Riding onboard with Rivian’s race to autonomy

The article details Rivian’s ambitious efforts to develop advanced autonomous driving capabilities for its electric vehicles, highlighting both the challenges and progress the company has made. In a recent demonstration, a 2025 Rivian R1S SUV equipped with the company’s new “Large Driving Model” (LDM) software successfully navigated a complex route with minimal human intervention, showcasing features like stopping at stoplights, handling turns, and slowing for speed bumps without relying on traditional rule-based programming. This marks a significant shift from Rivian’s previous deterministic, rules-based system to an AI-centric approach inspired by transformer-based models, similar to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology. CEO RJ Scaringe explained that this pivot began in 2021, leading to a complete redesign of Rivian’s self-driving platform, which launched on second-generation R1 vehicles in 2024 using Nvidia Orin processors. The company is now rapidly training its LDM on fleet data, aiming to introduce “Universal Hands-Free” driving