Rivian is making every effort to advance the development of its electric vehicle autonomous driving software, and is even willing to delay achieving profitability for this purpose. The founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, stated last week at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference that he believes autonomous driving will enable the company to create vehicle models that are distinctly different from its current main products, which are outdoor-style SUV and pickups.

"What's really interesting is that when you step outside of R2 and R3 and imagine what kind of body shape you would like to create for a self-driving car owned by individuals, you open up a whole range of design possibilities. It can create completely different experiences," he said in an interview with TechCrunch. "I'm incredibly excited about transportation in the next 10 years because it will allow us to dream and consider even more possibilities."

Of course, this is not a new idea. Ten years ago, autonomous driving companies, traditional automakers, and many other firms claimed that the combination of autonomous driving with battery-powered electric vehicle systems – which are simpler and require less space than fuel vehicles – would lead to a completely new explosion in travel patterns.

This also sparked a variety of imaginative concept car designs at the time. Mercedes-Benz once introduced a bubble-shaped capsule design, as well as a long sedan filled with a sense of technology; Toyota and other companies envisioned "rooms on wheels"; Hyundai Motor even displayed a concept car with legs.

However, this much-anticipated design revolution never progressed beyond the conceptual and prototype stages. The development of autonomous driving has been slower than these companies anticipated, and both new and established automakers find it challenging to cope with the severe realities of manufacturing and selling entirely new types of vehicles.

The difference today is that by the time Scaringe made the aforementioned remarks, real Robotaxi vehicles were already operating on the streets of multiple cities around the world. The software that supports these vehicles seems to have developed to a level where they can operate safely and on a large scale on public roads, although there are still some issues that need to be addressed regarding how to integrate them into the urban environment composed of cars, bicycles, pedestrians, and emergency vehicles. The cost of electric vehicle motors and battery components has decreased, and companies such as Tesla, Rivian, and many Chinese firms have also become more adept at mass-producing these products.

However, before truly achieving autonomous driving, there is still a lot of work to be done. The company is currently in the initial stage of expanding the production volume of R2 SUV. This step must be done well in order to reverse the losses it has incurred over the years in its efforts to become a large electric vehicle enterprise.

In terms of autonomous driving, Rivian has only been working on a complete reconstruction of its autonomous driving software for a few years, so there is still a long way to go.

The company has already launched a set of driving assistance systems that allow drivers to remove their hands from the steering wheel, but they are still required to keep their eyes on the road. The company promises that by the end of this year, this software will be capable of completing the entire drive from start to finish – what the company calls “point-to-point navigation” – without any human intervention, although driver supervision is still necessary. At the same time, the company is also advancing towards fully autonomous driving and plans to deploy it in the R2 SUV Robotaxi version of its Uber ride-hailing app.

However, if Rivian ultimately achieves fully autonomous driving, Scaringe stated in an interview that most of the driving mileage will still occur in vehicles owned by individuals, which is consistent with his previous statements.

"You know, in the United States, 95% of the driving mileage – that is, trillions of miles – is covered by vehicles that are personally owned, either by you or by your family. Therefore, our view is that even with L4 level capabilities, it is unlikely that we will see a large-scale shift in society to other modes of transportation," he said when referring to the Society of Automotive Engineers classification of autonomous vehicles.

He stated that this proportion “may drop from 95% to 90%, or even from 95% to 80%, but due to many social and psychological factors, the vast majority of driving mileage is likely to remain unchanged.”

It is based on this judgment that Scaringe began to imagine what a fully autonomous, personally owned Rivian would look like.

As for what that appearance will be like, Scaringe has not revealed it.

“So we first did R1, then R2, and then R3. The next product after R3 will be called R4 — we just haven’t shown what it looks like yet,” he said. “It’s going to be really cool, really great.”