On Rivian‘s first AI and Autonomy Day, the company announced a lot of great news, including that the R1S and R1T will soon receive over-the-air updates. This month, Universal Hands Free will increase the range of both second-generation R1 cars from 150,000 miles to 3.5 million miles, and it will be free until March of next year. In the first half of next year, Rivian owners will also be able to receive an AI-powered Rivian Assistant OTA update for free, making voice requests much easier. Thanks to the amazing feature of over-the-air updates, the newest models of the Rivian R1S and R1T will soon receive significant improvements. Rivian’s hands-free driving mode will work on 3.5 million miles’ worth of additional roads with the upcoming OTA for all second-generation R1 cars (released in mid-2024 and later), starting this month. Universal Hands Free is the name of the technology that can be used on any road with clear lane markings, in addition to freeways. But there are a few problems. This is an SAE Level 2 system, like Tesla’s Autopilot, so you still have to pay attention and be ready to take over. Second, it will only be available for free during a trial period that ends in March. Rivian calls the offering Autonomy+, and it will cost $49.99 per month or $ 2,500 total. Of course, as more OTA updates are received, skills will grow, including the ability to navigate from point to point. In the first half of 2026, Rivian hopes to launch an AI-powered voice assistant that will run the entire car. This will be done in stages, with more and more people taking part each time, until all Rivians sold so far are covered. It picks out sentences such as “make everyone’s seat toasty except for mine.” This raises the bar for how naturally language and speech recognition systems operate. The microphone only picks up sound from one direction, so it’s assumed that the driver is speaking. Toasty also sounds when the driver is alone, indicating that the seat heaters should be turned on. In the same way, it can connect apps so you can plan a route and request coffee breaks along the way. Then, you can text a workmate your expected arrival time and let them pick where to get coffee. You can then change your route based on their answer. It is so amazing that I can’t find the right words to describe it. “Why doesn’t this have a button?” They say it’s an old question that voice recognition can finally answer. Having no meaning or value; not important. We agree. It looked perfect in the images we saw, but we’ll have to try it out to be sure.
