Rivian began emailing Autonomy+ subscribers on Monday to apply for its Autonomy Early Access Program, four days after it published the terms of an invitation-only beta for its Point-to-Point hands-free feature that binds testers to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
“Space is limited. If you’re interested, we recommend applying soon,” the email says under the heading “Help shape where Rivian Autonomy is headed,” and an Autonomy Early Access Program tile now appears under “Your journey” in eligible owners’ Rivian accounts.
The in-account prompt is blunter than the support page about geography.
The message tells owners that the program is “not available in every state yet and based on factors like Rivian driving experience, driving history and use of in-vehicle features,” that “expressing interest doesn’t guarantee selection,” and, once interest is registered, that space is “not available in every state.”
Rivian is selecting the first owners for Point-to-Point by the state they drive in, their safety record and how much they already use its Autonomy+ software, and the support page says the program will admit owners in California and Florida first, “with more areas to follow,” listing “driving state” alongside safe driving history, Autonomy feature usage and vehicle model as the factors that decide who is selected.
Owners anywhere in the US can register interest, and the company says the geography of those requests “helps us decide where to expand next,” but it has not explained why it chose those two states, which happen to be home to San Francisco and Miami, the 2028 launch cities in its robotaxi agreement with Uber.
The geography applies only to selection, since Rivian says that once an owner is enrolled “features aren’t limited to these areas, so you can use them on supported roads, wherever you drive in the US.”
What the NDA Covers
Participants must “maintain strict confidentiality regarding all preview features, program details, and feedback provided, in accordance with the signed NDA,” the page says, which means the first owners to use Point-to-Point will be barred from posting clips, describing its behavior or discussing the issues they log.
The primary owner must also tell every secondary driver that the vehicle is enrolled and ensure they comply with the program’s terms, so the confidentiality obligation travels with the car rather than with the person who signed.
The email promises that approved participants will “try new features before their official release, beginning with our Point to Point capability,” attaches two footnotes to the word features whose text does not appear in the message, and says Rivian will “follow up directly to confirm enrollment” with those selected.
The process runs in two stages of consent, with a pre-enrollment form, which the account flow calls the Pre-Enrollment Consent and lets owners review at any time.
It then authorizes Rivian to review an applicant’s software and feature usage history, general driving history and prior participation in Rivian programs, and a Participation Agreement that selected owners sign in their account and that sets out the data collected, including camera footage.
Rivian says applicants who are not selected will not have their data used “for any other purpose,” that applying involves no camera sharing, and that a Connect+ subscription is not required.
Once inside, testers must use the features weekly, log issues from the vehicle when safe, complete monthly surveys, make themselves available for interviews and focus groups, and enable location and camera data sharing, all unpaid, in exchange for over-the-air access ahead of the fleet and a newsletter.
Safety and participation are re-verified about every 30 days, and Rivian can suspend or end participation for a lapsed Autonomy+ subscription, a change of ownership, a failed check or a terms violation.
The Tesla Precedent
The structure follows the path Tesla took with its FSD Beta, which in 2021 required early testers to sign a non-disclosure agreement that Vice reported barred them from speaking to the media, kept journalists out of test rides and told testers to “remember that there are a lot of people that want Tesla to fail.”
Tesla then used a Safety Score built on measures including forward collision warnings to decide which paying owners received the software, before opening the beta to nearly everyone who had bought the package.
Rivian’s version lists “forward collision warnings,” “true collisions events” and “other safety related metrics” as the measures behind a “clean recent safety record,” and the 30-day re-verification mirrors the rolling nature of Tesla’s score, but the state filter is Rivian’s own addition.
Tesla’s NDA became an issue because the beta’s early behavior reached the public only through testers who ignored it, and Rivian’s confidentiality clause means independent evidence of how Point-to-Point handles traffic lights and stop signs, which its current Universal Hands-Free system does not stop for, will be scarce until the 2027 release unless testers break the agreement.
Who Is Excluded
The program is open to US owners of second-generation R1 and R2 vehicles with a paid Autonomy+ subscription, which costs $2,500 or $49.99 a month, and excludes owners on a free trial, first-generation R1 vehicles on the older Driver+ system, and all owners in Canada, where Rivian’s hands-free mapping already extends.
Rivian has not said how many owners it will admit, and its support page describes spots as “limited,” with unsuccessful applications kept on file for later phases without reapplying.
The first-generation exclusion comes as Rivian defends a proposed class action filed in June in federal court in California that alleges it marketed hands-free capabilities the 2022 to 2024 R1T and R1S lacked the hardware to deliver.
What Point-to-Point Is
Point-to-Point links Universal Hands-Free to the vehicle’s navigation to handle “supervised turns, highway transitions, and city streets,” running on the current fleet’s sensors and on the Large Driving Model Rivian unveiled at its first Autonomy & AI Day on December 11, 2025, without requiring the LiDAR-equipped Gen 3 hardware due on R2s for customers in 2027.
Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe has described the first version as “Level 2++,” hands off but eyes primarily on the road, and Rivian’s support page gives late 2026 for the early-access launch and 2027 for broad release to Gen 2 R1 and R2 vehicles on Autonomy+.
Senior VP of Autonomy and AI James Philbin said on September 29 that Rivian was “very much on track” for an initial rollout toward year-end, and has called US state regulation of eyes-off systems “a complete patchwork,” though Point-to-Point remains a supervised Level 2 feature that no state regulates as autonomous driving.
Rivian will hold its second Autonomy & AI Day on December 9 in San Francisco, which Scaringe has called “an anchor point to then roll out some of these new features,” and the company filed on October 15 to block a RAVAN trademark for autonomy technology.
The program opened on the same day in which Rivian’s shares fell to a 14-month low at $12.16.
