ACM3. The new computer can process 5 billion pixels per second, and will begin appearing on Rivian’s upcoming mass-market R2 SUV in late 2026.

Rivian will link the ACM3 to a lidar sensor at the top of the windshield (from an undisclosed supplier) to provide “3D spatial data and redundant sensing,” which it says will help with “real-time detection of extreme driving situations.”

The R2 is scheduled to begin shipping in the first half of 2026, meaning launch versions of the SUV will not feature an ACM3 or lidar sensor. But the company said in a press release that it aims to “continuously improve the autonomous capabilities” of its Generation 2 R1 and future R2 vehicles, with a clear path that includes point-to-point, out-of-sight, and in-person L4.

The company believes it can reach an advanced state of autonomy in many of its existing vehicles without the new hardware, but Scaringe said Thursday that the new hardware suite “will provide a much higher ceiling than what we have in our vehicles today.”