News
Rivian R1S: 7-seat, 410-mile SUV is taking on Land Rover in the luxury off-road game
Rivian CEO and founder RJ Scaringe is adopting a bold and strategic play to enter the auto industry. With the recently unveiled R1T electric pickup truck, Rivian is attempting to breach a market dominated by America’s best-selling vehicles like the Ford F-150. With the R1S SUV, which is set to be unveiled today at the 2018 LA Auto Show, the company is taking on pedigreed carmakers such as Land Rover in the luxury SUV segment.
The Rivian R1S, just like its pickup truck sibling, could be described as a luxury adventure vehicle. The SUV is fitted with the same four 147 kW electric motors that power the R1T, as well as the same 2170 battery cells. Similar to the startup’s pickup truck, the R1S is available in three battery configurations — a 105 kWh entry-level variant, a 135 kWh mid-level version, and a 180 kWh top-tier variant. Compared to the R1T, though, the R1S has slightly more range, with the 105 kWh trim having an estimated range of 240+ miles per charge, the 135 kWh version having 310+ miles of range, and the 180 kWh variant having 410+ miles of range in one charge.
Performance between the R1T and the R1S is identical, with 135 kWh SUV capable of traveling from 0-60 mph in 3 seconds flat. Keeping the company’s character, the R1S could go through up to 1 meter of water. That said, the two vehicles also have their differences.
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- The Rivian R1S. [Credit: Rivian]
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- The interior of the Rivian R1S. [Credit: Rivian]
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- The Rivian R1S dashboard. [Credit: Rivian]
The Rivian R1S SUV. [Credit: Rivian]
The R1S, for one, has a slightly shorter wheelbase at 3,075 mm, which is less than the R1T’s 3,450 mm. Due to the absence of a bed, the R1S’s 5,040 mm overall length is also shorter than the R1T’s 5,475 mm length. Being a three-row SUV capable of seating seven, the R1S does not have as much storage as the R1T as well, with flourishes such as the pickup truck’s “gear tunnel” being absent on the vehicle. That said, the R1S is still capable of hauling a generous amount of cargo, thanks to its 330-liter frunk and its foldable third-row seats.
We asked the company why it opted to release an SUV together with its flagship pickup truck, considering that the SUV market is equally as dominated by big-name, veteran carmakers. Rivian noted that the risk for the R1S is actually quite low, considering that it shares 93% of the R1T pickup truck’s components. The company further pointed out that the SUV market has already been established, and the success of vehicles like the Tesla Model X, which is built on the Model S platform, has proven that cross-pollination is a viable strategy.
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- The Rivian R1T and R1S take center stage at the 2018 LA Autoshow
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- The Rivian RT1 and the R1S compared. [Credit: Rivian]
Teslarati‘s Christian Prenzler was able to get an early preview of the Rivian R1S prior to its unveiling, and he notes that the vehicle’s overall form and size seem to be similar to the Chevrolet Tahoe and the GMC Yukon. He also stated that the SUV has a liftgate at the rear, which gives passengers a place to sit on. The R1S’ third-row seats, which are usually cramped in conventional SUVs, are also adjustable, allowing passengers to gain more legroom in exchange for less luggage space.
Rivian CEO and founder RJ Scaringe stated that he wants the company’s vehicles to focus on the adventure niche. In this light, the R1S SUV and the R1T electric pickup truck complement each other well, allowing the company to enter two hyper-competitive segments with vehicles that have a serious punch.
“They may have different form factors, they may be different sizes, but every single one of [our products] has to have this Patagonia-like feel of enabling adventure. We want to keep that very sharp. We want to focus only on the adventure space, so customers understand what we stand for,” he said.
Reservations for the R1S SUV are now open. Interested customers can place a refundable $1,000 deposit for the vehicle here. Production is expected to begin in 2021.
With assistance from Christian Prenzler.
News
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explains difference between Tesla FSD and Alpamayo
“Tesla’s FSD stack is completely world-class,” the Nvidia CEO said.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has offered high praise for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system during a Q&A at CES 2026, calling it “world-class” and “state-of-the-art” in design, training, and performance.
More importantly, he also shared some insights about the key differences between FSD and Nvidia’s recently announced Alpamayo system.
Jensen Huang’s praise for Tesla FSD
Nvidia made headlines at CES following its announcement of Alpamayo, which uses artificial intelligence to accelerate the development of autonomous driving solutions. Due to its focus on AI, many started speculating that Alpamayo would be a direct rival to FSD. This was somewhat addressed by Elon Musk, who predicted that “they will find that it’s easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution.”
During his Q&A, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was asked about the difference between FSD and Alpamayo. His response was extensive:
“Tesla’s FSD stack is completely world-class. They’ve been working on it for quite some time. It’s world-class not only in the number of miles it’s accumulated, but in the way it’s designed, the way they do training, data collection, curation, synthetic data generation, and all of their simulation technologies.
“Of course, the latest generation is end-to-end Full Self-Driving—meaning it’s one large model trained end to end. And so… Elon’s AD system is, in every way, 100% state-of-the-art. I’m really quite impressed by the technology. I have it, and I drive it in our house, and it works incredibly well,” the Nvidia CEO said.
Nvidia’s platform approach vs Tesla’s integration
Huang also stated that Nvidia’s Alpamayo system was built around a fundamentally different philosophy from Tesla’s. Rather than developing self-driving cars itself, Nvidia supplies the full autonomous technology stack for other companies to use.
“Nvidia doesn’t build self-driving cars. We build the full stack so others can,” Huang said, explaining that Nvidia provides separate systems for training, simulation, and in-vehicle computing, all supported by shared software.
He added that customers can adopt as much or as little of the platform as they need, noting that Nvidia works across the industry, including with Tesla on training systems and companies like Waymo, XPeng, and Nuro on vehicle computing.
“So our system is really quite pervasive because we’re a technology platform provider. That’s the primary difference. There’s no question in our mind that, of the billion cars on the road today, in another 10 years’ time, hundreds of millions of them will have great autonomous capability. This is likely one of the largest, fastest-growing technology industries over the next decade.”
He also emphasized Nvidia’s open approach, saying the company open-sources its models and helps partners train their own systems. “We’re not a self-driving car company. We’re enabling the autonomous industry,” Huang said.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk confirms xAI’s purchase of five 380 MW natural gas turbines
The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.
xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, has purchased five additional 380 MW natural gas turbines from South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility to power its growing supercomputer clusters.
The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.
xAI’s turbine deal details
News of xAI’s new turbines was shared on social media platform X, with user @SemiAnalysis_ stating that the turbines were produced by South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility. As noted in an Asian Business Daily report, Doosan Enerbility announced last October that it signed a contract to supply two 380 MW gas turbines for a major U.S. tech company. Doosan later noted in December that it secured an order for three more 380 MW gas turbines.
As per the X user, the gas turbines would power an additional 600,000+ GB200 NVL72 equivalent size cluster. This should make xAI’s facilities among the largest in the world. In a reply, Elon Musk confirmed that xAI did purchase the turbines. “True,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
xAI’s ambitions
Recent reports have indicated that xAI closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development. The funding, as per the AI startup, “will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products.”
The company also teased the rollout of its upcoming frontier AI model. “Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote in a post on its website.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s xAI closes upsized $20B Series E funding round
xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website.
xAI has closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development.
xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website.
A $20 billion Series E round
As noted by the artificial intelligence startup in its post, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others.
Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.
As xAI stated, “This financing will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products reaching billions of users, and fuel groundbreaking research advancing xAI’s core mission: Understanding the Universe.”
xAI’s core mission
Th Series E funding builds on xAI’s previous rounds, powering Grok advancements and massive compute expansions like the Memphis supercluster. The upsized demand reflects growing recognition of xAI’s potential in frontier AI.
xAI also highlighted several of its breakthroughs in 2025, from the buildout of Colossus I and II, which ended with over 1 million H100 GPU equivalents, and the rollout of the Grok 4 Series, Grok Voice, and Grok Imagine, among others. The company also confirmed that work is already underway to train the flagship large language model’s next iteration, Grok 5.
“Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explains difference between Tesla FSD and Alpamayo
Elon Musk confirms xAI’s purchase of five 380 MW natural gas turbines
