Rivian unveils self-driving chip and autonomy plans to compete with Tesla

Rivian unveiled its self-driving chip and autonomy plans to compete with Tesla and others at its AI and Autonomy Day on Thursday in Palo Alto, California.

Riviana mainstay on this planet of electrical automobile startups, stated it plans to roll out an Autonomy+ subscription and one-time buy program, priced at $49.99 monthly and $2,500 up entrance, respectively, for entry to its self-driving suite.

CEO RJ Scaringe stated it’ll be taught and turn out to be extra assured and sturdy as extra miles are pushed and it gathers extra knowledge. That is what Tesla makes use of via a neural communitybecause it makes use of deep studying to enhance with each mile traveled.

He stated:

“I couldn’t be extra excited for the work our groups are driving in autonomy and AI. Our up to date {hardware} platform, which incorporates our in-house 1600 sparse TOPS inference chip, will allow us to realize dramatic progress in self-driving to in the end ship on our aim of delivering L4. This represents an inflection level for the possession expertise – in the end with the ability to give prospects their time again when within the automobile.”

At first, Rivian plans to supply the service to personally-owned autos, and never function as a ride-hailing service. Nevertheless, ride-sharing is within the plans for the longer term, he stated:

“Whereas our preliminary focus shall be on personally owned autos, which at the moment signify a overwhelming majority of the miles to the USA, this additionally permits us to pursue alternatives within the rideshare house.”

The {Hardware}

Rivian just isn’t utilizing a vision-only strategy as Tesla doesand as a substitute will depend on 11 cameras, 5 radar sensors, and a single LiDAR that may face ahead.

It’s also creating a chip in-house, which shall be manufactured by TSMC, a provider of Tesla’s as effectively. The chip shall be often called RAP1 and shall be about 50 instances as highly effective because the chip that’s presently in Rivian autos. It would additionally do greater than 800 trillion calculations each second.

Meet the Rivian Autonomy Processor.

Quick, sensible, scalable and purpose-built for autonomous driving and the world of bodily AI. Hitting the open street in 2026. pic.twitter.com/0wYXi5WKy7

— Rivian (@Rivian) December 11, 2025

RAP1 powers the Autonomy Compute Module 3, often called ACM3, which is Rivian’s third-generation autonomy laptop.

ACM3 specs embrace:

• 1600 sparse INT8 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second).
• The processing energy of 5 billion pixels per second.
• RAP1 options RivLink, a low-latency interconnect know-how permitting chips to be related to multiply processing energy, making it inherently extensible.
• RAP1 is enabled by an in-house developed AI compiler and platform software program

So far as LiDAR, Rivian plans to make use of it in forthcoming R2 automobiles to allow SAE Stage 4 automated driving, which might permit folks to sit down within the again and, based on the company’s scores“is not going to require you to take over driving.”

Extra Particulars

Rivian stated it’ll additionally roll out developments to the second-generation R1 autos within the close to time period with the addition of UHF, or Common Arms-Free, which shall be accessible on over 3.5 million miles of roadway within the U.S. and Canada.

Greater than every other characteristic, our house owners have requested for extra hands-free miles.

With Common Arms-Free, now you can take pleasure in hands-free assisted driving on any street with clearly outlined lanes. That’s roughly 3.5 million miles within the U.S. and Canada.

Search for it in our subsequent… pic.twitter.com/ZFhwVzvt6b

— Rivian (@Rivian) December 11, 2025

Rivian will now be part of the aggressive ranks with Tesla, Waymo, Zoox, and others, who’re all within the race for autonomy.