Rivian's upcoming R2 is all the rage right now, but some potential buyers are hesitant due to the lack of lidar in early models. The automaker has the potential to poach a ton of buyers already in the electric vehicle space, including Tesla buyers who want to try something new. However, many Tesla owners have technological PTSD and fear that being an early adopter could mean that they're left in the dust later on.
When Rivian announced that early models of the R2 wouldn't come equipped with lidar, some folks winced. Fans on forums wondered aloud whether it was really worth buying a Launch Package R2, or whether they should wait until Rivian pushes out its new autonomy-focused hardware later this year.
Fear not, early adopters, because the automaker says that even if buyers pick up a lidar-less R2, they won't notice a difference for years. This tidbit came from two bigwigs over at Rivian: Wassym Bensaid, the company's Chief Software Officer, and James Philbin, SVP of Autonomy and AI.
View Price on AmazonThe pair spearheaded an AMA over on Reddit where they answered a ton of questions about the upcoming electric SUV, including how Rivian will handle lidar in its autonomy stack. "Lidar-equipped vehicles will form the foundation of an improved data flywheel for our Large Driving Model (LDM), with benefits that accrue to the entire Gen2+ fleets, regardless of sensor suite," said Philbin in a response to a question regarding autonomy capabilities between lidar-equipped and lidar-less models.
Philbin went on to say that the company believes that the autonomous driver assistance capabilities are expected to remain the same between Rivian's Gen 2 and its upcoming Gen 3 platform "for the next several years." The roadmap includes the capability of point-to-point hands-free assisted driving on the early R2 Performance with Launch Package, which won't come with LIDAR.
Notably, would-be early adopters of the R2 have been a bit nervous to make the jump to an early release of the R2 that launched without lidar. This especially after Rivian confirmed that it has no plans to retrofit the sensor to cars later on.
The good news is that it sounds like the sensor won't make a huge difference near-term. Comments from Rivian show that the biggest benefit to lidar, at least initially, is that it will help Rivian to better improve its autonomy models thanks to richer data being collected by its fleet of lidar-equipped cars.
If you're someone who keeps cars until the wheels fall off, eventually you might notice a difference between the two autonomy stacks. Rivian is transparent about this, though is pretty vague on the timeline outside of noting that it will be "several years" before this becomes obvious.
But if you like to switch cars to get the latest and greatest tech (and want to be one of the first folks with an R2), it sounds like buying early or waiting won't make that much of a difference—at least as far as short-term autonomy capabilities are concerned.
Source: insideevs.com
