For Rivian’s chief of autonomy, the choice to place in lidar for the EV firm’s coming R2 SUV was apparent.
James Philbin, Rivian’s VP of autonomy and AI, advised Enterprise Insider that the worth of lidar has decreased considerably sufficient in recent times to have the ability to put the sensor inside a personally-owned, mass-production automobile.
“It has been on this unbelievable value curve, the place 10 years in the past, it might be simply unimaginable that you would put a lidar on a client automobile. And now it is entering into that worth level, sort of within the vary of a radar,” Philbin mentioned. Radar, a sensor that makes use of radio waves, is often seen in fashionable vehicles which have a complicated driver-assistance system (ADAS) or blind spot detection.
Lidar is a sensor that makes use of laser mild to measure depth. Whereas it is traditionally been used for topography, the sensor has gained extra visibility within the automotive world with the arrival of self-driving vehicles.
Most notably, Waymo’s robotaxis have a number of lidar sensors, together with the spinning lidar on the roof of the automobile. Waymo has mentioned that lidar offers further security to the automobile’s AI driver.
On Thursday, Rivian introduced a highway map to totally autonomous driving, which incorporates constructing an in-house chip and putting in a lidar sensor within the firm’s coming SUV, the R2.
Philbin, who beforehand labored at Zoox and Waymo, advised Enterprise Insider that lidar makes an autonomous system “extra sturdy” and may help the corporate get to its self-driving objective “sooner.”
“It is very reasonably priced,” he mentioned. “The efficiency it offers you for that value is absolutely wonderful. And so to me, it is sort of a no brainer that you’d need extra sensors and extra modalities for one thing that is so security important.”
Utilizing lidar diverges from the technique of Rivian’s major EV competitor, Tesla, which has taken a robust stance on pursuing self-driving with cameras solely.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk as soon as referred to as lidar an costly “crutch.”
Within the late 2000s, throughout the days of the Google Self-Driving Automotive Challenge, a single lidar unit may include a five-figure price tag. In the present day, trade leaders say an analogous unit may value a few hundred dollars.
Rivian staff, together with Philbin, didn’t disclose the price of the lidar unit within the R2 when requested by Enterprise Insider.
R2 will first be launched with out the sensor in early 2026. It is slated to be Rivian’s most cost-effective automobile to this point, with a beginning worth of $45,000. The corporate goals to launch an R2 with lidar in late 2026.
When requested what the price distinction was to place a lidar within the R2, Philbin declined to remark however mentioned that it was “not a big consideration.”
