Rivian‘s software and services segment generated $515 million of revenue in the second quarter, up 37.0% year over year, and $215 million of gross profit at a 42.0% margin — the company reported on Tuesday.
The figures more than the group’s entire $179 million gross profit, while the automotive business lost $36 million.
For the first time, the company disclosed how much of that segment rests on the German giant: $308 million (or 60.0%) of software and services revenue was attributable to the joint venture with Volkswagen Group.
The disclosure ends a gap Rivian had left open since the venture began contributing revenue, and it lands in the same release as the company’s most concrete consumer software push to date — the launch of Rivian Assistant across the R1 fleet.
Shortly after Rivian published its second-quarter results, the shares were trading 1% higher at $17.02 in after-hours trading, after jumping 3.06% during the regular session.
The Segment That Carries the Group
Software and services revenue has risen for five consecutive quarters, from $376 million in the second quarter of 2025 through $416 million, $447 million and $473 million to the latest figure.
First-half segment revenue reached $988 million, up 42.4% on the $694 million of a year earlier, while first-half automotive revenue grew 10.9% to $2.051 billion.
Rivian attributed the quarter’s growth to vehicle electrical architecture and software development services, vehicle repair and maintenance services, and Autonomy+, offset by lower remarketing sales.
The segment’s gross profit rose $86 million year over year, an increase the company tied specifically to development services provided through the Volkswagen Group venture.
The Number Volkswagen Was Behind
The 60.0% share confirms what could previously only be estimated. One outside estimate had placed roughly 60% of fourth-quarter software revenue, about $273 million of $447 million, as venture-attributable — a figure Rivian had declined to break out until now.
The concentration runs deep.
Volkswagen became Rivian‘s largest shareholder in May at 15.9%, and the company expects $1 billion in non-recourse debt financing from the German group later this year, with a final tranche of about $460 million tied to the start of production of the first Volkswagen model on the shared architecture.
The venture itself has been scaling into its next phase, appointing Flow to manage its vehicle engineering in July and hiring a vice president of AI and data as attention shifts from the core architecture to the software layer above it.
The venture supplies the majority of the only segment reliably in profit — and everything else in the release describes the 40.0% Rivian is trying to build without it.
The Assistant Ships
Rivian Assistant, described in the shareholder deck as the company’s latest major software deployment, is now available to all R1 owners, with a rollout to R2 vehicles planned later this year.
The company says the voice assistant is built directly into the vehicle hardware on a proprietary multi-modal AI foundation and an in-house agentic framework — a contrast with rivals integrating third-party models into the cabin.
Capabilities span voice-activated control of the vehicle’s hardware, from toggling drive modes and adjusting ride height to navigation, voice-powered messaging and third-party integrations including Google Calendar.
The deck frames the launch as “paving the way for high-margin software revenue” — though the release discloses no pricing, subscriber count or attach rate for any consumer software product, leaving the monetization case asserted rather than measured.
Autonomy Becomes a Revenue Line
Autonomy+ appears among the segment’s named revenue drivers, placing Rivian‘s driver-assistance subscription alongside the venture and service revenue for the first time in a results release.
The company said development remains on track to begin rolling out point-to-point advanced assisted driving capabilities by the end of this year, and its forward-looking statements name a next-generation autonomy stack spanning RAP1 and ACM3 hardware, LiDAR, and software including LDM, Universal Hands-Free and RUI.
Further out sits the robotaxi program with Uber, under a $1.25 billion agreement that contemplates fully autonomous R2 robotaxis deployed by Uber and its fleet partners.
An additional $250 million equity investment from the ride-hailing group is expected later this year, and the Georgia plant’s planned 300,000 units of annual capacity now explicitly includes a future robotaxi variant of the R2.
The Spending Behind It
Research and development expense rose to $466 million from $410 million a year earlier, an increase Rivian attributed primarily to software spending in support of AI and autonomy initiatives.
The company withdrew its 2027 profitability target in March citing higher research and development costs tied to its autonomy roadmap.
The segment’s margin today is made by development services billed to Volkswagen Group, not by consumer software — and until Rivian attaches numbers to Autonomy+ or the Assistant, the high-margin consumer software story remains a plan resting on the German automaker.
