Autobayng News Team
- Rivian is rolling out a new AI-powered driving system and hands-free features, plus a paid Autonomy+ subscription starting in 2026 for $2,500 (one-time) or $49.99 (per month).
- Rivian says its new AI voice assistant system will sync with your Google Calendar and improve the company’s service and diagnostics process.
- These updates are coming to the second-generation Rivian R1 vehicles and the forthcoming R2 crossover.
Arguably, the biggest news out of Rivian’s inaugural Autonomy and AI Day event is that the Rivian R2 will be the most affordable new U.S. market car to deploy lidar for more advanced autonomous driving assistance features. But Rivian is about to show that you don’t need lidar to have a good time.
The California-based electric vehicle startup today announced the advent of the Rivian Autonomy Platform: an end-to-end AI-powered data loop used for training cars to operate better and better with less human supervision, and ultimately Level 4 autonomous driving for consumer-owned cars. 
The SAE defines L4 as a car that can drive without any human supervision under certain conditions, like a Waymo taxi. Right now, that level of autonomy isn’t available on any car you can actually buy and drive. It won’t be available on any of Rivian’s EVs anytime soon, either. But that’s the goal: the company has “a clear trajectory including point-to-point, eyes off and personal L4,” Rivian said in a news release.
For now, the Rivian Autonomy Platform will include the R2 as well as the second-generation R1S and R1T models, which were launched last year. (The first-generation Rivian models lack the hardware capability for this, company officials said.) Rivian Hands-Free Driving Photo by: Rivian
Hands-Free Rivian Driving, Now On (Almost) Any Roads
What that translates to is Universal Hands-Free (UHF): a hands-off assisted driving system that takes Rivian’s hands-free highway tech off the highways and onto any roads with clearly painted lines. That’s about 3.5 million miles of roads in the U.S. and Canada, Rivian said. On those roads, it’ll follow lane markings and control its distance to cars in front, but don’t expect it to stop for traffic lights or navigate right-angle turns on its own.
“The initial fruit of [this investment] was Enhanced Highway Assist,” said James Philbin, Rivian’s Vice President of autonomy and AI, on an episode of the InsideEVs Plugged-In Podcast airing Friday. “That was still using these mapped roads. Although it was hands-free, it was only on 150,000 miles of mapped roads. With the big new feature, Universal Hands Free, we’re actually removing that map restriction.”
That will launch on a subscription feature called Autonomy+, which launches early next year and costs $2,500 as a one-time subscription or a $49.99 per month subscription.
While many car shoppers may wince at the thought of yet another subscription feature, the data shows that hands-free driving (specifically on the highway) is something people want and will pay for: General Motors’ highway Super Cruise and Ford’s BlueCruise both have high subscription renewal rates when their trial periods end. And a recent AutoPacific study indicated that hands-free is now the most-requested feature among new-car shoppers.
Philbin also said that hands-free driving is the most-demanded feature for Rivian owners, too, and it’s meant to be a benefit to road trips and long days in the car.
“When you do these long drives, you arrive, you’re tired, you’re worn out,” Philbin said. “Mentally, it takes a lot out of you to do these super-long commutes or super-long drives. I think if you can do this hands-free, even though you’re monitoring, it’s just a totally different experience.” Rivian Autonomy+ Hands-Free in a city Photo by: Rivian
Philbin and other company officials said the Rivian Autonomy Platform is trained on an AI model that’s patterned after a Large Language Model (LLM), like OpenAI’s GPT-4/4o or Google’s Gemini. That means it intakes data from Rivian drivers everywhere—key events that require higher levels of skill training, Philbin said, like near-collisions or difficult intersections where a car gets confused—and then that’s beamed back to Rivian via LTE or a WiFi connection and used to make the model better.
It’s not unlike the end-to-end AI training model Tesla is purportedly using to develop Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Autopilot. Yet while Rivian’s EVs use sensors that Tesla does not, including radar, it’s not quite as sophisticated at the moment. A driver will still need to use their brake pedal at a stoplight, for example. But it is expected to get better over time with more training.
Rivian’s AI Voice Assistant
That’s not the only AI-centric news Rivian’s offering today. The company is joining the crop of automakers to offer a conversational, natural-sounding AI assistant. Dubbed Rivian Assistant, this will launch early next year on both Gen 1 and Gen 2 R1 vehicles.
Rivian Assistant
Photo by: Rivian
Rivian said this AI draws upon the digital expertise of multiple LLMs to answer questions and control various vehicle functions, like turning on your heated seats or opening the frunk.
It can even integrate with outside apps. Google Calendar is apparently the first, so in theory, you could tell your car to schedule an event for you or even cancel a meeting. Or say, “navigate to my next appointment,” and the car will do this if you’ve given it an address. Even the most AI-skeptical among us might admit that sounds rather useful.
Again, Rivian is not the first to try these features. Mercedes-Benz has an advanced voice AI coming to the new CLA-Class and future models next year, and Tesla incorporates Grok, the system from the Elon Musk-owned concern xAI. And while AI features may be a bit more nascent for now than the obvious use cases for hands-free driving, if they’re done right, they could be an immensely popular feature over time.
For now, and like any other automaker branching into urban automated driving, Rivian has to prove that the system can be safe—and worth actually using day-to-day, instead of babysitting. But while everybody knows that Rivian has a make-or-break year ahead with the R2, these features could help keep the R1 models relevant and fresh for a long time.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com More Rivian News We want your opinion! What would you like to see on Insideevs.com? – The InsideEVs team
