Rivian plans Tesla-style self-driving rollout later this year
rivian plans to roll out a full supervised point-to-point self-driving system later this year, and CEO RJ Scaringe said it will be very similar to Tesla's FSD. The move gives Rivian a clearer software timetable and puts its autonomy push on a public clock instead of a vague promise.
RJ Scaringe on Jeff Berman’s podcast
Over the weekend, Scaringe told Jeff Berman on the Masters of Scale podcast, "Later this year, we'll have a full supervised point-to-point, which would be very similar to Tesla's FSD," and he added that Rivian expects unsupervised driving in 2027. That sequence matters to Rivian owners because it lays out three separate steps: supervised driving, eyes-off driving next year, and eventually vehicles operating without anyone inside.
Scaringe also said Rivian has spent years rebuilding its autonomy stack around an in-house AI-driven architecture. For drivers, that suggests the company is not trying to bolt autonomy onto older software and is instead betting its launch schedule on a system it controls end to end.
R2 software and Uber robotaxis
Rivian said the missing software features on the R2 will arrive through over-the-air updates later this summer, which gives early buyers a near-term software update while the autonomy plan keeps moving separately. Scaringe said the tech can eventually support airport drop-offs, grocery runs, and school pickups, but the first public milestones remain supervised driving later this year and paid rides in 2028.
The ride-hailing piece is the harder part of the story. Rivian plans to deploy 50,000 robotaxi versions of the R2 through its partnership with Uber, and Scaringe said, "We took the decision to partner with Uber so we could focus on the tech and leverage them for their access to a big distribution channel," which puts distribution outside Rivian's own app or fleet network.
Tesla pressure and Wall Street
Scaringe said the Tesla Model Y and Model 3 generate 55 to 60% market share for the whole EV market in the United States, and he called that a sign of an underserved market rather than a healthy one. His comparison sets the benchmark Rivian is chasing: not just a driver-assist feature, but a system that can compete with the software story dominating the EV conversation.
Shares of Rivian Automotive, Inc. jumped 2% overnight heading into Monday after Scaringe's remarks, and Needham reiterated its Buy rating and $23 price target after attending Rivian's Investor Drive event. Retail sentiment for RIVN on Stocktwits was neutral even as message volumes surged 125% over the past week, which shows traders are paying attention but have not fully settled on what Rivian's autonomy timeline is worth yet.
The open question is pricing for the software and the R2 features that will arrive later this summer. Rivian has given a rollout order, but it has not paired that order with a customer cost for the self-driving stack.
