R2 has Lidar!!!! First look at windshield notch location on R2 (with R2D2 wrap)

[Ryone]

My take from the keynote is that all R2s will ship with Gen3 hardware, and that hardware will offer improved autonomy over Gen2 R1s immediately. The lidar equipped R2s will ship late in the year and no doubt cost more.

The point they made about the autonomy stack is that its capability grows as the input grows. So better cameras, better radar, and better compute will be an improvement all on its own. Lidar expands the reliability and use cases, but is not essential. (Like maybe a non-lidar R2 can’t do autonomy in fog?)

They’re going to need to get ahead of expectations for what kind of autonomy a stock Gen3 is capable of vs lidar-equipped.

That was my takeaway, but agree some of it was unclear. My guess is you will be able to order a lidar R2 in the spring… but you won’t see it until the end of next year. (Arriving s00n.)

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[Redline]

I know my wife cares less than I do, and the R2 will be her car, but if we’re like 6 months out form Lidar when the R2 is available for us, no way do we take the first opportunity to buy.

 

[tivoboy]

If they come out with the R2D2 paint job, I’ll buy it event WITHOUT lidar

 

[AlphaSnowbordergirl]

The Lidar will come out on the gen 3 hardware at the end of 2026. So, launch and early R2s are already obsolete. DOA.

From what I heard, the R2 is part of the gen 3 line up from the get go. At least that was my understanding.

 

[AirplaneDr]

Now that I've had time to review the presentation and the press release it seems to be indicating that there will be R2s with and without LiDAR.

The language in the press release clearly points to two separately available hardware pieces: 1) Rivian Autonomy Processor (RAP1) coming on all R2s and 2) LiDAR which is coming at the end of 2026 and likely optional when it is available.

I think the LiDAR will be optional on R2 because it would be really odd to have the first few thousand R2s off the line from early production to be hardware orphans. If LiDAR is optional for the next few years then it makes more sense to start production without the laser pod and then make it an available option later next year.

Presumably, Rivian will cover this when the configurations are announced, but it seems like we will have to choose between having the first R2 on the block or an R2 with LiDAR. It will be interesting to see what the LiDAR cost premium will be if, as I'm speculating here, it is optional.

 

[tivoboy]

They did say that the price of the Lidar HW units has come down substantially (I think they said ~ $500) so,not just reductions in size.. so ala XM and other features in modern cars they might build it in at launch, and enable it later. It’s probably cheaper overall assuming they have the HW spec finalized by then. It sounds like they have upgraded all I/O and BUS capabilities to be future looking if not proof, and enable more plug and play upgrade ability to sensors, cameras, and possible control surfaces. So, WHEN/IF R2’s come out probably late Q2’26, they might just have a non-functioning wart on the front wind screen.

 

[SDH]

Just so I don't have to resort to AI, can someone tell what the big deal about LiDAR is?

Imagine you're talking to your grandmother.

 

[RivianRiverRat]

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Just so I don't have to resort to AI, can someone tell what the big deal about LiDAR is?

Imagine you're talking to your grandmother.

It’s a sensor that can see through weather conditions. Like another set of eyes, it is used to verify what the computer sees and make sense of the world. All the real self driving cars, not Tesla, use it for self driving that doesn’t require the driver’s attention.

Getting a true eyes off system is done much safer with lidar.

 

[tivoboy]

Just so I don't have to resort to AI, can someone tell what the big deal about LiDAR is?

Imagine you're talking to your grandmother.

It’s like Superman’s xray vision for cars. ;-).

 

[AirplaneDr]

Just so I don't have to resort to AI, can someone tell what the big deal about LiDAR is?

Imagine you're talking to your grandmother.

LIDAR is "Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging."

Think of it as one of these:

but takes millions of distance measurements per second across an arc (both horizontally and vertically) in the front of the vehicle. The computer can then use these distance measurements to build a live 3D model of the world around the vehicle to calculate where the best route is and identify any potential threats. It provides a much higher resolution but similar data set as radar.

 

[tivoboy]

LIDAR is "Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging."

Think of it as one of these:

but takes millions of distance measurements per second across an arc (both horizontally and vertically) in the front of the vehicle. The computer can then use these distance measurements to build a live 3D model of the world around the vehicle to calculate where the best route is and identify any potential threats. It provides a much higher resolution but similar data set as radar.

You lost “grandma” when you said LASER

 

[Budman]

We don't even know if the lidar is going to be standard, it could very well be optional. There are many details yet that still need to be released which it sounds like they will have a special event early next year all about R2.

They mentioned "hundreds of dollars" for LiDAR hardware. Yes, that is the piece part price but those that want autonomy should pay the FULL development costs. The autonomy package should be an option that costs thousands of dollars. I don't want to pay for the development costs for something I don't want.

 

[Mellowyellow]

Now that I've had time to review the presentation and the press release it seems to be indicating that there will be R2s with and without LiDAR.

The language in the press release clearly points to two separately available hardware pieces: 1) Rivian Autonomy Processor (RAP1) coming on all R2s and 2) LiDAR which is coming at the end of 2026 and likely optional when it is available.

I think the LiDAR will be optional on R2 because it would be really odd to have the first few thousand R2s off the line from early production to be hardware orphans. If LiDAR is optional for the next few years then it makes more sense to start production without the laser pod and then make it an available option later next year.

Presumably, Rivian will cover this when the configurations are announced, but it seems like we will have to choose between having the first R2 on the block or an R2 with LiDAR. It will be interesting to see what the LiDAR cost premium will be if, as I'm speculating here, it is optional.

Think Volvo EX90 with the lidar fiasco. Now they have a ton of EX90s driving around with lidar that will never be activated.

 

[Nadus]

Just so I don't have to resort to AI, can someone tell what the big deal about LiDAR is?

Imagine you're talking to your grandmother.

Any EEs out there feel free to correct me if I've got this wrong, but this is my understanding.

It all comes down to wavelength, which has a direct impact on resolution. Vehicle radar has a much larger wavelength, resulting in about 4 millimeters of reslution (i.e. each pixel represents a 4mm piece of the world around it). While LIDAR is higher on the EM spectrum, coming in at about .001 millimeters of resolution.

Just imaging choosing a digital camera, and one has 4,000X better resolution. That's the LIDAR. Radar still has it's advantages, mainly its ability to see through weather. LIDAR does better through thin fog than visible light, but it doesn't penetrate heavy fog well. So both are good to have for edge case situational awareness, and IMO it's why vision-only will never become fully autonomous.

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