Rivian has a huge interest in being the outsourcer for legacy automakers. They’re not able to sell $100k cars enough and even with the promised R2, they probably will only be a small-ish player in the EV market. Their CEO recognizes how crazy good Chinese EVs are and currently they’re not even a competitor for Tesla.

But, VW is willing to pay $5B for their software platform. I think they want to extend that to being able to sell custom chips and “AI” capabilities, whatever that means.

I have the same question. It makes sense that they might need bespoke software, but how could they possibly be more efficient at creating chips than an AMD/Nvidia?

I share your skepticism. This feels like an attempt to tap the trainloads of money piling into "AI", for a company that is in pretty desperate need of more cash to stay alive.

In a vacuum there are potentially some advantages to doing your own silicon, especially if your goal is to sell the platform to other automakers as an OEM.

But custom silicon is pricey as hell (if you're doing anything non-trivial, at least), and the payoffs have a long lead time. For a company that's bleeding cash aggressively, with a short runway, to engage in this seems iffy. This sort of move makes a lot more sense if Rivian was an established maker that's cash-flow positive and is looking to cement their long-term lead with free cash flow. Buuuuut they aren't that.

Possibly. Realistically this is replacing the expensive category of FPGA (Zynqs or similar with strong hardware CPU cores), this means they get all the peripherals they desire in hardware, and they can pick the core variant in order to optimise for their workloads (all the different vector extensions for example). There's an interesting market for that kind of thing, either full FPGA to ASIC replacement, or drop in replacement FPGAs of lower cost (The Rigol MHO98 replaced the Xilinx FPGA of the previous generation with a substitute from Fudan). If you're shipping a lot of hardware, that sort of thing becomes worthwhile.

I would wager that's because there isn't a lot of existing silicon that fits the bill. What COTS equipment is there that has all the CPU/Tensor horsepower these systems need... AND is reasonably power efficient AND is rated for a vehicle (wild temp extremes like -20F to 150F+, constant vibration, slams and impacts... and will keep working for 15 years).

Yea, Tesla has some. But they aren't sharing their secret sauce. You can't just throw a desktop computer in a car and expect it to survive for the duration. Ford et all aren't anywhere close to having "premium silicon".

So you're only option right now is to build your own. And hope maybe that you can sell/license your designs to others later and make bucks.

What stock pump, its cratered on the news.

Incendiary language aside, this does seem pretty likely to me. Waymo has already talked about wanting to license their driver for personally owned cars eventually; it just doesn't make sense for them to do so until they can cover more of the country (or countries). The more areas they cover, and especially when they can cover various popular freeways connecting different metro areas, the more it'll make sense for them to start partnering with automakers to sell the technology to consumers.

The CEO is different from Musk in a few key ways

1. He has a STEM PhD (from MIT)

2. He is conservative in what he discloses

3. Not outspoken or political

IMO one of Rivian’s benefits is its image as the anti-Tesla

Depends on the type of LIDAR. LIDAR rated for vehicle use is at a wavelength opaque to the eyes so it hits the surface and fluid of your eye and reflects back rather than going through to your cones and rods.

It isn't however opaque for optical glass (since the LIDAR has to shine through optical glass in the first place) so it hits your camera lens, goes straight through, and slams the sensor.

In terms of plain wattage, it cannot be dangerous. Unless, of course, you were to stand with your eye up against the sensor and maybe stare at it for a few minutes.

I watched the livestream and they said their hardware is "Camera Safe". I am not sure if camera safe and eye safe are correlated, but I would hope/expect that they would not release something that isn't known to be eye safe. I guess it's possible that the long term effects could prove bad, and we will all end up getting "Lidar Eye" dead spots in our vision.

There are two kinds of safe. Safe when it's working as intended, and safe when it breaks.

But yes there are lidar sensors out there where if broken in the right way could burn out your retinas permanently.

Your eyes will be fine (assuming that we are talking about automotive LiDAR specifically).

Automotive LiDAR is designed to meet Class-1 laser eye-safety standard, which means "safe under normal conditions." It isn't some subjective/marketing thing, it is an official laser safety classification that is very regulated.

However, if you try to break that "normal conditions" rule by pressing your eyeball directly against an automotive LiDAR sensor for a very long period of time while it is blasting, you might cause yourself some damage.

The reason for why your phone camera would get damaged, but not your eyes, is due to the nature of how camera lenses work. They are designed to gather as much light as possible from a direction and focus it onto a flat, tiny sensor. The same LiDAR beam that is spread out for a large retina can become hyper-concentrated onto a handful of pixels through the camera optics.

“Buy the rumors and sell the news.” Just typical market stuff.

Maybe they think custom silicon is biting off more than they can chew, coming at a time when they need to focus on R2 production and scale-up.

I hold some RIVN and I'm wondering why they're spending resources on custom silicon instead of using something off-the-shelf. What is their advantage here? Can they hire the right people? Can they ship enough units to pay for it?

Those are my bearish questions. On the bullish side, the VW deal shows that they're willing and able to license part of their platform, so possibly have a big chance to recoup costs and maybe turn a profit just on that side, which justifies a big software + autonomy investment.

Excessive hype leading up to selling the news, happens all the time.

They just told potential buyers to not buy an outdated Gen2 or an early R2, assuming it is not delayed.

It could be that Gen 3 shipping late 2026 is a concession that R2 might be delayed until then.

Personally I think they will ship R2 Gen 2 vehicles to the early adopters that are less concerned with ADAS.

My R2 reservation is very late (I had to redo it for reasons) so I probably won't be able to order one until it's available anyways.

Not investors, though

CarPlay and affordability. I was totally smitten last year with the R1S during a test drive. I'm not a car person but felt that spark people must feel when they obsess over their vehicles.

But it wasn't pushing-six-figures smitten, which is where you're at when you get a new one with customizations.

I want the smaller size and cost of the R2

I get where carmakers are coming from though.

Cars used to compete on distinctions between driving experience/fuel economy/reliability/etc. In comparison, differences between electric cars is mostly superfluous. They're very interchangeable.

For the next generation of car buyers, infotainment and features are going to be the main features. And if you are handing all of that away to the tech companies, your entire company is going to just become another captive hardware partner of the tech giants.

What, no. I'd buy a Rivian R2 right now to replace my Model Y if it 1) existed and 2) matched FSD features.

It's maddening that $100k purchases get totally nerfed by bad software. Absolutely crazy to me that I can go out find a super nice car I want and have to walk away because of bad software or no carplay support.

I hear this a lot and it's surprising to me. We have three cars in our family (two with carplay and the Rivian) and carplay always feels like such a downgraded experience compared to that of the Rivian.

> the alternative would be a corporation constantly providing -- for free -- updates and even support if your car gets into an accident or stuck.

That's one alternative.

Another alternative would be that you get what you get at purchase time, and you have to buy a new car to get the newest update.

"Continuous development" isn't always a selling point when it's something with your life in its hands. A great example is Tesla. There are plenty of people who are thrilled with the continuous updates and changes to everything, and there are plenty of people that mock Tesla for it. Both groups are large markets that will have companies cater to them.

Why would I own a car when I can Waymo one?

Imagine having a vehicle with +680 hp (or 1000 hp in case of Rivian quad) and then drive it autonomously... sigh where's the fun in that?

Agreed, it seems inevitable that autonomy and insurance are going to be bundled.

1. Courts are finding Tesla partially liable for collisions, so they've already got some of the downsides of insurance (aka the payout) without the upside (the premium).

2. Waymo data shows a significant injury reduction rate. If it's true and not manipulated data, it's natural for the car companies to want to capture some of this upside.

3. It just seems like a much easier sell. I wouldn't pay $100/month for self-driving, but $150 a month for self-driving + insurance? That's more than I currently pay for insurance, but not a lot more. And I've got relatively cheap insurance: charging $250/month for insurance + self-driving will be cheaper than what some people pay for just insurance alone.

I don't think we need to hit 100% self-driving for the bundled insurance to be viable. 90% self-driving should still have a substantially lower accident rate if the Waymo data is accurate and extends.

> a corporation constantly providing -- for free -- updates and even support

Corporations could decide to only advertise shipped features, not beta tests.

> Autonomy subscriptions are how things are going to go

In America, maybe. Chinese manufacturers are already treating self driving as table stakes. If I have a choice between a subscription car and one that just works, I’m buying the latter.

> continuous development and operations/support

ICE vehicles require continuous servicing and manufacturer support.

Uber charges like $100 per hour the customers. I feel once we reach autonomy this will be the baseline.

Let's be real. A staggering amount of drivers are incapable to switch on Automatic Cruise Control or trigger automatic parking. They know how to start the car, how to switch lights and wipers on/off and that's about it.

Paying subscription for something what they are never going to use is going to be a hard sell.

I think the shift to EV is inevitable.

No, the only Level 3 self-driving system is Drive Pilot by Mercedes. They have it on the S-Class and EQS sedans, so one ICE/hybrid and one EV.

It even comes with legal liability for the car manufacturer, that's how confident they are in the tech. None of this kind of hopium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...

No, there is no coupling between EVs and automation.

Ford BlueCruise and Mercedes Drive Pilot are equipped on some ICE vehicles, and are hands-free driving on (some) highways.

Mercedes Drive Pilot is classified as L3 which is better than Tesla or Rivian.

The coupling is more with cost than drive train, but consumers most likely to pay extra for autonomy are the same ones willing to pay extra for electric.

Which is why you see it on the Mercedes ICE vehicle. Because it's a high cost vehicle to start with.

Probably a lot of overlap in the venn diagram of people who would like the two things. Mostly the "Early Adopter" circle.

Also a lot of cars have a lot of limitations with comma.ai. Yes, you can install it on all sorts but there are limitations like: above 32mph, cannot resume from stop, cannot take tight corners, cannot do stop light detection, requires additional car upgrades/features, only known to support model year 2021. Etc.

Rivian supports everything, it has a customer base who LOVE technology, are willing to try new things, and ... have disposable income for a $1k extra gadget.

Why would more minerals go into custom silicon than off-the-shelf silicon? How would recycling be any different?

typical automotive 905 nm lidars are just CMOS chips similar to cameras and regular computer chips

They'd rather make their board and CEO profitable first...

looks like they're profitable already if counting cars and software on them.

https://rivian.com/newsroom/article/rivian-releases-third-qu...

Waymo is delivering millions of paid rides per month all over the country with no one in the driver's seat. Tesla still can't manage that in one small city without a backup driver in the front.

But yes, just like the dozens of other times I've read this comment for years now, I'm sure "the latest version of FSD" is so groundbreaking, and it's all about to change!

> if you have experienced the latest FSD, Waymo's and now Rivian's bet is just so obviously the exact wrong bet

I have. It’s wild for anyone to say this.

Waymo works. FSD mostly works, and I seriously considered getting a Tesla after borrowing one last week. But it needs to be supervised—this is apparent both in its attention requirement and the one time last week it tried to bolt into a red-lit intersection.

The state of the art is Waymo. The jury is still out on whether cameras only can replicate its success. If it can’t, that safety margin could mean game over for FSD on the insurance or regulatory levels. In that case, Rivian could be No. 2 to Waymo (which will be No. 1 if cameras only doesn’t pan out, given they have infinite money from Google). That’s a good bet.

And if cameras only works, you’ll still have the ultra premium segment Tesla seems to have abandoned and which may be wary of licensing from Waymo.

Your statement on more expensive hardware likely isn't true if you factor in full costs. Lidar gives you things for free with little extra processing (or power) that optical takes extra work to do poorly with higher latency.

Also LIDAR has just plain dropped in price, well over 10x, while nVidia hardware (even the automotive specific variants) have not.

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/03/20/lidars-wicked-cost-drop...

> You're taking a complex, low margin vehicle

Taxi services are not low margin. A taxi typically does about 500,000 miles over its lifetime; adding $10,000 to that cost is 2 cents per mile, increasing price by about 1%.

They also like to indulge in massive post purchase UX changes so if you like it now there is a good chance you won't in a year.