Rivian (RIVN.US) “Autonomous Driving and Artificial Intelligence Day” made a big announcement: Self-developed chips and AI models supported, pointing the finger at the Robotaxi market!

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the US 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 said the company has developed self-developed chips, in-vehicle computers, and new artificial intelligence models that will enable autonomous driving functions in upcoming vehicles.

Rivian also said it plans to launch an autonomy+ subscription service for second-generation vehicle users in early 2026, which will be supported by Rivian Autonomy processors and autonomous driving computers, and has “the ability to continue expanding.” According to reports, the price of Autonomy + is a one-time purchase of $2,500, or $49.99 per month. In contrast, competitor Tesla's premium FSD (Supervised) option costs $8,000 a time, or $99 per month.

“AI is allowing us to create technology and customer experiences at a completely different rate than before,” said RJ Scaringe. The company's executives said in a statement that future software updates will include “Universal Hands-Free (Universal Hands-Free)”, which will allow Rivian customers to “drive-free” on more than 3.5 million miles of roads in North America, covering most marked roads in the US. RJ Scaringe said this new advanced driver assistance system will continue to be improved as more mileage is accumulated, and upgraded through reinforcement learning.

Unlike its main competitor Tesla (TSLA.US), Rivian said it will use lidar and radar sensors in the upcoming R2 model to achieve “Level 4” (Level 4) autonomous driving as defined by SAE, that is, fully autonomous driving. Under normal traffic and weather conditions, passengers of a Level 4 autonomous vehicle can sleep in the back seat and the vehicle will take them to their destination. Waymo, an autonomous driving company owned by Google (GOOGL.US), regards its vehicles as Class 4.

RJ Scaringe said on Thursday that the company's upcoming autonomous vehicle will enable it to enter the robotaxi market, an area Tesla has promised for years but has yet to launch. 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 privately owned vehicles, which now account for the vast majority of the mileage in the US, this is also an opportunity for us to enter the online car-hailing market.”

Rivian isn't the only car company aiming to achieve Level 4 autonomous driving while gradually introducing some autonomous driving features to consumers — most consumers want these features to reduce long-distance driving fatigue or improve overall safety. Tesla and General Motors (GM.US) are developing their own driverless systems, while Honda, Lucid, and Nissan are each collaborating with venture capital-supported autonomous driving technology startups (Helm.AI, Nuro, and Wayve) to develop similar systems through different technology paths.

Supporting Rivian's vision for autonomous driving is a self-developed chip to be launched in 2026. Vidya Rajagopalan, vice president of hardware at Rivian Electric, said that the chip is packaged in a “multi-chip module” package and has “high memory bandwidth”, which is “the key to AI applications.” The Rivian chip has a bandwidth of 205GB/s. “Rivian is uniquely positioned to move from software-defined cars to AI-defined cars,” said Wassym Bensaid, Rivian's chief software officer. Rivian also announced the launch of the new AI-powered “Rivian Assistant,” a next-generation voice interface, which will be launched on its first and second generation vehicles in early 2026.

It is worth mentioning that Rivian's autonomous driving program is independent of the co-development technology involved in its $5.8 billion joint venture agreement with Volkswagen, which aims to share or further develop Rivian's software and electrical architecture for future models.

The US electric vehicle market experienced a decline in demand after the Trump administration prematurely terminated the $7,500 federal tax credit for car buyers in September. Against the backdrop of 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. Despite the cumulative increase in Rivian's stock price of about 25% this year, in the face of many internal and external challenges, the stock has fallen by more than 80% since its 2021 IPO.