Things at Rivian are appearing to reach a major crescendo with the company making big moves for 2025 including putting the final touches on its upcoming R2 SUV.

However, the vehicles themselves were not in the spotlight this time around and instead, the company used its inaugural Autonomy & AI event to announce several big changes including the debut of a new computer chip that will power its next-gen AI technology.

NVIDIA gets the boot as Rivian debuts in-house chip

A core pillar of today’s announcement was the debut of the new Rivian Autonomy Processor which will underpin the next generation of the company’s AI software. This new chip is the first one produced internally by Rivian. Prior to this, the company had been using chips developed by NVIDIA but the new processor promises to be four times more powerful than before and it also means the company will end its long-running collaboration with the chip maker.

This approach also follows the one adopted by rival Tesla which is also betting its future on building its own in-house lineup of AI chips. However, the stock market has been dealing with a slump in AI related stocks recently and traders were less than impressed by the news with Rivian’s stock going down 7% shortly after the event concluded.

R2 getting LiDar tech and planned L4 capability

But while it’s always tough impressing bean counters and Wall Street stock holders with your wares, Rivian did have a surprise and confirmed the R2 will be the first Rivian model to get LiDar before the rest of the Rivian lineup gets it. Rivian even had some fun by unveiling an R2 that sported a graphics scheme to make it look like the Star Wars droid R2-D2 from Star Wars.

The decision is partially based on safety with Rivian seeing its approach as being safer then Tesla’s with the rival firm using a camera based system for its Full Self-Driving automated driving system. “We expect that at launch in late 2026, this will be the most powerful combination of sensors and inference compute in consumer vehicles in North America,” Vidya Rajagopalan, an executive overseeing electrical hardware, said at the event.

One major drawback is that this approach is more costly and is somewhat similar to what we have seen in Waymo robotaxis. This higher cost also puts greater financial pressure on Rivian which is struggling to mitigate cash burn. CEO RJ Scaringe is confident the technology will become a core selling point for the company saying that it will eventually allow owners to do hands-free driving on over 3.5 million miles of roads versus the existing 150,000 miles of available tarmac.

“This gives you your time back. You can be on your phone or reading a book, no longer needing to be actively involved in the operation of a vehicle,” CEO Scaringe said of Rivian’s plans. This includes the potential for ride hailing and robotaxi service once the full suite of Level 4 capable features makes its way into its vehicles.

More evolution is coming

In addition to AI being the forefront of its event, Rivian also confirmed that here will be more evolution in store for its technology with subscriptions continuing to be the proverbial glue in this AI fueled revolution. Right now, its Autonomy+ subscription plan is currently being offered to second-generation R1 owners as a free trial which will go through the end of 2025.

This will change when the company’s Universal Hands Free system (UHF) appears as part of a free software update. It certainly promises to bring more capability to owners, but they will need to be prepared to pay for the privilege with Rivian planning to either charge users $49.99 a month or a one-time payment of $2,500. This is reflective of broader trends and is also cheaper than Tesla’s Full-Self Driving feature which charges a one-time payment of $8,000 with a $99 per month payment plan also being available.