After CEO RJ Scaringe spent much of 2025 highlighting LiDAR and its dramatic cost decline from tens of thousands of dollars to “a couple of hundred bucks,” Rivian announced in December it would integrate the sensors into its R2 SUV starting late 2026.
LiDAR — which stands for Light Detection and Ranging — measures distance using laser pulses to create detailed 3D maps of a vehicle’s surroundings.
The company has not disclosed its supplier, but evidence points to China’s RoboSense — one of the country’s largest LiDAR makers, whose lower costs make the technology viable for a mass-market vehicle like the R2.
Rivian described its LiDAR supplier only as “undisclosed” when announcing the sensor integration in December.
RoboSense — which produces LiDAR for both automotive and robotics industries — said in April 2025 it had partnered with “a leading emerging automaker in North America” and a “North American new energy vehicle [NEV] brand.”
Four months later — in late August — an infographic shared by RoboSense further narrowed the field, listing eight top OEMs including a “global top-tier EV pickup brand vehicle OEM.”
Other LiDAR Customers
Other customers for Robosense’s LiDAR technology included the Chinese automakers Geely, SAIC’s IM Motors brand, FAW Hongqi, but also “one of the top three OEMs in Japan” and a “China-based joint venture vehicle brand of the largest European OEM.”
SAIC Motor’s premium brand IM Motors unveiled in mid-November its flagship extended range SUV LS9 — which is equipped with a custom LiDAR system developed with RoboSense.
Additionally, RoboSense said in December that it had been selected as a LiDAR supplier for Dongfeng Nissan, the joint venture between Nissan Motor Co. and China’s state-owned automaker Dongfeng Motor.
The order totals nearly one million units.
According to the latest data, it delivered more than 120,000 automotive LiDAR units in October 2025 and exceeded 150,000 units in November.
In the robotics field, the Shenzhen-based company shipped 303,000 robotic LiDAR units in 2025, a 1,141.8% year-over-year increase from 2024.
Rivian’s LiDAR Strategy
The timing of RoboSense’s announcements mentioning a North American NEV maker corresponds directly with Rivian‘s autonomy roadmap.
In December, Rivian confirmed it would add a front-facing long-range LiDAR to the R2 starting in late 2026.
At its inaugural AI and Autonomy Day in December, Rivian announced a sensor fusion approach that places LiDAR at the center of its self-driving development.
The company’s upcoming multi-modal system combines cameras and radars with the EV maker claiming that LiDAR will provide critical depth information for ground-truthing autonomous driving models.
“Building on this foundation, we will integrate LiDAR into our fleet, starting with future R2 models,” the company said.
“LiDAR provides detailed, three-dimensional spatial data and redundant sensing — this helps make our R2 fleet a very large ground truth fleet for training our model,” Rivian added.
The R2’s sensor stack will include a LiDAR unit positioned at the top of the windshield, along with 11 cameras and five radars when production begins in late 2026.
James Philbin, Rivian‘s vice president of autonomy and AI, said every LiDAR-equipped R2 sold will become a “ground-truthing vehicle,” providing continuous training data for the company’s self-driving system.
Philbin called the decision to add LiDAR a “no-brainer,” telling Business Insider the sensor has significantly reduced in cost and is safety-critical for autonomy.
Scaringe’s Sensor Philosophy
CEO RJ Scaringe has articulated a sensor philosophy that contrasts directly with Tesla‘s camera-only approach.
“Our view is that it’s definitely beneficial, and our approach to sensors has been that we need to rapidly build our foundation model as fast as possible,” Scaringe said on The Verge‘s ‘Decoder’ podcast late last year. LiDAR “can do things that cameras can’t.”
Scaringe emphasized the dramatic cost reduction that has made LiDAR viable for mass-market vehicles.
“The cost of LiDAR used to be tens of thousands of dollars. It’s now low, a couple of hundred bucks,” he said. “It’s a really great sensor that can do things that cameras can’t.”
In an October interview with Business Insider, Scaringe said modern AI models benefit from maximum information input.
“Now, what’s happened is that we no longer run the models like that. So the models benefit from the maximum amount of information on the front of the model,” he said.
Departure From Tesla
Scaringe’s comments represent a notable departure from Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s longstanding rejection of LiDAR technology.
Musk has repeatedly called LiDAR “expensive and unnecessary,” with Tesla relying solely on camera-based perception for its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems.
As recently as August 2025, Musk reiterated this position, arguing that combining LiDAR and radar leads to “sensor contention.”
The philosophical divide reflects broader industry debates about the optimal path to autonomous driving.
While Tesla bets on pure vision systems, Rivian is pursuing a multi-sensor approach that prioritizes redundancy and depth accuracy.
With Rivian‘s LiDAR-equipped R2 production scheduled for late 2026, official confirmation of the supplier relationship may come later this year.
