Rivian‘s Chief Financial Officer Claire McDonough dismissed reports that the company plans to manufacture its own LiDAR sensors — calling the coverage an “erroneous headline” during a fireside chat at the UBS 2026 Auto and Auto Tech Conference.
McDonough made the remarks in response to a question from UBS analyst Joseph Spak, who asked whether Rivian might bring LiDAR capabilities in-house.
“No plans today to bring it in-house,” McDonough said.
The comment appears to walk back statements made by founder and CEO RJ Scaringe just one month earlier.
In a May 6 interview with Reuters, Scaringe said Rivian was considering manufacturing its own LiDAR sensors in the United States using Chinese technology, potentially through a joint venture.
The company’s founder described the effort as finding a way to “structurally ingest the technology” and confirmed the company was in “active discussions” with LiDAR firms.
Scaringe told Reuters at the time that advances in affordable solid-state LiDAR had largely occurred in China, not the United States, and that Chinese suppliers control the market at the price point automakers require.
According to the CEO, Rivian needed sensors in the “low hundreds of dollars” range — a segment dominated by firms such as Hesai Group and RoboSense.
Scaringe suggested the initiative could involve other automakers through shared production capacity, describing “active discussions” already underway.
McDonough did not elaborate on which specific reporting she considered erroneous, nor did she address Scaringe’s comments to Reuters directly.
LiDAR Supplier Remains Undisclosed
Rivian has never publicly named its LiDAR supplier for the R2.
The company described the partner only as “undisclosed” when it announced LiDAR integration at its inaugural Autonomy and AI Day in Palo Alto in December 2025.
EV reported in January that multiple indicators pointed to Chinese firm RoboSense as the supplier.
RoboSense had described its customers in public filings using terms such as “a leading emerging automaker in North America,” a “North American new energy vehicle brand,” and a “global top-tier EV pickup brand vehicle OEM” — descriptions that matched Rivian‘s profile.
While Tesla also produces the Cybertruck, Rivian is the only current pure EV maker whose brand identity is built around pickup trucks.
The R1T was the company’s debut vehicle and the foundation of its adventure-focused positioning.
On March 29, however, a Rivian spokesperson denied the connection.
“While I don’t know what company RoboSense was referring to, it is not Rivian,” the spokesperson told EV, responding days after RoboSense’s annual filing referred to a design-win customer as “a leading global manufacturer of SUVs and trucks.”
Rivian has not named an alternative supplier, and the denial left the identity of its LiDAR partner unresolved.
Gen 3 Autonomy Stack
Spak asked McDonough whether the next-generation Gen 3 hardware — to be included in both R1 models and the newly launched R2 — remained on track for late 2026.
McDonough confirmed the timeline, describing progress in the company’s point-to-point hands-free driving system and saying she had ridden in a development vehicle in San Francisco weeks earlier.
“It was great to see how our large driving model was handling quite a dynamic set of circumstances and environment,” she said.
The CFO added that the R2 fleet will be critical to the autonomy roadmap, feeding edge-case data back into the company’s large driving model and accelerating the data flywheel.
At December’s Autonomy Day, Rivian unveiled the RAP1 — a custom 5nm chip delivering 1,600 sparse INT8 TOPS of AI compute — and confirmed a Gen 3 autonomy platform combining 11 cameras, five radars, and a front-facing long-range LiDAR sensor.
Scaringe confirmed at the event that LiDAR-equipped R2 models would begin shipping in late 2026.
The company said it expected the combination to be the most powerful sensor and inference compute package in consumer vehicles in North America.
SVP of Autonomy and AI James Philbin told R2 reservation holders during a Reddit AMA session last month that Gen 2 and Gen 3 vehicles should offer comparable autonomy capabilities for the next several years.
According to the executive, LiDAR-equipped vehicles would primarily serve as “ground-truthing” data collectors for the company’s Large Driving Model.
Rivian has confirmed that early R2 buyers will not be able to retrofit LiDAR hardware, with Scaringe stating on the fourth-quarter earnings call that hardware upgrades are not planned for Launch Edition vehicles.
R2 Ramp Hinges on Supply Chain
McDonough reaffirmed that the first external R2 deliveries will begin next week — on June 9 — alongside test drives across 100 service and sales locations.
Hundreds of employees have already taken delivery.
The CFO also confirmed that the company will invite reservation holders to configure on a rolling, wave-by-wave basis rather than opening the process to the general public.
Rivian guided for 9,000 to 11,000 total deliveries in the second quarter, roughly in line with the 10,365 delivered in the first three months.
The back-half ramp implies an average of just over 22,000 units per quarter in Q3 and Q4, with volumes skewing toward the fourth quarter — considering the 62,000–67,000 annual guidance.
According to the CFO, execution will be “heavily supply chain driven,” noting that teams are on the ground validating each supplier’s manufacturing environment.
“You can only ramp as quickly as your weakest supplier,” she said.
The Launch Edition is the R2 Performance variant bundled with lifetime Autonomy+ and a tow package.
A Premium trim at $53,990 is expected in the back half of 2026, and a $45,000 Standard variant is slated for late 2027.
Chip Licensing and Technology Ambitions
McDonough described Rivian as “a technology company at our core” operating in the mobility space.
The EV maker sees potential to license its RAP1 chip technology beyond automotive applications, including in robotics.
Asked whether licensing opportunities were limited to automotive or extended beyond, McDonough said “both.”
Rivian poured over $229 million into autonomy-related R&D in the first quarter alone, according to disclosures made by Scaringe last month.
The company’s Volkswagen joint venture — worth up to $5.8 billion — has already established a licensing template, with VW paying 75% of shared development costs and a $100 million annual fee beginning after mid-2028.
McDonough confirmed that approximately $1.5 billion in payments remain, including a $1 billion non-recourse loan expected in October with no milestones attached.
UBS maintains a Neutral rating on Rivian‘s stock with a $16 price target.
The target implies a downside of 11.7% on the share value, based on the stock’s closing price of $18.12 on Thursday.
