Rivian is about to give the public and its investors another taste of its future with an event focused on autonomy and AI on December 11. The company’s Autonomy and AI day starts at 12PM ET. You can watch the event via the Rivian website. We’ll be liveblogging the Autonomy and AI day right here on Engadget, so we’ll be recapping the major news as it happens and sharing our reactions.
As for what to expect, the name of the event clearly indicates that Rivian will be talking about autonomous operation of its vehicles. RivianTrackr speculates, quite reasonably, that the company will share more about what CEO RJ Scaringe has referred to as a Universal Hands Free feature. Scaringe recently said he’d spent two hours traveling around Palo Alto, California, in a second-gen Rivian R1 with the vehicle taking care of everything by itself. It stands to reason that Rivian will at least offer up a demo of Universal Hands Free ahead of the company’s more affordable R2 model making its debut in 2026.
Earlier this year, Rivian said that, for 2026, “a hands-off/eyes-off feature is planned for controlled conditions with our current Gen 2 vehicles.” So, this Autonomy and AI day seems as good an opportunity as any for the company to share more details about that. When Rivian unveiled the first-generation R1T and R1S in 2018, it said those would support Level 3 autonomy, allowing for the driver to take their hands and eyes off the road for short spells while they’re on the freeway.
RivianTrackr also suggests that we may hear more about Rivian’s sensor strategy as well as its AI and fleet-learning initiatives. The company may offer up a more detailed autonomy roadmap as well. However, the publication suggests Rivian isn’t quite ready to announce rollout retails or firm pricing for full hands-off driving features.
