Ordering a Rivian? Use code JOSE1715716 to earn up to 500 points + 3 months of free RAN charging.
Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 LiDAR Roadmap, Universal Hands Free, and Its Next Gen Autonomy Platform
RJ opened the first ever Autonomy and AI Day explaining why Rivian believes it is positioned to lead in this next phase of the industry. The company is leaning hard into compute, custom hardware, large scale AI systems, and a shared data foundation that touches every part of the ownership experience.
Let’s break it all down.
Meet the Rivian Autonomy Processor
One of the biggest announcements was RAP1, Rivian’s first in house processor built on a 5nm multi chip module. It delivers 1600 sparse INT8 TOPS and can push 5 billion pixels per second inside the new Gen 3 Autonomy Computer. Rivian even built its own AI compiler and platform software to support it. This shows Rivian is no longer just integrating off the shelf chips, it is now designing silicon specifically for its autonomy roadmap.
Autonomy Computer and LiDAR on R2
The ACM3 (Autonomy Compute Module 3) autonomy computer will debut on R2 starting at the end of 2026, but Rivian made it clear that R2 will launch initially without LiDAR. What Rivian confirmed today is that LiDAR will be added later in the program. This lines up with what we explored back in May when we spotted early signs that Rivian was evaluating LiDAR as a redundancy and ground truth layer for future autonomy. Rivian has now officially validated that LiDAR is coming to R2 down the road, where it will join cameras and radar to create a richer, more resilient perception stack.
Large Driving Model and Rivian’s Data Loop
Rivian explained how its autonomy stack is powered by a self improving data loop feeding the company’s Large Driving Model, which is trained similarly to an LLM. Reinforcement learning distills high quality driving behavior into efficient onboard models. Every release improves the system, and Rivian laid out a trajectory that moves toward point to point, eyes off and eventually personal Level 4.
Universal Hands Free Coming to Gen 2
Rivian confirmed that a major software update will bring Universal Hands Free to Gen 2 R1T and R1S. This hands free experience will cover over 3.5 million miles of roads across the US and Canada as long as there are clearly painted lane lines. It is a huge expansion of the assisted driving envelope for current owners.
Autonomy+ Sub Launching in 2026
Rivian also announced Autonomy+, an autonomy tier with continuously expanding features launching early 2026.
Pricing is $2,500 one time or $49.99 per month.
Rivian Unified Intelligence
Rivian is reorganizing its entire platform around Rivian Unified Intelligence, a data foundation that ties together telemetry, cloud models, service systems and customer facing features. It is the backbone for predictive maintenance, smarter diagnostics and upcoming AI driven tools.
Rivian Assistant Coming in 2026
Rivian also officially unveiled its new Rivian Assistant, a next generation voice experience arriving early 2026 on Gen 1 and Gen 2 R1 vehicles. The assistant uses a blend of edge models and in vehicle intelligence to understand your schedule, recognize context, and handle everyday requests.
On R2, it will even run fully offline thanks to a more powerful infotainment computer, reducing latency and keeping more of the experience on device.
AI Powered Service and Diagnostics
Rivian is embedding AI into the service workflow. Technicians will have access to an AI driven expert system that analyzes telemetry and vehicle history to pinpoint issues faster and more accurately. These same tools will eventually power the mobile app as well, making self service diagnostics significantly smarter.
Any mention of retrofitting Autonomy Computer and LiDAR onto existing R1’s? Hopefully at least Gen 2’s!
Will not happen
I doubt it’ll happen, they want you to buy a new car.
I need this R2D2 themed R2 🔥
I watched the event. It felt like I was at an apple event. Is Rivian wanting us to trade in ours cars every two years to get a newer version? A new chip set, better camera, or a faster processor?
I’ve always been a vehicle buyer, not leaser. But these rapid tech changes definitely have me looking at leasing an R1S gen 2 so I can unload it once the R1’s get lidar.
Personally I want to do the driving. I like driving and don’t want to put my life in the hands of anyone’s computer!
No, they want you to subscribe to their services to get a revenue stream from something that’s actually useful and you can use. Unlike GM, Toyota, etc who try to block carplay so they can keep the diagnostics but give crap software and infotainment which is only marginally improved if you spend a fortune on their upscale, overpriced remakes of lower end models (camry => lexus equivalent).
So with everything we know do we think we can expect automatic lane change before point to point? Was kind of expecting auto park and auto lane change to be announced with universal hands free
Universal Hands Free when? Did they give any indication?
Soon. So probably 6-9 months.
S0––––0N
RJ has a choice, to Elon or not. Let’s see if he can deliver or if all of these software enhancements end up vaporware and perpetually “coming soon!”.
Like he delivered gen 1 self driving? Or Gen 1 Tank Turn. Or maybe explain why they deleted the cameras on Gen 1 interiors, we could have at least gotten hands free driving .🤦‍♂️
Pretty sure the presentations said universal will in “an update later this month.”
They posted on Instagram, it will come on next software update!
Sad day for Gen 1 users except the Rivian Assistant part……
Yeah, no love for those who help build the foundation of Rivian with Gen 1
More broken promises. Hell we still haven’t gotten the launch feature. 🤦‍♂️🤣
This is disappointing. An assistant that can integrate with Google calendar 🤷‍♂️. Who cares?!?
Maybe some finds this valuable but I would rather have apple carplay.
People listen to music in their cars. Why not make that the first app? Who decided “let’s invest 2 years and make Google calendar the first app”?
Rivian is clueless.
I have owned 2 of these and won’t buy a third one.
Rivian is trying to do everything, but they really need to consider people’s lives beyond the vehicle. I set up my phone, my home, my computer, my TV, and now my car too? Google and apple have texting and music covered, just let people’s phone do the work and not make the car yet “assistant” to set up. Focus on self driving. Let the car simply connect to phones for phone stuff.
Integrating with an AI is awesome! I don’t get why people want Carplay so bad–Rivian can do a better job integrating their car functions with Spotify than Apple can. I don’t want two operating systems running at once competing for control over the vehicle’s screens. Tesla’s is slightly more refined, but Rivian’s works fine and software is one of their core competencies.
Sad as Gen 1 – should have had at least something to improve Driver-
It will be interesting to see which features end up behind the paywall. Will we only end up with adaptive cruse control and center lane assist?
Also curious about the $2500 for Autonomy+. I wonder if that will follow a person/family to future Rivian vehicles. If so that would make it more enticing (also if it then included Connect+ as well).
Found the answer once Rivian website was updated:
“Autonomy+ one-time purchases remain with the vehicle upon ownership transfer, and Autonomy+ product features remain available during the lifetime of feature support for the hardware on the vehicle at delivery”
So unfortunately it follows the vehicle and not the person.
While I appreciate the fact that continuous development costs money, I just really don’t like subscriptions that much. Due really to the amount of time I would spend not even using the feature. So for this reason I sort of favor the more lifetime buy option…. Main use case for me is really trips/longer drives. Which are definitely less than monthly. I don’t think I see myself getting in the car and paying $50 at the start of a long weekend trip for the sort term feature rental. Oh well 🙂
Wondered the exact same thing. $2500 pays for itself after about 4 years. If it stays with the user, on all their Rivians over time, great!
You all be thankful that your Gen 1s have gotten meaningful updates and backwards compatible updates from Gen 2. Be thankful you don’t have a BMW EV from 2022 with iDrive 8, not even a year later they were outdated by the next iteration of iDrive, 8.5 and BMW claims features (even software based) from 8.5 are not backwards compatible with iDrive 8.
I know that buying a legacy vehicle like BMW is going to be static. Rivian said we were buying a software driven vehicle with updates (on par with Tesla). Tesla brings updates for years to older vehicles. I agree if we are talking a 5-6 year old car that we’re hitting the wall… but not a car 2 years old that’s marketed in a very different way.
Well with Gen1, just because a certain MY was purchased does not mean the platform was also updated for that model. Gen1 has been riding on an autonomous platform from 2019 so it’s well into its 6-7 year life span. It also lacks the hardware needed to achieve anything beyond what it can hardly do today. The lack of radar alone is what holds it back, on top of its constrained processing power and low res cameras.
So the new processing unit will be out late 2026. Is that when LIDAR is also expected or is LIDAR further out?
So R2 will launch without Lidar. But will R2 launch with Gen2 Autonomy hardware? They were clear that Gen3 Autonomy hardware is “late 2026”. But I went through it again, and didn’t see any clear statement on this. If R2 must wait for Gen3 Autonomy hardware, we won’t be seeing R2 any time s00n…
Read between the lines….
R2 will have all of this stuff, lidar etc….
“gen 3 chip will be out late 2026”.
If R2 will have all the features, then that means its pushed late 2026. They just didnt to come out and say R2 is delayed.
Yup, that’s the way I read it as well. Of course saying that explicitly would have really rained on the parade.
According to this article, R2 will launch with Gen2 ACM, then later bring in Gen3 ACM. Best case, an early R2 with Gen2 ACM is upgradable to Gen3 ACM. Worst case, getting R2 early will mean forgoing Gen3 ACM features like Lidar, eyes-off and Personal L4.
RJ *did* mention that R2 would launch without Lidar – maybe that implied the Gen2 ACM.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/12/11/rivian-unveils-ai-chip-for-automated-driving-ditches-nvidia/
Was there any hint of the Dec update that was to include RAD tuner?
I’m trying to figure out what are we getting on the next update. From the videos of the demos, it appears to be navigating towards a destination making turns on its own using turn signals. Is that universal hands-free or is that a preview of point to point?
Pretty sure that was a preview of point to point
Where’s the adventure in autonomy? I for one don’t care if my vehicle can drive by itself. Who can really 100% trust such a claim?
This did nothing but reaffirm my lessons learned from buying gen1 R1T – will never buy another vehicle from Rivian – R1, R2, R3, etc. until they are on Gen 5 or higher… which at this pace… they’ll be there in next 4-6 years. Also doesn’t sound like any update on text message integration reading this update from Jose… so it feels like it will never happen for Gen 1.
They did a whole segment live about Rivian Assistant which is coming to Gen 1 and 2 which will have text messaging capabilities they demonstrated it live.
Will Rivian assistant be able to control / play music from Apple Music?
Will Rivian assistant work with Apple Music?