Rivian’s point-to-point driving starts reaching early adopters at the end of this year, then expands through next year until it covers every Gen 2 R1 and R2 on Autonomy+. James Philbin said at the Evercore 9th Annual ADAS Forum today that Rivian is “very much on track” for that initial rollout.
The first version will leave some situations out of its operational domain, and Philbin gave parking lots as the example.
UHF 2.0 didn’t come up at all, and neither did the stoplight and stop sign support Rivian talked about for Q3.
The model is end to end with domain-specific fine tuning, and part of that comes from expert fleets already driving in San Francisco, Chicago, and Miami, so if you live in one of those cities you might spot them. Philbin said the team’s focus is on edge cases, and Rivian plans to lean much more on large scale simulation starting next year.
RAP1 chips go into employee R2s later this year before reaching customer deliveries next year.
The Level 4 robotaxi goal is still late 2028. Uber or a fleet partner will buy the vehicle, and Rivian gets a software license fee tied to how much it’s used since Rivian’s model is doing the driving. Robotaxi comes first because it runs in a tighter domain, but Philbin said personal L4 is mostly the same work and should follow close behind, and nothing in the Uber deal keeps Rivian from selling it to owners.
Eyes-off has its own hurdle since every state handles it differently, and New York has no Level 3 pathway at all.
Universal Hands-Free on my R2 still won’t stop for a red light, so I fully expect stoplights and stop signs to arrive as part of point-to-point with no UHF 2.0 in between. I’ll share more with you all as soon as it starts landing on early adopter vehicles.
In terms of Rivian, who is an Early Adopter? Is that a Rivian-selected class? Media? Literally early adopters of the Launch Edition R2?