Rivian goes all in on ‘common hands-free’ driving at its first Autonomy and AI day

EV automaker Rivian simply held its which, unsurprisingly, centered extensively on hands-free driving. An upcoming software program replace guarantees the introduction of “common hands-free” driving. The corporate says its autos will be capable to autonomously navigate greater than 3.5 million miles of roads in North America, “masking the overwhelming majority of marked roads within the US.”

That is coming to the , but additionally Gen 2 R1 autos just like the . The service will likely be locked behind a subscription for one thing referred to as Autonomy+ that features self-driving, but additionally presents entry to forthcoming and unannounced autonomous options. Rivian clients pays $2,500 for lifetime entry to the platform or $50 per thirty days.

The R2 is getting LiDAR sensors, which is able to presumably assist allow a few of these upcoming autonomous options, along with a brand new chip referred to as the Rivian Autonomy Processor. The processor has been designed for multimodal purposes and runs the corporate’s proprietary neural web engine. Each of those options are anticipated “to ship on R2 fashions beginning on the finish of 2026.”

At this time’s occasion wasn’t nearly hands-free driving. Lots of the firm’s autos will quickly be given entry to the AI-powered Rivian Assistant, which makes use of LLMs and like Google Calendar. This assistant will likely be model-agnostic, as it’s going to “orchestrate completely different fashions and select one of the best one for the duty.”

Along with the upcoming R2, the corporate is prepping the R3 and R3X. A Rivian offshoot simply launched a particularly costly, however modular, .