The Rivian R2 Is Getting Lidar. Here

• The Rivian R2 is getting lidar and the company’s first in-house computer chip, the company announced at its Autonomy and AI Day on Thursday.
• Lidar-equipped R2s will start production at the end of 2026. 
• Rivian says the crossovers will also gather valuable data for training its driving models. 

Rivian’s first shot at the mainstream car market, the $45,000 R2 crossover, is one of the most anticipated electric vehicles of 2026. Come next year, it will also be equipped to take Rivian’s autonomous driving tech to the next level.

The R2 will get a lidar unit and Rivian’s first in-house computer chip for self-driving, the EV startup announced at its Autonomy and AI Day on Thursday. The fancy sensor, which most experts believe is crucial to safe autonomous vehicle technology, will begin shipping in R2s at the end of 2026, several months after the planned start of production. 

Gallery: Rivian Autonomy and AI Announcement

The news comes during a renewed era of excitement around autonomous vehicles. Rivian says lidar, which uses lasers to generate a real-time 3D map of the world, will be key to deploying increasingly capable driver-assistance technology across its vehicles—and eventually full-blown self-driving capability in the R2. 

“Lidar is an incredible sensor. I mean, there’s a reason you see it on all of the L4 players that are going for high levels of autonomy,” Rivian’s vice president of autonomy and AI, James Philbin, told InsideEVs in an interview on the Plugged-In Podcast airing Friday. L4—or Level 4 automation, according to SAE—is industry speak for a car that can drive without any human supervision under certain conditions, like a Waymo. 

Rivian R2 LIDAR

Photo by: Rivian

Rivian’s technology roadmap, outlined on Thursday, includes “Universal Hands-Free,” rolling out this month. That’s hands-off adaptive cruise control and lane keeping on most roads, even outside of highways. 

On Thursday, Rivian also said it plans to “continuously improve the autonomy capabilities of its Gen 2 R1 and future R2 vehicles, with a clear trajectory including point-to-point, eyes off and personal L4.” Rivian’s latest Gen 2 R1T and R1S models (which don’t have lidar) will get point-to-point navigation next year, Scaringe said. 

R2s equipped with lidar and Rivian’s third-generation computer have the hardware necessary for Level 4 driving, Philbin said. 

Rivian didn’t share an explicit timeline, but its CEO expects things to move quickly. RJ Scaringe told Automotive News this week that Rivian vehicles will be driverless “well before the end of the decade.”

Rivian Universal Hands Free

Photo by: Rivian

In the near term, Rivian says lidar-equipped R2s will help it gather rich driving data that will be used to beef up the model that underpins all of its driver-assistance tech. And at launch, those R2s will benefit from “a new augmented reality visualization in the driver display, plus improved detections of objects around the vehicle—particularly further away and with challenging conditions,” a spokesperson said in an email. 

It wasn’t immediately clear whether lidar would be an option starting in late 2026, or standard equipment from then on. A spokesperson said Rivian will share R2 details closer to its launch date.  

Rivian R2 LIDAR

Photo by: Rivian

Famously, Tesla CEO Elon Musk thinks his company can create self-driving cars using only cameras—no lidar or radar. It may even be close. After years of promises, Tesla now runs a robotaxi service in Austin, albeit with a safety monitor in the front passenger’s seat. Rivian, like most other companies developing autonomous tech, sees a benefit in extra sensing capability and better data collection.

Plus, lidar units are a lot cheaper than they used to be. They used to cost tens of thousands of dollars, an unthinkable sum for a regular vehicle. Now you can find lidars in a few vehicles in the U.S., mainly luxury cars like the Lucid Air and Volvo EX90. The R2 may be the cheapest. 

“Lidar is following one of these classic cost curves, whereas it’s been scaled, the prices come down and down and down,” Philbin said. “And it’s now really comparable to a front-facing radar in price and very much in the ballpark for a consumer vehicle.”

Rivian’s autonomy plans also hinge on its first in-house computer chip for autonomous driving. The Rivian Autonomy Processor, like lidar, is going through validation and will debut in the R2 late next year. 

Why design its own silicon? Philbin claims Rivian’s chip performs better than what’s on the market. And he said there are real benefits to developing both software and the chips that it will run on. 

The company has a lot to prove before it can be considered a leader in autonomous technology.

It only recently added hands-free highway driving to its arsenal, something the likes of General Motors and Ford have been doing for years. It’s behind Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) on point-to-point navigation. Waymo is the only company that’s deployed driverless cars at scale in the U.S., and no car company has managed to sell a truly self-driving car to consumers. All cars with automated driving assistance systems (ADAS) require close driver supervision. 

Rivian R2 LIDAR

Photo by: Rivian

But Rivian is now joining a growing list of automakers aiming to up the ante. Lucid, for example, says its upcoming midsize crossover will also have the equipment needed to drive itself in the near future. Nissan this week announced plans for point-to-point urban autonomy with AI partner Wayve in Japan in 2027, then in North America. And the new Mercedes-Benz CLA will debut a system called MB Drive Assist Pro, which does hands-on automated navigation of city streets.

The R2 was already make-or-break for Rivian’s future as a mass-market car company. Now it’s very tied up in the company’s ambitions to be much more than that. As Scaringe told us earlier this year: “It must go well.”

Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com 

[Updated 12/11 4:30 p.m. with additional comment from James Philbin.]

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