Rivian began rolling out a new Autonomy software update to owners of second generation R1 vehicles, three weeks before the EV maker hosts a closely watched event focused on its self-driving and AI platform.
Several customers reported receiving notifications for the update between Wednesday and Thursday, though the company has not released patch notes detailing improvements or fixes included in the new version.
The timing of the silent update precedes Rivian‘s December 11 “Autonomy & AI Day” event, scheduled for 9 a.m. Pacific time and set to stream on YouTube.
As of press time, Rivian did not respond to EV‘s questions about the new update.
December Event to Showcase Unreleased Features
The company said it will “discuss the progress we have been making on features and technologies not yet released to customers” at the event, without providing additional details.
Rivian‘s Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe has been previewing the announcements in recent public appearances.
In August, he said the company will offer “hands-free point-to-point” capabilities in 2026 and promised to demonstrate the technology at the Autonomy Day.
“We’re going to show some of this at our autonomy day,” Scaringe said. “Then we’ll increasingly start to allow eyes off.”
The CEO added that by the end of the decade, “the ability to have hands off, eyes off in most situations is going to become very valuable and will start to drive a lot of purchase decisions.”
Scaringe recently said “eyes-off” capabilities are “what’s coming” for Rivian owners, describing a “two-hour demo drive around essentially all of the Southern Peninsula” where the vehicle drove “completely on its own.”
Hands-Free Highway Use Surges
Earlier this month, Rivian reported that expansion of hands-free highway capabilities on second-generation R1 vehicles led to a 70% increase in miles driven using the feature.
“Over the longer term, we believe what will differentiate our autonomy capabilities will be our end-to-end AI-centric approach,” the company stated in its third-quarter shareholder letter.
LiDAR Integration in Development
Rivian is preparing to integrate LiDAR sensors into its next-generation vehicles, marking a significant shift in its self-driving hardware strategy as costs for the high-precision technology decline sharply.
It remains unclear whether the company will reveal LiDAR integration plans at the December event.
A job posting published in mid-August for Rivian‘s Pose Team — responsible for mapping, localization and sensor calibration — detailed software engineering roles that included developing algorithms for the company’s “Autonomy sensor suite which includes cameras, IMU, lidar, and radar.”
The listing confirmed that LiDAR, a light-based sensing technology used for high-resolution 3D perception, is officially part of Rivian‘s autonomy platform for the first time.
“LiDAR, radars, these things are not as expensive as they once were,” Scaringe said in August. “It allows us to build a much richer understanding of what the vehicle sees at the early stage… and it’s accretive, meaning if the sensors get better, you don’t throw away the model as we once did.”
The company’s primary hub for autonomy, software and AI development is located in Palo Alto, California, where its joint venture with Volkswagen AG to develop software is also headquartered.
