For Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe, autonomous driving could change the design of a privately owned vehicle, rather than simply change how it travels from A to B. He envisions models beyond the R2 and R3 that could depart sharply from the outdoor-oriented SUVs and trucks the company builds now.
“Where it gets really interesting is when you think beyond R2 and R3 and start to imagine the form factors that you want to build for a personally-owned autonomous vehicle. You know, it opens up all kinds of design opportunities. It can create dramatically different experiences,” Scaringe said during a TechCrunch interview at last week’s TechCrunch Disrupt. “I’m wildly excited about what the next 10 years look like in transportation because of what this enables us to dream and think about.”
Scaringe hasn’t said what those new experiences might be. His reasoning starts with a simple expectation: cars that drive themselves won’t stop most travel from happening in vehicles owned by individuals or their households.
“You know, 95% of the miles driven in the United States – so this is trillions of miles – 95% of these miles are in things that we personally own, so like you own it, or your household owns it. And so our view is it’s unlikely, even with Level 4 capabilities, that we’re going to see a dramatic societal shift away from that,” he said.
Under the Society of Automotive Engineers’ classification, Level 4 describes autonomous vehicles capable of operating in a defined area. Repeating a position he’s expressed before, Scaringe argues that this capability won’t necessarily push private vehicle ownership to the margins.
The proportion “may go from 95% to 90%, it may go from 95% to 80%, but still the vast majority of the miles driven for a lot of societal and psychological reasons are likely to stay the same,” he said.
This vision isn’t new, although more of the technology now works in practice. About a decade ago, self-driving developers, traditional carmakers and others forecast a burst of different vehicle designs as autonomy arrived alongside battery-electric drivetrains. Compared with gasoline-powered drivetrains, electric versions are less complex and occupy less space, leaving designers greater freedom to reshape the rest of the vehicle.
The resulting proposals made bold departures from conventional cars. Mercedes-Benz presented a vehicle shaped like a rounded pod as well as an elongated, technology-filled sedan. Toyota and other companies envisioned “rooms on wheels”. Hyundai took the idea further by proposing a vehicle equipped with legs.
But concepts and prototypes were as far as that anticipated redesign went. Companies underestimated the time needed to develop autonomous driving. Meanwhile, both newcomers and established manufacturers ran into the difficulties of producing and selling a wholly new kind of vehicle.
There’s a tangible difference in the setting for Scaringe’s remarks today: multiple cities worldwide have robotaxis traveling their streets. The software running them seems capable of safe, large-scale operation on public roads. Unresolved issues still surround how they coexist with other cars, people on bikes and on foot, and emergency vehicles.
The electric components have advanced, too. Parts for motors and batteries cost less, while Tesla, Rivian and numerous Chinese companies have become better at producing EVs in volume.
Driverless operation itself remains a goal for Rivian. Its commitment to autonomous-driving development is large enough that the company is prepared to put off profitability in pursuit of it. Delivering the driverless vehicles that underpin Scaringe’s design ideas will nevertheless require considerable further work.
For manufacturing, the task immediately ahead is increasing R2 SUV production. That process has only just begun, and Rivian needs to execute it successfully to turn around the losses accumulated over years of becoming a major EV maker.
Its autonomous-driving effort also has more ground to cover. Just a few years have passed since Rivian overhauled how it develops self-driving software. The driver-assistance system it currently offers permits hands-free driving, provided drivers continue to watch the road.
Rivian says its software will deliver “point-to-point navigation” by the end of this year. That means completing a journey without intervention, but with a driver still supervising. The promised function is separate from the full autonomy Rivian is pursuing, which it intends to introduce in R2 SUV robotaxis accessible on Uber’s ride-hail app.
Despite those robotaxi plans, Scaringe believes most of Rivian’s autonomous driving, should it reach full autonomy, will happen in privately owned vehicles. That belief is what has him thinking about other designs beyond a driverless R2.
He did share what the next model will be called, but not what it looks like.
