Rivian Explores US Lidar Production With Chinese Firms
SkimNews Take
Insourcing lidar production, even with partners, suggests Rivian is prioritizing deep integration and control over a critical autonomy component rather than relying on the fragmented and evolving third-party sensor market.
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe confirmed the company is in "active discussions" with lidar firms about producing sensors domestically rather than buying from Chinese suppliers Hesai Group and RoboSense, citing national security concerns flagged by U.S. lawmakers.
- Scaringe told Reuters that "all the real choices are coming out of China" at the low-hundreds-of-dollars price point automakers need, and Rivian could pursue a joint venture that uses Chinese technology to manufacture in the United States.
- Rivian unveiled the RAP1 — a custom 5nm processor delivering 1,600 trillion operations per second using Arm's v9 architecture — at its December 2025 AI & Autonomy Day, paired with a Gen 3 sensor suite of 11 cameras, five radars, and one lidar.
- Uber announced a $1.25 billion partnership in March 2026 to deploy up to 50,000 Rivian R2 robotaxis across 25 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, with the first launches planned for San Francisco and Miami by 2028.
- The Uber deal is milestone-based: $300 million committed up front, with the remaining investment tied to Rivian hitting specific autonomous performance benchmarks through 2031 — and notably, no third-party autonomy software is involved.
- Rivian is targeting hands-free driving in 2026, eyes-free capability in 2027, and Level 4 fully autonomous operation for the 2028 Uber deployment — a compressed schedule that positions it alongside Tesla and Waymo as one of the most vertically integrated autonomy players.
Why it matters: If Rivian pulls off in-house lidar alongside its RAP1 chip and proprietary LDM software, it would control virtually every layer of the autonomous driving stack — something only Tesla and Waymo have attempted. A domestic production model using Chinese technology could also become a template for other automakers caught between Chinese sensor dominance and U.S. national security scrutiny.
Ask SkimNews
