Rivian’s first R2s with LiDAR and its in-house RAP1 autonomy computer will go to employees before the end of 2026. Paying customers will have to wait until 2027. It could be interpreted as a delay compared to previous communications.
The automaker laid out the timeline at an investor conference in New York this week, along with updates on point-to-point driving, its Uber robotaxi deal, and what LiDAR now costs it: “a few hundred dollars.”
LiDAR and RAP1: Employees first, customers in 2027
Rivian unveiled its third-generation autonomy hardware at its AI & Autonomy Day last December. That’s the RAP1 chip, rated at 1,600 sparse INT8 TOPS, paired with LiDAR on the R2. The company said it would arrive in “late 2026.”
The R2 launched in June without it. A few weeks later, a production-looking LiDAR R2 was spotted near Rivian’s Irvine HQ, and we figured customers were only a few months away.
Not quite. At Evercore ISI’s ADAS, AV & AI Forum on Tuesday, Rivian VP of Investor Relations Chip Newcom said RAP1 production is going to the R2 first, and Rivian’s own staff are first in line. The plan is for “our third-generation computer plus the LiDAR to go into the vehicle later this year for employees and then start rolling that out to customers next year,” Newcom said.
So “late 2026” technically holds. It just applies to Rivian employees. Newcom didn’t say when in 2027 customer deliveries start.
LiDAR now costs “a few hundred dollars”
Newcom was also asked whether the LiDAR and dual-RAP1 hardware would weigh on R2 margins or get offset by autonomy pricing. His answer: it goes into automotive cost of goods, and it’s cheap now.
“You’re talking on the order of a few hundred dollars versus if you went back several years ago where it was thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars within the vehicle,” he said.
He also pitched the in-house chip as a margin win, since Rivian is “no longer paying away that margin to our silicon provider.” And that’s before any savings from the in-house LiDAR Rivian has been considering.
Point-to-point comes first, on current hardware
The more immediate news for current owners: point-to-point driving doesn’t need Gen 3 hardware. That’s Rivian’s Tesla FSD competitor.
James Philbin, Rivian’s SVP of Autonomy & AI, said the rollout starts “at the end of the year to probably our early adopter customers” on R1 Gen 2 vehicles and Rivian’s later Gen 2 hardware revisions, including the fleets it calls Phase II and Phase III. The goal is to have it on the full Autonomy+ fleet “later next year.” Some scenarios, like parking lots, will likely be outside what the first version handles.
Autonomy+ costs $2,500 upfront or $49.99 per month. Every R2 Launch Edition buyer gets it included, so Rivian says it doesn’t know the R2 take rate yet, and Newcom called the revenue “still relatively small.”
Uber robotaxi: $250 million this quarter, service by late 2028
On the Uber partnership announced in March, worth up to $1.25 billion through 2031, Newcom said Rivian still expects to receive the second $250 million tranche in Q4. The triggers are technical milestones from Philbin’s team that Rivian won’t detail.
The 10,000-vehicle order is not a sure thing. “Clearly, we need to have gotten to an L4 capable service before they would want to purchase those vehicles,” Newcom said, reiterating a late-2028 target for the service. Rivian would sell the R2s to Uber or its fleet partners and collect a software licensing fee tied to how much the vehicles drive.
Rivian is already running expert-driver data fleets in San Francisco, Chicago, and Miami. Philbin expects the robotaxi to come before personal Level 4, but “relatively close in time,” since it’s mostly the same work.
Electrek’s Take
Rivian’s autonomy plan makes more sense than most. Shipping point-to-point on the Gen 2 fleet it already has on the road, instead of waiting for new hardware, is the right call. It’s the same fleet-data bet Tesla made, but with radar and soon LiDAR on top.
But the timeline quietly moved. “Late 2026” for LiDAR on the R2 now means employees, not customers. That might lead to some potential R2 buyers waiting for the update.
And the eyes-free system promised for 2026 didn’t get a date at all. Neither is a big deal on its own, as Rivian is at least not selling something it can’t deliver (hmm hmm, Tesla), as current R2 Launch Edition buyers get lifetime Autonomy+.
But this is going to change as Rivian inevitably has to start offering its lower-priced trims.
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