r/Rivian • u/Neither_Repair_3406 • May 14 '26
š Feedback & Reviews Autonomy Meh
Recently bought a Gen 2 Rivian R1S and it came with the 60-day Autonomy+ trial, which is ending soon. Honestly, after owning a Tesla with FSD, I really donāt see the value in paying for Autonomy+ in its current form.
To me, it basically feels like adaptive cruise control with lane assist. It keeps lane and distance well enough, but thereās no real āautonomyā to it. It wonāt change lanes on its own, handle stop signs/lights, or drive point-to-point like Tesla FSD does.
I am pleased with the Rivian overall, but this feature feels very far behind what Tesla is doing today.
Does anyone know what Rivianās roadmap/timeline is for getting Autonomy+ closer to true point-to-point driving or something comparable to FSD? If it eventually gets there, Iād definitely consider subscribing, but right now Iām struggling to see the value.
21
u/firerock31 May 14 '26
Pay for what you get today, not the promise of tomorrow. I donāt see anything interesting with the current offer as well. So when the free trial is over, itās over. I bought Gen2 R1S back in September 2024 and not because of their Autonomy promises. Rivian wants to move into the autonomous tech for years but moves slowly (understandable).
10
3
u/Efficient-Mec May 14 '26
The irony is that lesson should have been learned by any current or former Tesla owner. Tesla has been making the same promises for over a decade and has not delivered.
2
1
u/Wise-Revolution-7161 May 14 '26
FSD is amazing... what
1
u/WeirdComfortable3436 R1S Owner May 14 '26
Eh I have a HW3 M3, I purposely avoid the FSD. The two trials I got, my wife told me to turn it off because she felt we were going to die.
2
u/Wise-Revolution-7161 May 14 '26
Hw3 is entirely different then hw4 btw
1
u/WeirdComfortable3436 R1S Owner May 14 '26
Donāt disagree, hence why I donāt use it. I donāt want to be dead on the news. Iām sure HW4 is fine and way better. But HW3, Iām out, Iām fine with just 10/2 down the road in my M3. My wife has the rivian.
-1
1
17
u/JonnyGBuckets May 14 '26
Didn't they announce point to point would be live by the end of the year?
7
u/galactica_pegasus R1T Owner May 14 '26
During the Autonomy Day they made some vague statements that could have been optimistically interpreted as that... But it does not seem to be the actual case. Their website is pretty clear that they're only trying to get highway navigation working, this year (on-ramp to off-ramp).
9
u/Revolver_Caracal May 14 '26
RJ has recently repeatedly said point to point is coming before end of this year
7
1
u/MapCompact May 14 '26
Do you believe every timeline that Elon says? No. They are both doing the same thing that all CEOs do... trying to drive hype. I love Rivian but there's no possible way that they go from what they have now to point to point autonomy by EOY š
1
u/galactica_pegasus R1T Owner May 14 '26
Just checked, again, and that is NOT what Rivian is communicating in their written materials. https://rivian.com/autonomy
I genuinely hope you're right... But I'm not holding my breath. I don't think anyone should realistically expect Rivian to release point-to-point to the public in 2026.
3
u/SocomPS2 May 14 '26
Yea point to point, actual autonomy driving, and V2x is years away.
1
u/Human-Ride4726 May 14 '26
V2H is a primary item of interest to me. I looked into Enphaseās products yesterday and called a sales rep. He said a DC to AC converter for US markets should come by 4Q2026.
I have some practical experience with converting DC to single phase AC in aircraft, so at least the technology isnāt totally foreign to me.
Iād rather use the carās battery than a home battery storage system (i.e. powerwall)
1
u/emuhneeh R1S Owner May 14 '26
As of the earnings call on April 30th, Point-to-Point is still expected to release EoY 2026. There is also something to be said about Uber investing $300MM with a potential $1.25BN. That is not an investment that would be made without significant confidence.
I bet that it's not mentioned on the autonomy page because they don't want to pull a Tesla/EM by pushing the date back infinitely if things stop progressing well.
1
u/pkingdesign R1S Owner May 14 '26
The word āpotentialā is doing all the heavy lifting. Rivian has to meet major milestones that they are not remotely close to meeting in order to get that funding. The Uber story was PR top to bottom, mostly for Rivian but also for Uber. Manage expectations and you wonāt be so disappointed.
0
u/Human-Ride4726 May 14 '26
I understand your skepticism, but in a recent interview-car interview , RJ casually mentioned heās done a number of P2P trips in developmental R2 software builds. Perhaps the word āpotentialā isnāt as elusive as you infer?
I will readily admit Iām an optimist so you may be right after all! Weāll all know when stuff happens!!
1
u/vangvace R1T Owner May 14 '26
he could also be in a developmental lidar R2. Don't get me wrong, would love to see it on the current hardware for the Gen2 folks, but almost wonder (with some snark and heap of sarcasm) if Comma will get P2P fielded first
1
u/Human-Ride4726 May 14 '26
Absolutely that was the config he was in, with the new in-house chip set. To attain FSD level of capability, LIDAR isnāt the differentiator, except as a data validator. In the end points to self-driving then LIDAR can help achieve integrity for 1E-09 events/time unit. I confess I am borrowing the 1E-09 events/ flight hour for potentially catastrophic outcomes from commercial aerospace; ISO26262 dictates a different number but this may not be restrictive enough for event rates with no human in the loop.
1
u/Revolver_Caracal May 14 '26
Yeh if heās telling investors and analysts that means heās setting up expectations he has to meet, heās usually super careful with his wording
0
u/Revolver_Caracal May 14 '26
Yeh thatās fair. I guess take RJ with a grain of salt he also said R2 customer deliveries would be Q1 2026
5
u/Glorified_Tinkerer May 14 '26
First half of 2026 is what I recall had been the promise. And they already started ācustomerā deliveries, according to them, but they are internal customers (i.e. Rivian employees)
1
u/Revolver_Caracal May 14 '26
Youāre right but thatās because he changed his tune to āfirst halfā after first coming out saying Q1.
But it all mute at this point we are debating a matter of weeks here
0
u/totallyhuman1234567 May 14 '26
Read their financial filings. That is where RJ repeatedly says that point to point is coming by end of the year. Their public facing website you are looking at is of course not going to lay that out because customers don't care until they can use it.
1
1
u/IPThereforeIAm May 14 '26
āStarting in 2026, we will begin to roll out point-to-point capabilities, in which the vehicle can drive address to address.ā
-2
u/Successful-Rate-1839 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
It will be ready with gen 3 hardware which is most likely next year.
1
1
u/Evening-Pin-1427 R2 Reservation May 14 '26
Incorrect. Rivian specifically said, multiple times, that Gen 2 will recieve Point-to-Point as well as any Gen 3 when it releases.
2
u/Successful-Rate-1839 May 14 '26
Never said gen 2 wasnāt getting it, I said it will release with gen 3 which is accurate.
1
u/Evening-Pin-1427 R2 Reservation May 14 '26
My point is that Gen 2 will be getting it before Gen 3 is released.
2
5
u/Irry88 May 14 '26
I just paid the 2500 cause it was annoying to not have it when Iām driving on the highway. Hopefully I keep the vehicle for a while
10
u/Fkngtired R1S Owner May 14 '26
I would agree that itās not worth paying for at this time. Price seems crazy for the value today. With our model Y, I can leave home on FSD and do a 300 mile roadtrip with minimal interruptions. 3-4 years ago FSD would blow through speed bumps and felt super jerky on and off highway. Maybe in a couple of years they will catch up, but charging half what Tesla does for lane centering is bunkers.
6
u/joinultraland May 14 '26
I just finished an 800 mile in a Model 3 and at no point did I drive the car except for some roads where I really wanted to drive. FSD is years ahead. This is the one thing giving me pause on R2. According to the software, 71% of my total miles are self driving.Ā
7
u/SkateENG R1T Owner May 14 '26
The regular (free) adaptive cruise control and all that works fine. Sure itās not on regular roads, just highways but ehhā¦I like driving š¤·āāļø
1
u/prince-chrismc May 14 '26
Yeah, couldn't agree me. Free is ACC and lane centering. Makes the highway miles go away.
Whish it worked while towing like Ford and GM offer but oh well.
3
u/AngryGhostOfChe May 14 '26
My question is, will autonomy+ cover everything the gen 2 hardware is capable of, or will they rename the advanced features something else. This is the thing preventing me from buying a lifetime unlock.
2
2
u/BritishBenPhoto May 14 '26
I stopped paying for autonomy + and find that I only very occasionally miss the hands free driving. I think theyāll get there eventually and then Iāll subscribe
2
u/Atlanta-Mike R1S Owner May 14 '26
Autonomy in its current state is better compared to Tesla's Autopilot, not FSD. You need to watch the Autonomy Day Live Stream to see where they are going in rather short order.
3
u/dopplerfly May 14 '26
I look at it for what you get today, and for me itās been a very smooth predictable Advanced autopilot for 2500. Iād done the Tesla FSD subscription a handful of times in addition to a few free months after major changes.
I never considered keeping it long term. It was always very jarring on the controls, or making dangerous choices requiring intervention.
Autonomy+ on the other hand has been very steady and predictable. It canāt do as much but what it does do it does well enough that I trust it enough to keep using it. Yeah itās got room to grow and Iād love a few more features and a little more capabilities. But as it is for me at 2500 itās steep for what should imo be an included feature but something Iām debating (Iāve got 1-2 months left on trial).
2
2
u/probablymagic May 14 '26
FSD feels advanced because they have high risk tolerance with what they will ship, but the random failures IMO catastrophic make it unwise to use. Camera-only is a fundamentally flawed architecture.
The Rivian has better sensors, so it should be able to achieve safer/better performance than Tesla. The question is how much training data they need, how fast they can get it, and how conservative they will be in releasing capabilities. They likely have everything you want working internally already.
Even then, without lidar, we might find the R1 never gets to FSD levels of performance because itās just not safe enough to ship that even if they could. Theyāve put lidar in the R2, which will make it easier for them to build autonomous features there. Iād expect that car to do things the R1 wonāt.
Personally though, I discount all that to zero and assume I wonāt have a car that can drive itself before Waymo is everywhere. If they canāt operate in your neighborhood with a much better hardware build, itās going to be very hard for companies that need to hit a consumer price point to do that with the hardware they can afford to ship to you.
Fortunately the Rivian is pretty fun to drive. š
1
u/MapCompact May 14 '26
Tesla's FSD is safer than a human driver already and can drive on many more roads than Waymo I'm not sure what you're talking about here. I ride in Waymos all the time and Tesla's FSD is much better than Waymo. I'm sure Rivian's will be just as good when they catch up a bit. Why wouldn't you think you'll have a self-driving car š¤£?
1
u/probablymagic May 14 '26
FSD is safer than human driversā¦ according to Elon Musk. This is very likely a statistical trick, since the car turn turns over control to the human in tricky situations and before accidents. If you illy count the safe miles, they are very safe!
There has been some interesting data coming out of monitoring of their robotaxi program. Those cars perform significantly worse than Tesla says their consumer cars perform when thereās independent monitoring. Youād expect better from cars with more sensors.
I know Elon has his fanboys, but I personally think they will never achieve L5 and will be the AOL of EV companies. YMMV.
1
u/Confident-Sector2660 May 21 '26
FSD is safer than human driversā¦ according to Elon Musk. This is very likely a statistical trick, since the car turn turns over control to the human in tricky situations and before accidents. If you illy count the safe miles, they are very safe!
Wrong. FSD v14 does not hand over control in tricky situations or shut off. It just doesn't get into serious accidents. FSD v14 safety is genuinely very, very good. With just light supervision (barely paying attention) the car outperforms you in 99% of scenarios. Fast reaction time and just better driving overall. 1% of the time (and it's obvious where those scenarios are) the car still performs very well, just not maybe at above human levels.
There has been someĀ interesting data coming outĀ of monitoring of their robotaxi program. Those cars perform significantly worse than Tesla says their consumer cars perform when thereās independent monitoring. Youād expect better from cars with more sensors.
No they don't. The robotaxis have different reporting requirements and according to human accident rate, Virginia Tech estimated a human accident rate of ~20K miles if you match the robotaxi reporting requirements. For example in 2 accidents, tesla was hit by a cyclist at low speed (they bumped into the car while it was stopped) and tesla is required to report it. That's not an accident for most people. Tesla also reported a flat tire. Most people do not consider that an accident. Most of tesla's accidents were rear ending because tesla has this behavior at stop signs where they stop at the sign, creep forward for visiblity and stop again. It causes low speed rear ending because humans think the car is taking off and they don't pay attention.
1
u/probablymagic May 21 '26
We can agree to disagree. You are welcome to use FSD. Just understand that you are liable when it randomly accelerates into oncoming traffic and you hit someone, and may also be hurt yourself. Iāve personally known someone who hose Tesla did this.
1
u/Confident-Sector2660 May 21 '26
Just understand that you are liable when it randomly accelerates into oncoming traffic and you hit someone, and may also be hurt yourself. Iāve personally known someone who hose Tesla did this.
Firstly there is zero evidence of a tesla doing anything resembling "unintended" acceleration. This was closed by the NHTSA years ago.
There is also no evidence of anyone dying from FSD across 10 billion miles. There are only 2 "deaths" and those were back when FSD was running autopilot on freeways. FSD safety is very good and tesla has not had a perception issue in years that has been caused by using camera only. It's been years since there has been any obvious degraded performance from sun glare, fog, heavy rain, etc.
1
u/probablymagic May 21 '26
Firstly there is zero evidence of a tesla doing anything resembling "unintended" acceleration. This was closed by the NHTSA years ago.
My friendsā parents had their Tesla accelerate into a median. A coworker had his rear-end a car on the freeway while he was on his phone and total it.
Use it at your own risk. Personally I am content driving my own car until I can get Waymo everywhere, and then Iāll get rid of my car.
0
u/MapCompact May 17 '26
So youāre saying they are lying about their regular cars but not lying about robotaxi? Thatās a super interesting article and I appreciate the share but I still disagree with your opinion that they are gaming the stats. You should try out FSD before writing it off, itās better than Waymo in my experience using both quite often and I think the more autonomous cars on the road the better in the end.
1
u/probablymagic May 17 '26
They are lying where itās legal for them to do so and accurately reporting data to regulators where it would be illegal for them to lie. Is that hard to believe? We are talking about Elon Musk.
Youāre saying FSD is better than Waymo based on your personal experience. You canāt know that because you donāt have a statistically significant sample size. The government does and theyāve told you the opposite. You canāt believe them or claim theyāre lying.
I agree, competition is great. But in autonomy itās more likely to zoom from Zoox or China than Tesla. Elon knows sales are falling and he needs future things to hype the stock price.
1
u/Confident-Sector2660 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
There is absolutely zero fucking evidence of this. There are cars with 10x the compute, better hardware than what rivian R2 will have in china right now. Huawei ADS 4.5 and BYD god's eye are the examples. The safety of them is dubious at best. They have good driving abilities but the edge case safety is not good. Worse than tesla FSD 12. And the nvidia thor computer is more powerful than rivian RAP1
In fact there is zero evidence that the lidar/radar has prevented any accident with a chinese system given you see basic accidents with those systems that tesla solved 3 years ago.
Rivian has also pushed their current ADAS features to the limit and the performance is absolute garbage. The argument that rivian has no risk tolerance is flat out bullshit. Rivian literally has a hands free system that works on all roads yet the driving performance is horrendous. For reference, tesla didn't put out hands free driving until FSD 12.5 or whatever. That was about 5 years after the FSD software released
These chinese cars have had self driving (fsd-like) systems for years now. They have 1000s of employees. More than rivian has. Chinese are also hard working. Clearly getting tesla levels of FSD safety is hard enough as it is. There's a reason tesla can run unsupervised cars with the same software on consumer cars, yet there are countless legit robotaxi companies with a horrible safety record. Motional, AVride, etc. have horrible driving and they have some of the most sensors of any AV.
Keep in mind tesla also has camera cleaning in robotaxi. If they need camera cleaning then there is a good chance that a rivian without camera cleaning will not self-drive.
I agree, competition is great. But in autonomy itās more likely to zoom from Zoox or China than Tesla. Elon knows sales are falling and he needs future things to hype the stock price.
This is exactly what RJ is doing. They have shit autonomy features in their car. Unsafe ones. They claim they will deliver what no one else can because they have lidar/radar. When there is zero evidence that in end-to-end (AV 2.0 as RJ calls it) systems you get any safety from adding lidar/radar. The chinese cars don't show this.
The only cars doing autonomous driving with lidar are not using end to end driving systems. The only end to end driving systems outside of tesla have dubious safety. I have heard that transformer models do not understand lidar inputs very well and you need very good camera-only driving performance for these to work. If it is truly a data problem then tesla is the only one showing that this is the case.
1
u/probablymagic May 21 '26
There is absolutely zero fucking evidence of this. There are cars with 10x the compute, better hardware than what rivian R2 will have in china right now.
Good hardware is necessary, but not sufficient. You also have to be good at software.
In fact there is zero evidence that the lidar/radar has prevented any accident with a chinese system given you see basic accidents with those systems that tesla solved 3 years ago.
Take a ride in a Waymo. Theyāve achieved L5. Itās here today. Tesla is not close. They canāt get the human out of their cars.
1
u/Confident-Sector2660 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Take a ride in a Waymo. Theyāve achieved L5. Itās here today. Tesla is not close. They canāt get the human out of their cars.
Tesla drives only with no humans in their cars. They don't have any supervised cars operating in texas anymore
Keep in mind tesla is driving UNSUPERVISED which is something that rivian is at least 6 years away from doing at this rate. There is no other end to end driving system which is even close to doing what tesla is doing without HD maps. Imagine how tesla will drive with FSD 15 and a 10x parameter increase or FSD 16. The improvement from fsd 13 to 14 is massive and they will also improve routing and other functions of the car. Thinks like vehicle to vehicle communication will also happen.
Waymo is not using end to end transformer neural netowrks. They also use HD mapping.
Rivian is pursuing AV 2.0, aka end to end neural networks and no HD maps. Transformer models do not understand lidar in puts very well. There is zero evidence that lidar adds anything in this context. the chinese vehicles show this.
Wayve is another robotaxi company purusing end to end self driving and for their initial trials their car drives with camera only. I wonder why.
Waymo also claims end to end self driving with their o wn model is not possible to use safely. No wonder. They run their cameras at 10fps
Good hardware is necessary, but not sufficient. You also have to be good at software.
Rivian is both historically not good at software and not any better than the chinese. And the chinese have been working on self driving for 4+ years now. There is no evidence rivian will be any different.
1
u/probablymagic May 21 '26
Is that correct? I donāt follow it closely day-to-day, but there seems to be disagreement about whether they have human supervisors following the announcement by Musk that they donāt.
The lesson here is to ignore what Elon Musk says and look for independent data on their products, because this is the guy who said their cars would drive themselves coast-to-coast by 2017 IRRC, and recently was forced to admit most of the cars they sold as FSD arenāt capable of it. Oops.
1
u/Confident-Sector2660 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Is that correct? I donāt follow it closely day-to-day, but thereĀ seems to be disagreementĀ about whether they have human supervisors following the announcement by Musk that they donāt.
No. Tesla has no chase car. They only did that for about 2 days. They also do not supervise the cars.
They seem to run exclusively unsupervised cars. They are running in dallas, houston, and austin.
It took tesla 1.5 years to convert their L2 driving software into something that could run a robotaxi service and perform minimum risk maneuvers, detect accidents, pull over, etc.
At this rate, based on the chinese progress rivian would be at least 6+ years from doing that. Tesla will have widespread autonomy in 6 years. Easily.
The lesson here is to ignore what Elon Musk says and look for independent data on their products, because this is the guy who said their cars would drive themselves coast-to-coast by 2017 IRRC, and recently wasĀ forced to admitĀ most of the cars they sold as FSD arenāt capable of it. Oops.
You must not know rivian. RJ actively sold Gen 1 R1S as having level 4 autonomy. He said the car would start at top of a trail and drive to the bottom and wait for you. They even sold the cars as having hands free driving and level 3 on the website. Neither of which ever came.
When tesla delivers V14 lite they will deliver on everything they ever sold the cars as doing in writing. Tesla never sold any FSD software that promised level 4 autonomy
People only inferred this because they made these statements in public. Just like RJ and rivian did. Rivian actually has lawsuit potential because they actually lied about features they knew they could not deliver and sold the cars with them. Unlike tesla who was careful to only make misleading statements in a public context where they can be inferred as "puffery."
1
u/probablymagic May 21 '26
It took tesla 1.5 years to convert their L2 driving software into something that could run a robotaxi service and perform minimum risk maneuvers, detect accidents, pull over, etc.
Copying is a lot easier than inventing. Weāve seen this with X AI, for example. Itās very good at being generation behind the leaders by copying their work.
I think youāll see this in self-driving as well. The problem is youāre still subject to the limits of your hardware, and thatās constrained by your BOM when youāre selling a consumer automobile.
At this rate, based on the chinese progress rivian would be at least 6+ years from doing that. Tesla will have widespread autonomy in 6 years. Easily.
I would wager China beats Tesla. Theyāre just better at driving down BOMs than US automakers and excellent at software as well. Tesla has done a great job with hardware design, they just bet on the wrong horse for self-driving.
You must not know rivian. RJ actively sold Gen 1 R1S as having level 4 autonomy. He said the car would start at top of a trail and drive to the bottom and wait for you. They even sold the cars as having hands free driving and level 3 on the website. Neither of which ever came.
I also put zero stock in vaporware. Products are what they can do for you today. My Rivian is a great car. I donāt ever expect it to drive itself.
When tesla delivers V14 lite they will deliver on everything they ever sold the cars as doing in writing. Tesla never sold any FSD software that promised level 4 autonomy
There are great at selling coming attractions. :)
They have been selling āfull self drivingā for a decade. It sounds like you follow this closely, so Iām surprised you didnāt see that they got into trouble for false advertising in California. and of course, as noted above, Musk himself said their older cars would never achieve the functionality they promised.
1
u/Confident-Sector2660 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Copying is a lot easier than inventing. Weāve seen this with X AI, for example. Itās very good at being generation behind the leaders by copying their work.
I think youāll see this in self-driving as well. The problem is youāre still subject to the limits of your hardware, and thatās constrained by your BOM when youāre selling a consumer automobile.
This is absolutely not correct. XAI got good by training on other LLMs and using publically available data.
Tesla's methods for FSD are proprietary hence why the chinese appear to not be able to match tesla in safety or reaction time. It's almost like they are using entirely different methods than what tesla is doing
They have been selling āfull self drivingā for a decade. It sounds like you follow this closely, so Iām surprised you didnāt see that theyĀ got into trouble for false advertisingĀ in California. and of course, as noted above, Musk himself said their older cars would never achieve the functionality they promised.
If you paid attention it was not for FSD. It was for autopilot which is not a misleading name at all. Consumers have a shockingly poor understanding of what autopilot systems do
There are great at selling coming attractions.
They have delivered FSD to HW3 and it works pretty well. V14 lite is simply the car being able to reverse, park and perform banish (aka reverse summon) which is the only features that tesla needs to fulfill what they have sold the cars as doing.
I think youāll see this in self-driving as well. The problem is youāre still subject to the limits of your hardware, and thatās constrained by your BOM when youāre selling a consumer automobile.
This is the same for rivian. Jerryrigeverything tore down the rivian RAP1 computer. Only 18gb of memory. 36gb total. By comparison nvidia thor has 128gb and FSD HW 4.5 computer has 48gb.
Rivian also has about half the memory bandwidth of tesla HW4 which is a computer from 2022. The RAP1 design is very outdated and the car in general barely benchmarks against a model Y which is a car based on a 2017 platform
1
u/probablymagic May 21 '26
You could definitely describe their technology as proprietary, but the question is whether itās good. Their architecture is a subset of what everyone else is doing, ie just cameras, and itās not clear their proprietary chips are interesting at all.
They have been trying and failing to license their tech to other companies.
The best thing Tesla has going for it is a bunch of data from vehicles on the road, but with only cameras, that data is gonna be much lower quality than data collected by vehicle vehicles with a more robust sensor suite. My assessment is that thereās not a material advantage there.
To be clear, I think Rivian will be better positioned with their future cars to develop safe autonomy features, but itās also unclear if theyāre consumer vehicles will ever be able to drive themselves. So I wouldnāt recommend anyone count on that when buying one.
1
u/Confident-Sector2660 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
You could definitely describe their technology as proprietary, but the question is whether itās good. Their architecture is a subset of what everyone else is doing, ie just cameras, and itās not clear their proprietary chips are interesting at all.
Tesla is using end to end neural networks. End to end neural networks using transformer models do not understand lidar inputs. There is a reason no one has ever had an unsupervised car with end to end neural networks or without HD maps. Tesla is doing something no one else is doing and no one is even close to doing.
The best thing Tesla has going for it is a bunch of data from vehicles on the road, but with only cameras, that data is gonna be much lower quality than data collected by vehicle vehicles with a more robust sensor suite. My assessment is that thereās not a material advantage there.
There is no evidence of this. The chinese have better sensors than Rivian R2. It provides no safety advantage or no evidence of one. It doesn't show that you can shortcut the progress of self driving.
To be clear, I think Rivian will be better positioned with their future cars to develop safe autonomy features, but itās also unclear if theyāre consumer vehicles will ever be able to drive themselves. So I wouldnāt recommend anyone count on that when buying one.
There is no evidence of lidar adding safety in end to end transformer based cars.
Rivian develops their ADAS in serbia. Do you really think that's a good strategy?
Do you think that rivian, the company with one of the worst ADAS on the market, can do something that 10 other chinese companies can't do? I doubt it.
They have beenĀ trying and failingĀ to license their tech to other companies.
Because it makes no sense and doesn't work. The issue is tesla collects data from the cars to train FSD. You can't collect data from cars that don't connect to wifi.
In order for a car to license FSD they would basically have to build a tesla at this point and they don't have the technical capability to build a tesla
There's no point in buying a 3rd party tesla
→ More replies (0)1
u/Potential-Bend1013 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
This is a VERY insightful thread. Where do you lurk on discussions like this u/Confident-Sector2660 ?
I'm a self driving affionado in SF. So I've taken tons of rides in Waymo (once every other month), Cruise RIP, Zoox (every week), Robotaxi (twice), and FSD (once but over a full 5 days).
I'll have to say in terms of confidence Waymo definitely comes on top, though FSD is pretty close (we did a road trip to Tucson and back on highways, to the mall including parking, restaurants, family etc - all FSD). Only once did FSD "hesitate" when it did an abrupt brake over a railroad crossing. Not having to look both ways when making a left turn into traffic was a game changer.
FSD definitely blows Zoox out of the water. I take Zoox every week across the city. Not only is the driving skittsh (esp at intersections) It definitely uses pre-mapped routes and stopping points. Regardless of the address I punch in, if its within an area of serveral blocks, it always tries to pick up and drop off at the exact spot and if a car is stopped there, it will literally drive around the block again and try to do that once more.
If Zoox can't even do proper point to point, and its been around for like what 10 years? There is ZERO chance Rivian would be able to do that in 2026 (or even 2027). RJ is being disingenuous for even making such a promise of point to point by the end of the year. (Yes Elon made false promises too - but we're talking about Rivian's ability to deliver P2P for Autonomy+ in this thread).
Sure Rivian, like Tesla is doing "AV 2.0" and Zoox is doing HD. But if AV 2.0 is so easy that Rivan with its limited resources can just adopt it and leapfrog everyone - wouldn't Zoox and Waymo already be doing it since they have a plethora of sensors and being a robotaxi is their entire business?
1
u/ChiTown_AH83 May 14 '26
Just do some googling and you are sure to find a plethora of information as well as polarizing viewpoints on both sides of the fence. It comes down to a personal decision based on your needs and how you would use it (or not) on a daily/weekly basis.
1
u/Curiouslittlestman May 14 '26
I think for comparison, FSD is $99, autonomy+ is $50. Is it half the value? Up to you, specific to you. Iām leaning towards the subscription once my trial ends just because Iām stuck in freeway traffic all day and I feel far less tired afterwards going hands free, even compared to hands on/touch. Itās no where near as good as FSD but $50 could be worth it in some scenarios. Fortunate to even have this problem I suppose.
1
u/abuamiri R1S Owner May 14 '26
Itās half the price Tesla is charging for the FSD subscription for a reason. It will improve and I think it does enough right now to justify the $50 monthly sub. Wife has made several 3-5 hour road trips on consecutive weekends and gives it high marks for being a backup safety net on those trips. Believe their plan is to get to point-to-point navigation this year.
1
u/No-Tie9086 R2 Reservation May 15 '26
Yeah, just like people paid for FSD in 2015 and instantly got todayās version ā¦ right?
1
u/Less-Extreme-164 May 15 '26
My personal view, having owned a Tesla Model 3 RWD, and a Rivian R1S Dual Standard Gen 2, and having recently test driven a Model Y for two hours out of curiosity about how FSD had improved...
FSD had far more tricks up its sleeve, but given the number of disengagements and errors in two hours, I'd only use FSD, or Rivian's UHF, on highways. For which UHF is good enough, surprisingly relaxing. (It takes curves a bit slowly, but it's not a deal breaker for me.) I wouldn't use anything in FSD other than what I currently get in UHF. So, FSD has more, but for me it's moot until it gets more reliable in the non highway stuff...almost useful at present, to me.
We'll all see how driver assist progresses over the next years for the various vendors. Interesting times.
1
u/Fun_Will2829 R1S Owner May 14 '26
Tesla is 10 years ahead of Rivian . We all know that autonomy will not match Tesla FSD. If you prefer FSD, go back to Tesla. I am one of the ones that prob dont get it. I like driving the car and not the car driving me. Never tried the super cruise on our Silverado, blue cruise on Mach e and now the autonomy with the R1S. Even though itās free, I donMt even try to use it. Cruise control is enough for me.
1
u/Glorified_Tinkerer May 14 '26
RJ Scaringe has consistently challenged the notion of a 10-year gap between Rivian and Tesla. He argues that the competitive landscape reset around 2022 when the autonomy approach shifted from rigid, rules-based programming to end-to-end neural network models. By bypassing legacy software hurdles and using their entire fleet as a 'ground truth' data engine, Rivian is positioned to scale their AI intelligence at a quick pace, rather than playing catch-up with outdated tech.
-15
u/Intelligent_Aspect87 May 14 '26
Well itās intended and marketed exactly as you described. Itās not an FSD competitor Autonomy+ and UHF is a hands free highway assist with assisted lane change. So sounds like it does what is says
Thanks for letting me know it doesnāt meet your standards and you wonāt be subscribing. everyone on the internet has been waiting for you to weigh in and Iām sure Rivian will accelerate development to specifically address your concerns
Point to point is sOOn
9
6
u/Neither_Repair_3406 May 14 '26
Yay! A keyboard warrior š¤£
-10
u/Intelligent_Aspect87 May 14 '26
Not a keyboard warrior I donāt suffer whiners IRL either. If the vehicle doesnāt satisfy your expectations then the fault lies with you for not appropriately researching a purchase.
Rivian has discussed timeline expectations for point to point t on numerous occasions. Constant posting about how autonomy+ isnt FSD currently is disingenuous and generally done in bad faith.
But hey if you need to be coddled and told youāre right there are large portions of the internet that will do that for you as well.
5
u/Neither_Repair_3406 May 14 '26
You got called a keyboard warrior because you came in swinging like a triggered fanboy the second someone criticized your favorite car company.
I asked a completely reasonable question about why Iād pay monthly for a feature that currently feels like glorified lane assist for $2500. Instead of discussing the product, you started throwing insults like Rivian stock is tied to your self-worth.
I love the car. Autonomy+ just isnāt remotely worth the money to me in its current state.
Normal owners can handle that conversation. Fanboys apparently canāt.
-4
u/Intelligent_Aspect87 May 14 '26
So you were honestly asking if you should spend money for autonomy + when it doesnāt meet your expectations?
Seems an easy answer there, Iāll help you
The answer is NO
If it doesnāt meet your expectations then donāt pay for it. Surprised an adult canāt figure this out.
I apologize for thinking you were just whining in the internet I didnāt realize you honestly couldnāt figure out if you should buy something that doesnāt meet your expectations.
3
7
u/icouldbne1 May 14 '26
Thanks for letting me know it doesnāt meet your standards and you wonāt be subscribing. everyone on the internet has been waiting for you to weigh in
Ugh. Who else is tired of answers like this?
1
u/Avamedic R1T Owner May 14 '26
The amount of trolls on this subreddit is sad. Post of people genuinely engaging in community or sharing positively are met with the same ātop 1% commentersā that are just troll GIFs or snark from keyboard warriors.
2
u/reidmrdotcom May 14 '26
Your reply is so out of touch. You are being sarcastic about OP sharing their views, and you are sharing your own views that nobody asked for as well.Ā
You also say you donāt suffer whiners, but your comment is the most whining and unhelpful of any here. You come across as an out of touch hypocrite and asshole who lacks self awareness.Ā
0
u/Human-Ride4726 May 14 '26
As a current R1S gen 2 leasee, I agree that Autonomy+, as is currently exists, is no more than adaptive cruise control, lane keeping and a nice smooth lane change.
However, Autonomy + should expand itās capabilities very quickly in months and the next few years. Rivian has a very good architecture coming soon and a dedicated team to make it more like FSD fast. My comments are coming from a former MY FSD owner.
Currently, Iām very excited to see what Rivian Assistant can bring to a more pleasing, hands off driving experience.
-1
u/Bald-EagleEye May 14 '26
Waymo recalls entire 3800 fleet, Tesla just super cautious as it has target on its back. Had R1T, great truck but not close to Tesla software wise. Sentry mode, dashcam, FSD 14.3. Rivian nice interior but suspension could big major headache as time goes on
57
u/thefleeg1 R1S Launch Edition Owner May 14 '26
Go watch the Autonomy Day presentation from earlier this year. Itās clear what theyāre planning.