The Rivian CFO has made several announcements at the recent Bank of America Securities Summit, enticing investors and fans alike.
Rivian is finally catching its stride following a successful first quarter of the year, and coming off this excellent production ramp; the automaker is headed toward a whole new set of challenges, relating to everything from its second-generation R2 vehicle to its profitability to its ongoing R1 truck ramp. Luckily, the company’s CFO, Claire Rauh McDonough, released new information covering these points at last week’s Bank of America Securities Summit.
@RivianUpdates initially reported the tsunami of Rivian announcements on Twitter in a lengthy thread covering the numerous statements. Still, they can essentially be boiled down to three main points, R1 production updates, the Van production ramp, and R2 updates, along with a couple of minor updates.
Rivian’s CFO revealed a TON of important information via BofA Securities Summit: $RIVN ?#Rivian @Rivian @RJScaringe
• Rivian anticipates achieving a POSITIVE gross profit by H2 of 2024
• Rivian is aiming to build 85K R1s in 2024.
• R2 production capacity will be 200K units… pic.twitter.com/YZiyz02aUN
— Rivian Updates (@rivianupdates) April 7, 2023
R1 Production Updates:
Perhaps the most notable announcement from the BofA summit is the news regarding the company’s premier truck offering, the R1 lineup. Foremost, Rivian remains on track to achieve profitability by the second half of 2024, motivated essentially entirely by R1 and van deliveries. Further, while McDonough did not disclose the total number of backlog orders, the company anticipates completing all of its pre-March price increase orders by mid-2023. It has a backlog extending “well into 2024” with orders from after the price increase.
On top of this sales success, Rivian is learning some surprising things about its newest customers, primarily their price point. Rivian’s CFO notes that the automaker has seen the average purchase price of its trucks steadily increase, indicating that more premium buyers are coming to the automaker, who are typically more willing to purchase the optional add-ons. However, following these comments, the company executive noted that Rivian does not currently plan to increase the base price of its R1 vehicles.
Looking to the future of the R1 vehicles, the CFO notes that Rivian plans to produce 85,000 vehicles annually by 2026, a production number that the automaker has previously stayed tight-lipped about.
R2 Design and Production Updates:
As the Rivian R1 vehicles have continued to age, the anticipation for the company’s next generation “R2” trucks has built. And while Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe has noted the business plans to make the upcoming truck a more affordable model, other details have yet to be revealed.
Most surprising to investors was the CFO’s bold estimation of R2 production, which is anticipated to begin in the 2025-2026 timeframe. Rivian aims to produce 200,000 R2 trucks during 2026 and will then seek to double that number as its next production goal, though a timeframe for that upgrade was not shared.
Regarding the upcoming truck’s market position, sadly, Rivian remains secretive. However, the CFO noted that the new vehicle would aim to compete with other luxury volume sellers like the Tesla Model Y. With this information, many now anticipate the truck to start at around $40,000.
Finally, Rivian’s CFO pointed out that R2 aims to be both a volume seller and a global vehicle, meaning it will be available in numerous markets. Currently, Rivian has been supply constrained and hence, a strictly North American brand, but that may change in the near future, with Europe likely being the company’s next target.
Electric Delivery Van Announcements:
Despite Amazon’s recent announcement that it would be decreasing the number of vans it would be buying this year, Rivian remains entirely focused on the production ramp of its offering. One of Rivian’s top priorities has been the production of its Electric Delivery Van (EDV), which has been taking the streets of the United States by storm. Highlighting this focus, the company CFO noted that the van takes “enduro-motor” priority over the dual-motor R1 vehicles. Moreover, the van received two notable production upgrades in Q1 of this year, integrating the new motor and Rivian’s new LFP battery pack.
Other Announcements:
Besides these amazing announcements on its most exciting products, Rivian also revealed updates coming to its Adventure Network charging infrastructure. To aid its rapid development, Rivian will now be looking to join the “Federal Charging Fund” in the United States, making it eligible to receive incentives from the federal government to place its charging network. However, as a result, Rivian will be forced to open its network to other EVs. Nonetheless, with the feds willing to put up as much as 80% of the cash required for installation, many would consider Rivian foolhardy to decline the offer.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk follows Trump’s lead, says a SpaceX name change is coming
Elon Musk says SpaceXAI will become SpaceXSI, marking its second rebrand in under three months.
Elon Musk wants to rename his artificial intelligence company again, less than three months after its last rebrand.
In a string of posts on X early Sunday morning, Musk wrote “No more AI,” followed by “SI” and “It’s better.” He then added, “SpaceX is a super intelligence company.” When a user asked whether SpaceXAI could become SpaceXSI, Musk replied, “Yes, we will make that change.”
The posts extend a terminology push that began at the White House last week. On September 29, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to replace “artificial intelligence” and “AI” with “Super Intelligence” and “SI” on government websites, policy documents and press releases. The same day, Musk sat beside Trump as the heads of the largest AI companies signed a voluntary safety accord, as Teslarati reported. Speaking to reporters afterward, Musk caught himself mid sentence: “I think it is worth highlighting the positive benefits of A.I. … S.I., pardon me.”
Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner
SpaceXSI would be the third name for the business since February. SpaceX acquired xAI on February 2 in a deal that valued the combined company at $1.25 trillion. In May, Musk said xAI would be dissolved as a separate company, and on July 6 the division adopted the SpaceXAI name and a new logo that placed the xAI letters inside the SpaceX identity.
Musk gave no timeline. He did not say whether SpaceXSI would be a legal name change or a branding update, whether the @SpaceXAI handle on X would change, or how the shift would apply to products like Grok. The company had not issued a formal announcement as of Sunday morning.
The change would reach well beyond a chatbot. SpaceXAI now houses Grok, the X platform, the Colossus training clusters in Memphis and the coding tool Cursor, which SpaceX acquired in August. It also runs the orbital compute effort SpaceX is building around Nvidia hardware, which Musk said during the company’s first earnings call would be exclusive to Nvidia.
It’s unclear if rivals like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta and Nvidia have plans to also rename their companies or products. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has continued to say “AI” in public, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has gone partway, describing data centers as “super intelligence factories.”
The rename would also line up SpaceX’s AI branding with the federal government’s language as Musk takes on a new advisory role at the Pentagon, where he is helping lead the Project Meridian study on the future of warfare.
News
Starlink launches Communities Program for passive income through internet sharing
Starlink is launching a new beta path for ordinary property owners and local operators to turn a single Starlink kit into a small shared-access business for passive income.
Under the Starlink for Communities program, a host installs one dish and router setup in a location with nearby demand: an apartment complex, campground, rural crossroads, or event site. Neighbors or local users can buy short-term passes rather than full individual subscriptions, giving the Starlink provider a potential path to passive income.
Hour, day, and week passes cover one device. A month pass covers up to four. Starlink handles account creation, payments, access controls, and the satellite link itself. The host’s role is mainly placement, power, and basic upkeep, with earnings tied to each paid connection.
Big news! SpaceX is introducing a new @Starlink for Communities program that lets you earn money by providing Starlink internet to your neighbors or people nearby, who can pay for access by the hour, day, week, or month.
Neighbors pay for the access they need, while the person… pic.twitter.com/DtOUs0Ekvt
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 1, 2026
The model echoes the passive-income vision long attached to Tesla’s Robotaxi plans, and it seems like it’s something Musk has hinted toward in the past as he believes AI will make the need to work relatively optional. In both cases, the platform owns the hard parts of matching, billing, and network management, while an individual supplies a physical asset that sits idle much of the time.
A Starlink host’s dish can serve multiple nearby users without each household buying and installing its own terminal. A Tesla owner, under the stated Robotaxi concept, would leave a vehicle enrolled in the fleet during unused hours so the car generates rides while the owner is at work or asleep.
Both arrangements convert under-utilized hardware into a revenue stream. They also let the company scale coverage or capacity without owning every endpoint.
Differences are practical. A Starlink kit is a fixed, relatively low-cost terminal whose main constraint is local congestion and line-of-sight. A Tesla Robotaxi is a mobile, high-value vehicle whose earnings depend on demand density, utilization rates, insurance, cleaning, and charging.
Starlink’s program is already accepting host applications in multiple countries and describes the revenue split as ongoing. Tesla’s owner-network version remains more aspirational.
The company currently operates a limited company-controlled robotaxi service in select areas and has solicited interest from fleet buyers for Cybercab vehicles, while private Full Self-Driving owners have not yet been able to dispatch their own cars for paid rides at scale.
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Starlink is a satellite broadband service operated by SpaceX that uses a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites to deliver internet to locations where terrestrial broadband is slow, expensive, or absent. It has grown to millions of subscribers worldwide by selling direct residential, mobile, and enterprise terminals, and have become widely available at a wide array at retail locations like Target and Best Buy.
The Communities program extends that reach by letting hosts resell short bursts of capacity to people nearby, while also providing high-speed internet access to those who are simply around a Starlink user.
News
Tesla just made its headlights even better through a software update
Tesla just upgraded its headlights through a software update, making them even better without any physical or hardware upgrade.
Tesla’s latest software update is quietly improving nighttime driving for a small number of owners. Version 2026.38 includes a new capability called Dynamic Headlight Leveling.
The feature automatically adjusts the aim of the low beams in response to driving conditions and nearby traffic, with the goal of giving the driver more usable light on the road while reducing glare for oncoming vehicles and traffic ahead.
2026.38 just dropped.
Model 3 gets Dynamic Headlight Leveling — low beams auto-aim around traffic for max visibility, less glare. Model 3 / Y (AMD HW3) also pick up sharper Tesla visuals + an enhanced park scene on the center display.
Legacy Intel cars get Supercharger Site… pic.twitter.com/45ac4AH6Vs
— Frunk To Trunk (@FrunkToTrunk) September 30, 2026
Unlike Tesla’s matrix high-beam system, which selectively dims individual LED segments to create shadows around other cars, Dynamic Headlight Leveling physically tilts the low-beam projectors. Internal motors respond to changes in vehicle pitch.
When the car accelerates hard, climbs a steep grade, or carries extra weight in the rear, the headlights can otherwise point higher than intended. The software counters that movement in real time so the beam stays aimed at the road surface rather than into the eyes of other drivers.
Early indications reveal the update is reaching a limited set of vehicles, including certain Model 3 and Cybertruck examples in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The rollout does not appear tied to a single hardware revision, and Tesla has not published a broader schedule. It is simply a common waiting game until your car receives it.
The change arrives against a backdrop of wider complaints about headlight glare. Some earlier Model 3 and Model Y vehicles were the subject of an NHTSA recall related to excessive low-beam glare; the software adjustment offers a potential mitigation for cars equipped with the necessary leveling hardware. It does not replace adaptive high beams where those are already available, nor does it alter the basic low-beam pattern itself.
Instead, it keeps an existing beam pointed where it is most useful.
For drivers who have received the update, the system requires no new settings or user input. The headlights simply respond as road conditions and traffic change. As the feature reaches more vehicles, it adds another example of Tesla using over-the-air software to refine existing hardware rather than waiting for a new model year. Nighttime visibility and reduced glare for others are the practical results owners are expected to notice first.