Rivian’s software chief says the company isn’t trying to be like Tesla on automation.

• Rivian chief software officer Wassim Bensaid says the future of cars will be hands-free.

• This doesn’t mean Rivian is committed to autonomous driving.

• Bensaid told BI that Rivian is focused on introducing additional AI-powered features.

Rivian does not prioritize autonomous driving, the company’s chief software officer told Business Insider.

How Waymo and Tesla the race to scale autonomous driving and the beginning of the era of self-driving cars and robotaxisRivian, a 15-year-old electric truck and SUV company based in Irvine, California, has other priorities in artificial intelligence, Chief Security Officer Wassim Bensaid told Business Insider.

“We’re not chasing full self-driving, we’re not chasing robotaxis,” he said. “Our goal is to incrementally improve safety and convenience for customers.”

For Bensaid, who joined Rivian in 2019 as senior director of the systems architecture and integration group, artificial intelligence is an opportunity to provide a safer, more seamless driving experience through improved software.

During a fireside chat at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco on October 30, a CSO representative said, “The car is a fantastic environment for artificial intelligence,” and that the ideal vehicle would be one that can be largely controlled by the user’s voice.

“The fact that we touch a screen or the fact that we use buttons in some cars today, I think that’s an anomaly. This is a bug, not a feature,” Bensaid said. “Ideally, you would like to interact with your car through voice. And the problem today is that most voice assistants are simply broken. They don’t work. And that’s where AI can really unlock and enable a very different in-vehicle experience.” “

“We make a technological product, which turns out to be a car”

Unlike their electric vehicle counterparts Tesla or General Motors, RivianThe company’s primary focus was the electric pickup truck and SUV segment, but the company struggled to capture a significant portion of the electric vehicle market in the United States.

Its first truck, the R1T, wasn’t delivered to customers until 2021, 12 years after Rivian was founded in 2009 by current CEO RJ Scaringe. This year the company passed two rounds layoffs. In October, the company announced it would cut its production plan from 57,000 units to 47,000 to 49,000 units, citing supply chain issues.

Electric cars are approaching inflection point Sales slowed earlier this year, although demand for electric vehicles continues. This has forced legacy car companies like Ford to slow down their ambitious projects. EV goals.

Scaringe told The Verge that the slowdown in electric vehicle growth is due to an “extreme lack of choice” among the options available. Rivian’s cheapest vehicle, the R1T truck, retails for about $70,000.

$5 billion investment from Volkswagen announced in June, could help the struggling electric vehicle company unveil its cheapest model, the $45,000 R2, scheduled to launch in 2026.

The CEO said on Kleiner Perkins’ “Grit” podcast in September that he has made a deliberate effort to avoid becoming Tesla 2.0.

“Tesla is very inspiring,” Scaringe said during the podcast. “One of the things that was very important to me at Rivian was making sure we weren’t in the same space as Tesla.”

Bensaid’s comments to BI reflect much of the same sentiment.

“We’re not chasing a specific level of autonomy because philosophically we think it’s really about the extra features, whether it’s safety or convenience, that you can add to the car over time,” he said. “In some cases, some automakers are getting into a battle over standards instead of actually offering the best features to customers.”

A Tesla spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

During a TechCrunch fireside chat, the software director said Rivian’s “North Star” will eventually become the operating system for other car companies, providing an alternative Apple CarPlay.

Goldman Sachs analysts said in January that Rivian’s software is “a key part of the value proposition and monetization opportunities” for the company.

“The software really permeates the entire company behind the scenes,” Bensaid told BI. “And we view Rivian as a technology company. We make a technological product, which turns out to be a car.”

Read the original article at Business Insider