Rivian’s New Autonomous Driving Tech Is Boring. Here’s Why That’s a Good Thing

The demo was conducted in highly favorable conditions: clear, well-marked roads in daylight with no precipitation in the air or on the ground. If snow obscures the lines or they’re faded or simply nonexistent, the system is supposed to gracefully hand control back to the driver. The R1’s driver monitoring camera will trigger a nag if you take your eyes off the road, just like it does today with Highway Assist.

Buy now, don’t pay again later

Rivian will provide Universal Hands-Free for, well, free to R1 owners from launch until March of next year. After that, it requires either a $49.99 monthly Autonomy+ subscription or owners can opt to buy Autonomy+ for a one-time fee of $2,500.

More updates will follow but may require a lidar-equipped R2 — first eyes-free operation, and then in the future Personal L4, which is like having your own robotaxi at your beck and call. (Rivian is also exploring ride share applications but not with customer-owned vehicles.) The current plan is to grandfather in those folks who purchase Autonomy+ outright, giving them new functionality when it’s added at no extra charge. The entry price will likely rise once the feature set expands. It’s almost the opposite of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving pricing, which has fluctuated over the years but has always represented an investment in a future that hasn’t quite arrived.

Rivian has some more testing and development to do. Once the final product launches, we’ll have to revisit Universal Hands-Free and put it through its paces. If things go well, it will continue to be boring.