Rivian says it will offer hands-off autonomous driving later this year, with eyes-off coming in 2026 – a more realistic approach than Tesla’s wild promises

• Rivian CEO says a hands-free driving system will arrive this year
• Update is planned for R1T and R1S vehicles
• An SAE Level 3 ‘eyes-off’ system could come as early as 2026

Rivian’s founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, has revealed that he plans to launch a new Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) that will allow hands-free driving in its vehicles… and it could be here before the end of the year.

The system, which will work much like Tesla’s Full Self-Driving functionality, will effectively allow R1T and R1S owners to take their hands off the wheel (where permitted) while the vehicle navigates pre-mapped routes using a suite of on-board cameras and sensors.

Just last year, Rivian updated its R1T and R1S models with the next generation of its camera technology, improving the resolution and adding in a new sensor suite and processing units to handle more data.

Thanks to this fact, it is still unclear whether the first generation Rivian vehicles will receive the next generation driver assistance systems, or whether it will only be possible with the aforementioned upgraded sensor suite.

Speaking at the opening of a new Rivian Space in San Francisco last week, the CEO hinted that the recently-updated matrix LED headlights and full-width light bars could also be used to inform fellow road users that the vehicle is operating in an autonomous mode, according to The Verge.

What’s more, Scaringe says that he hopes to expand the offering to a fully SAE Level 3 “eyes-off” system by next year, which would put Rivian on a par with Mercedes-Benz, which remains one of the few manufacturers (BMW is another) to offer motorists the chance undertake side-tasks under extremely strict driving conditions in certain US states and European regions.

Currently, Rivian’s autonomous offering is similar to the most basic Tesla Autopilot package, offering a smart cruise control function that enables the car to automatically speed up and slow down in highway traffic, as well as stay in its lane.

But the recent announcement would crank Rivian's autonomous driving offering up a notch and enable customers to sit back and take hands off the wheel, so long as they are ready to take over driving duties as soon as the vehicle requires it.

However, drivers wouldn’t legally be allowed to read a book, answer emails or take eyes off the road during "hands-off" modes, as this is only reserved for those SAE Level 3 systems that have been legislated for use.

Analysis: Rivian needs to under-promise and over-deliver

Tesla is currently receiving a lot of flack from its customer base that opted for the “Full Self-Driving package” under the premise that one day, they would be allowed to operate the system without supervision at all times, according to Electrek.

The company has been gradually upgrading its autonomous driving hardware and many of the original FSD customers are worried that the package they paid for (some of the deals date back to 2016) won’t actually work with their older vehicles if and when Musk’s team cracks it.

Disgruntled customers are now calling out for Tesla to transfer any pre-existing Full Self-Driving packages over to the driver, allowing them to transfer it to newer vehicles, rather than tying it to the car. Tesla has previously honored this, but only for limited windows of time.

Promising Full Self-Driving capabilities, as Musk has been doing for years, is just plain wrong, because the vehicles blatantly aren’t capable of doing so.

Instead, Rivian has chosen to play it safer, offering “hands-off” driving capabilities that it knows already exist and are already in use by rival manufacturers. But it will still have to make sure the systems work (and are legal) before thinking of demanding customers hand over money for them - especially where "eyes-off" promises are made.

What’s more, only offering the latest technology to owners of the newest Rivian models is a surefire way of alienating all of those early adopters that bet big and supported the company in the early days.

After all, the dream we are all being sold of the software-defined vehicle states that cars only get better with time. But as we are so often seeing, this is not always the case.

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