Automaker Rivian is the only one to do so which, immovable, focuses mostly on hand steering. An upcoming software update promises to introduce “Universal hands-free” driving. The company says its vehicles can cover more than 3.5 million miles on North American roads, “covering most marked roads in the US.”

It comes to but also Gen 2 R1 cars like . The service will be locked behind a subscription for something called autonomous+ which includes self-driving, but also provides access to future Autonomo features. Rivian customers can pay $2,500 for lifetime access to the platform or $50 per month.

The R2 gets Lidar sensors, which may help with some of the upcoming autonomous features, in addition to a new chip called the Autonomia processor. The processor is designed for multimodal applications and runs the company’s proprietary net engine. Both of these features are expected to “ship on R2 models beginning in late 2026.”

Today’s event is not just about hand driving. Many of the company’s vehicles will soon be given access to the AI-POWERED Rivian Assistant, using LLMS and like Google Calendar. This assistant will be model-agnostic, because it “orchestrates different models and chooses the best one for the task.”

In addition to the upcoming R2, the company is prioritizing the R3 and R3X. A Rivian Offhoot just introduced a very expensive, but modular, .