Rivian adopts AI-powered, sensor-rich strategy for self-driving tech in bid to catch Tesla
SAN FRANCISCO — Rivian Automotive is not sitting still in the race to develop automated driving features and catch up to industry leader Tesla, CEO RJ Scaringe says.
The California automaker is leveraging its second-generation vehicle platform, along with software gains from artificial intelligence, to rapidly improve driver-assist features on the R1T pickup and R1S crossover.
Rivian has one potential advantage over Tesla: It’s willing to spend the money for high-tech sensors, such as radar and lidar, that could help close the gap with Tesla’s camera-only approach to hardware.
“As competition in this space evolves, I think you are going to see [automakers] with more sensors,” Scaringe said at Rivian’s showroom here in late January. “One of the areas where we are different than Tesla — we’ve put more sensors in the vehicle, recognizing that is a way to catch up to what they’ve built using a camera-only system.”
Rivian is benefiting from massive changes in Silicon Valley over the last few years, Scaringe said. The emergence of AI allows software to progress more quickly. And Rivian’s new in-vehicle computers come from industry leader Nvidia, with a big boost in processing power starting with the 2025 model year.
“Gen one is going to get slightly better over time,” Scaringe said regarding driver assistance. “Gen two is going to be wildly better a year from now versus what it is today because of how the system is built.”
Rivian’s first-generation system covers its 2022-24 model vehicles.
The path is clear
To be sure, Rivian is behind Tesla and several legacy automakers in driver-assist features, including General Motors with its Super Cruise system, which allows for highway driving with hands off the wheel and eyes on the road. But Scaringe sees a pathway to catch up.
This year, Rivian will offer hands-free highway driving that, like Super Cruise, is considered a Level 2 system by SAE International. Level 2 requires the driver to be in control at all times. Next year, Rivian plans to release a Level 3 system that allows a driver to disengage from driving duties under certain circumstances.
“Level 3 is your hands are off the wheel, your eyes are off the road,” Scaringe said. “But you are in the driver’s seat and available to be asked to retake control of the vehicle should a situation become highly complex.”
The electric vehicle maker’s second-generation models have 11 cameras and five radars as part of the Rivian Autonomy Platform, the company says on its website.
To eventually reach full autonomy with no driver in the future, Rivian will likely need to add lidar to its sensor suite, Scaringe said.
“I think Level 4 will require more sensors than cameras and radar,” he said. The price of lidar units has fallen in recent years to just a few hundred dollars, making it feasible now to add to mass-produced vehicles.
Commercial robotaxi provider Waymo uses lidar, which is formally known as Light Detection and Ranging, on its Level 4 vehicles.
Playing catch-up
Scaringe acknowledged that Rivian has a long way to go to catch Tesla, which has years of driving data to train its self-driving software.
“Tesla has done an amazing job. They’re going to continue to lead here. We’re rapidly building out our dataset and rapidly building out our approach to this,” he said.
Tesla plans to launch a fully autonomous robotaxi service this summer in Austin, Texas, CEO Elon Musk said in January. To do so, its current Level 2 driver-assist software, called Full-Self Driving (Supervised), will need to improve to “unsupervised” status as a Level 4 system. Musk has said lidar and radar are unnecessary for autonomy, and they add cost and complexity.
Rivian is also playing catch-up to Mercedes-Benz, which offers a Level 3 system it calls Drive Pilot in the U.S. Drive Pilot can be used in limited circumstances under 40 mph, according to the automaker. Some independent testing organizations, such as Consumer Reports, rate the Mercedes-Benz and GM systems ahead of Tesla’s.
Rivian’s goal in the next few years is to have driving aids that allow customers to “take back” their time by being able to disengage under most circumstances, first on highways and later on city streets, which is more complex, Scaringe said.
“You can be on your phone, writing emails, not have to be looking at the road, not having to grab the [steering] wheel,” Scaringe said. “And that’s absolutely on the road map, something that we’re hyperfocused on.”
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