Inside Rivian’s big bet on AI-powered self-driving

The article details Rivian’s ambitious shift toward AI-powered self-driving technology, highlighting the challenges and progress in developing its autonomous driving system. Rivian abandoned its previous rule-based driver assistance system in favor of an end-to-end AI approach inspired by transformer-based models, similar to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving. This new “Large Driving Model” (LDM), launched in 2024 on Rivian’s second-generation R1 vehicles equipped with Nvidia Orin processors, uses fleet data to improve its capabilities. During a demo drive, the system handled complex driving tasks like stopping at lights and navigating turns without explicit programming, though occasional disengagements still occurred, underscoring the difficulty of perfecting autonomous driving. CEO RJ Scaringe revealed that the pivot to an AI-centric platform began quietly in 2021, with significant progress emerging as data collection accelerated. Rivian plans to introduce “Universal Hands-Free” driving soon, allowing hands-off operation on 3.5 million miles of U.S.