Rivian (RIVN.US) released a major announcement on "Autonomous Driving and Artificial Intelligence Day": Self-developed chips, AI models, aimed at the Robotaxi market!

American electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian Automotive (RIVN.US) held its first "Autonomous Driving and Artificial Intelligence Day" and announced plans to launch autonomous electric vehicles in the future. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe and other executives stated that the company has developed its own chips, onboard computers, and new artificial intelligence models that will enable it to achieve autonomous driving capabilities in upcoming vehicles. Rivian also announced plans to introduce Autonomy+ subscription service for its second-generation models to users in early 2026. This service will be supported by the Rivian Autonomy processor and autonomous driving computer, with the ability for "continuous expansion". Autonomy+ is priced at a one-time purchase of $2,500 or $49.99 per month. In comparison, competitor Tesla, Inc.'s advanced FSD (Supervised) option is priced at a one-time cost of $8,000 or $99 per month. RJ Scaringe stated, "AI is enabling us to create technology and customer experiences at a pace unlike ever before." The company executives said that future software updates will include "Universal Hands-Free Driving", allowing Rivian customers to achieve "hands-free driving" on over 3.5 million miles of roads in North America, covering the majority of US lane-marked roads. RJ Scaringe stated that this new advanced driver assistance system will continue to improve with more driving miles accumulated, achieving upgrades through reinforcement learning. Unlike its main competitor Tesla, Inc. (TSLA.US), Rivian stated that it will use LiDAR and radar sensors in its upcoming R2 models to achieve SAE-defined "Level 4" autonomous driving, meaning fully autonomous driving. In normal traffic and weather conditions, passengers in a Level 4 autonomous driving vehicle can sleep in the back seat while the vehicle takes them to their destination. Waymo, a self-driving company under Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US), views its vehicles as Level 4. RJ Scaringe stated on Thursday that the upcoming autonomous driving vehicles will allow the company to enter the robotaxi market, an area that Tesla, Inc. has been promising for years but has not yet launched. However, he did not disclose a timeline for fully autonomous driving or a potential robotaxi fleet. RJ Scaringe said, "While our initial focus will be on personally owned vehicles, which currently constitute the vast majority of miles driven in the US, this also presents us with an opportunity to enter the ride-hailing market." Rivian is not the only carmaker aiming to achieve Level 4 autonomous driving and gradually introduce some autonomous driving features to consumers - most consumers want these features to reduce long-distance driving fatigue or improve overall safety. Tesla, Inc. and General Motors Company (GM.US) are developing their own self-driving systems, while Honda, Lucid, and Nissan are collaborating with venture-backed autonomous driving tech startups (Helm.AI, Nuro, and Wayve) to develop similar systems through different technological paths. Supporting Rivian's autonomous driving vision is a self-developed chip that will debut in 2026. Vidya Rajagopalan, Rivian's Vice President of Electrical Hardware, stated that the chip utilizes a "multi-chip module" packaging with "high memory bandwidth", which is crucial for "AI applications". The bandwidth of Rivian's chip is 205GB per second. Wassym Bensaid, Rivian's Chief Software Officer, said, "Rivian is uniquely positioned to move from software-defined vehicles to AI-defined vehicles." Rivian also announced the launch of the new AI-driven "Rivian Assistant", a next-generation voice interface that will debut on its first and second-generation vehicles in early 2026. It is worth noting that Rivian's autonomous driving plan is separate from its $5.8 billion joint venture agreement with Volkswagen, aimed at sharing or further developing Rivian's software and electrical architecture for future models. The US all-electric vehicle market has seen a decline in demand after the Trump administration terminated the $7,500 federal tax credit for car buyers in September. With slowing electric vehicle sales in the US and facing international competition from Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers, Rivian is currently under pressure to prove growth potential to investors and expand its customer base. Although Rivian's stock price has risen by about 25% this year, the stock has dropped over 80% since its IPO in 2021 amid various internal and external challenges.