Though it may seem a little surprising for a brand ostensibly built around exploration and the outdoors, Rivian has gone all in on autonomous driving. And now, as part of that effort, it’s struck a deal with Uber to supply the rideshare service and its partners with 10,000 R2 SUVs, all to serve as robotaxis. If that goes well, Uber will have the option to purchase 40,000 more in 2030—and invest up to $1.25 billion in the EV maker over the next five years.
That is a serious chunk of change for Rivian, during a critical period. The brand is coming off a down year in 2025 as many EV makers have, thanks in large part to the end of federal incentives. The first phase of the Uber deal will begin with “a scaled, fully autonomous fleet of R2 robotaxis” in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, and the companies hope to expand that to 25 cities by 2031, per a joint press release. And, on the cash side, Uber has “committed” to “an initial $300 million investment” in Rivian.
During Rivian’s Autonomy and AI day in December, the EV maker announced an expansion of its Universal Hands-Free Level 2 driver assistance system to cover 3.5 million miles of roads across the U.S. and Canada. The R2, which is finally going on sale this spring, will be able to take advantage of that, as will second-generation R1S and R1T models on the automaker’s latest electrical architecture.
At a time when some manufacturers, like Mercedes and BMW, are pausing deployment of their more advanced Level 3 autonomous driving systems, Rivian is going full steam ahead. It even plans to deploy lidar in the R2 before the end of this year, in tandem with its own custom-designed silicon to handle all self-driving tasks. If you view Rivian as less of a company that makes utility vehicles, and rather, a company that builds hardware and software that happen to go into utility vehicles, then this partnership makes all the sense in the world.
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