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Rivian’s full self-driving suite is designed to ignore an inattentive driver’s input
Rivian’s CEO RJ Scaringe has teased Jurassic Park-style self-driving tours with the company’s all-electric R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV several times now, but specific details on the car maker’s autonomy approach have been few and far between. Oliver Jeromin, Rivian’s Associate Director of Self-Driving, recently shed some light on the matter during an interview with TechCrunch.
“We want to embrace the challenge,” Jeromin said in response to a question over Rivian’s goal of bringing Level 3 autonomous driving to its vehicles versus other approaches. “There are mobility companies that are working on Level 4, and they’re looking at it kind of from the top down, coming from 4 or 5 for more fleet applications possibly… We want to get a feature into our customers hands sooner than possibly some of those other systems might be fully vetted,” he said.
Rivian’s electric lineup will enable this type of self-driving capability using a suite of cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors, high-precision GPS technologies, and two cleverly-placed LiDAR. Such features are similar to those found in Tesla’s cars for the same purpose; however, where the two companies differ at the moment is notable. Rivian’s system is being developed to have a two-part monitoring system determining its full self-driving suite’s behavior based on driver input rather than a single requirement for hands to be on the steering wheel.
“We’re building a driver-monitoring system so it’s not just one sensor like a torque input sensor – like if a driver actually wants to disengage the longitudinal and lateral controller,” Jeromin explained. “There going to be a driver-monitoring camera, and there’s also going to be hands-on wheel sensors.”
In other words, Rivian’s full self-driving system will ignore driver input unless it is determined to be intentional. A Level 3 self-driving system can handle most aspects of driving, so if a driver wants their vehicle to behave differently than its programming is carrying out, the car will use the camera and sensors in the cabin to determine whether to proceed. If, say, the wheel is bumped from the driver shifting around in their seat for some reason, the safety procedures will know it was an accident.
“It’s really trying to determine the driver’s intention because if…you inadvertently give the steering input to the steering controller…the driver monitoring camera will see that you’re not looking at the road, and you also don’t have both hands on the wheel,” Jeromin clarified. “So, we’ll have to ignore that input from the human to understand that they’re not intending to change lanes. They’re actually just doing something else while the vehicle is in control.”
Tesla has also installed cameras to monitor activity in vehicle cabins, but the purpose isn’t exactly to monitor the driver’s intentions. Rather, Tesla Network passengers will be recorded to ensure any damages caused can be remedied. “It’s there for when we start competing with Uber/Lyft & people allow their car to earn money for them as part of the Tesla shared autonomy fleet. In case someone messes up your car, you can check the video,” CEO Elon Musk replied on Twitter to a Tesla owner’s inquiry about the tiny camera inside the rear view mirror. “Also, it can be used to supplement cameras on outside of vehicle, as it can see through 2nd side windows & rear window…Only external cameras are being used right now, so internal is not enabled. When it is enabled, we’ll add a setting to disable internal camera.”
As Rivian continues to develop its manufacturing process to bring the R1S and R1T to market, it will be interesting to also see what differences and similarities the car maker will have with other companies working on full self-driving vehicle software. Tesla has billions of miles in Autopilot-driven customer data to use for training of its self-driving program, so perhaps Rivian will eventually share its plan to close the gap.
Watch TechCrunch’s full interview with Rivian’s staff below:
Elon Musk
Tesla’s Elon Musk: 10 billion miles needed for safe Unsupervised FSD
As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has provided an updated estimate for the training data needed to achieve truly safe unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD).
As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.”
10 billion miles of training data
Musk comment came as a reply to Apple and Rivian alum Paul Beisel, who posted an analysis on X about the gap between tech demonstrations and real-world products. In his post, Beisel highlighted Tesla’s data-driven lead in autonomy, and he also argued that it would not be easy for rivals to become a legitimate competitor to FSD quickly.
“The notion that someone can ‘catch up’ to this problem primarily through simulation and limited on-road exposure strikes me as deeply naive. This is not a demo problem. It is a scale, data, and iteration problem— and Tesla is already far, far down that road while others are just getting started,” Beisel wrote.
Musk responded to Beisel’s post, stating that “Roughly 10 billion miles of training data is needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving. Reality has a super long tail of complexity.” This is quite interesting considering that in his Master Plan Part Deux, Elon Musk estimated that worldwide regulatory approval for autonomous driving would require around 6 billion miles.
FSD’s total training miles
As 2025 came to a close, Tesla community members observed that FSD was already nearing 7 billion miles driven, with over 2.5 billion miles being from inner city roads. The 7-billion-mile mark was passed just a few days later. This suggests that Tesla is likely the company today with the most training data for its autonomous driving program.
The difficulties of achieving autonomy were referenced by Elon Musk recently, when he commented on Nvidia’s Alpamayo program. As per Musk, “they will find that it’s easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution.” These sentiments were echoed by Tesla VP for AI software Ashok Elluswamy, who also noted on X that “the long tail is sooo long, that most people can’t grasp it.”
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Tesla earns top honors at MotorTrend’s SDV Innovator Awards
MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
Tesla emerged as one of the most recognized automakers at MotorTrend’s 2026 Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) Innovator Awards.
As could be seen in a press release from the publication, two key Tesla employees were honored for their work on AI, autonomy, and vehicle software. MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
Tesla leaders and engineers recognized
The fourth annual SDV Innovator Awards celebrate pioneers and experts who are pushing the automotive industry deeper into software-driven development. Among the most notable honorees for this year was Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Vice President of AI Software, who received a Pioneer Award for his role in advancing artificial intelligence and autonomy across the company’s vehicle lineup.
Tesla also secured recognition in the Expert category, with Lawson Fulton, a staff Autopilot machine learning engineer, honored for his contributions to Tesla’s driver-assistance and autonomous systems.
Tesla’s software-first strategy
While automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Rivian also received recognition, Tesla’s multiple awards stood out given the company’s outsized role in popularizing software-defined vehicles over the past decade. From frequent OTA updates to its data-driven approach to autonomy, Tesla has consistently treated vehicles as evolving software platforms rather than static products.
This has made Tesla’s vehicles very unique in their respective sectors, as they are arguably the only cars that objectively get better over time. This is especially true for vehicles that are loaded with the company’s Full Self-Driving system, which are getting progressively more intelligent and autonomous over time. The majority of Tesla’s updates to its vehicles are free as well, which is very much appreciated by customers worldwide.
Elon Musk
Judge clears path for Elon Musk’s OpenAI lawsuit to go before a jury
The decision maintains Musk’s claims that OpenAI’s shift toward a for-profit structure violated early assurances made to him as a co-founder.
A U.S. judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding nonprofit mission can proceed to a jury trial.
The decision maintains Musk’s claims that OpenAI’s shift toward a for-profit structure violated early assurances made to him as a co-founder. These claims are directly opposed by OpenAI.
Judge says disputed facts warrant a trial
At a hearing in Oakland, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated that there was “plenty of evidence” suggesting that OpenAI leaders had promised that the organization’s original nonprofit structure would be maintained. She ruled that those disputed facts should be evaluated by a jury at a trial in March rather than decided by the court at this stage, as noted in a Reuters report.
Musk helped co-found OpenAI in 2015 but left the organization in 2018. In his lawsuit, he argued that he contributed roughly $38 million, or about 60% of OpenAI’s early funding, based on assurances that the company would remain a nonprofit dedicated to the public benefit. He is seeking unspecified monetary damages tied to what he describes as “ill-gotten gains.”
OpenAI, however, has repeatedly rejected Musk’s allegations. The company has stated that Musk’s claims were baseless and part of a pattern of harassment.
Rivalries and Microsoft ties
The case unfolds against the backdrop of intensifying competition in generative artificial intelligence. Musk now runs xAI, whose Grok chatbot competes directly with OpenAI’s flagship ChatGPT. OpenAI has argued that Musk is a frustrated commercial rival who is simply attempting to slow down a market leader.
The lawsuit also names Microsoft as a defendant, citing its multibillion-dollar partnerships with OpenAI. Microsoft has urged the court to dismiss the claims against it, arguing there is no evidence it aided or abetted any alleged misconduct. Lawyers for OpenAI have also pushed for the case to be thrown out, claiming that Musk failed to show sufficient factual basis for claims such as fraud and breach of contract.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers, however, declined to end the case at this stage, noting that a jury would also need to consider whether Musk filed the lawsuit within the applicable statute of limitations. Still, the dispute between Elon Musk and OpenAI is now headed for a high-profile jury trial in the coming months.
Tesla’s Elon Musk: 10 billion miles needed for safe Unsupervised FSD
Tesla earns top honors at MotorTrend’s SDV Innovator Awards
