What R2 Autonomy Looks Like Today and Where It Is Headed

I sat down with James Philbin at the R2 media event to talk autonomy, and the question hanging over the whole thing was the one a lot of you keep asking me. Do you buy now, or wait for the LiDAR-equipped R2 coming later this year. The full conversation is in the video below, but after talking with him I think the answer leans more toward buy than it used to.

The short version is that R2 ships with real hardware, not a placeholder. Cameras moved from 55 to 65 megapixels and there are new corner radars front and rear. The ultrasonic sensors are gone too, which cleans up the bumpers and kills off a bunch of little parts that love to need calibration. The Launch Edition comes with lifetime Autonomy+, and Universal Hands-Free is there on day one. I have been running UHF everywhere since December, so that part matters to me.

Then there is the roadmap, and that is where it got interesting.

UHF 2.0 is targeted for Q3, and it actually stops for traffic lights and stop signs instead of just warning you about them. Lane changes open up off the highway too. Rivian is leaning on navigation now but staying with SD maps rather than the centimeter-perfect HD kind that go stale the moment a road changes, which for anyone dealing with constant construction is the right call. Automatic parking is coming, and the detail I liked is that you get to pick the spot instead of the truck dumping you in the farthest corner of the lot. And by the end of the year they want to start rolling out point to point internally, where you dial in an address and the truck drives you there.

And before you ask, this will all be coming to R2 and Gen 2 R1T/R1S owners. Sorry Gen 1 🙁

So, buy or wait. The honest answer is that none of the good stuff ships in full on day one, and point to point is further out than that end of year date suggests once you account for the internal rollout coming first. I am not going to pretend otherwise. But the hardware is already in the truck, the lifetime Autonomy+ means the software keeps coming to you, and the roadmap was specific enough that I believe it.