Rivian promises to make electric vehicles for adventures. Hear from two of the company’s engineers discuss the automotive startup’s processes and strategy around Level 3 self-driving technology and designing vehicles for outdoor adventures.
I think the most robust 8oz systems out There are considered level 2 level 4 is Considered full autonomy under certain Conditions What is reviewing going for so riverine Is actually going for level 3 so Autonomous driving in certain conditions In certain geofence areas where we Actually take over the entire driving Operation of the vehicle and a fail-safe Manner so what is ribbon’s approach and How are you going to ensure that there’s Some safety there we’re building driver Monitoring system that is made up of Multiple components so it’s not just one Sensor like a torque input sensor that Would detect if the driver wants Actually disengage the longitudinal Lateral controller there’s a driver Monitoring camera and there’s also going To be hands on wheel sensors to me the The biggest issue with DMS is not just That it’s monitoring the driver but what Kind of either corrective or Preventative behavior so that’s a good Point it’s really trying to determine The drivers intention because if you’ve Enabled the autonomous system and you’re On the highway and you’ve pulled out Your iPad and you’re watching a movie And you kind of have it on your lap say You want to turn and get your notebook Out or put that away and get a book and You inadvertently give it a steering
Input to the steering controller and it Senses torque the driver monitoring Camera will see that if you’re not Looking at the road and you also don’t Have both hands on the wheel so we’ll Have to ignore that input from the human To understand that they’re not they’re Not intending to change lanes they’re Actually just doing something else while The vehicle is in control and then on The flip side it’s important to know That the driver is actually ready to Re-engage in the driving task so say You’re approaching your planned exit a Minute before that the vehicle will Notify the driver through HMI that it’s Time to get ready to drive be aware of Your surroundings and then will detect Both hands on the wheel the inputs of The steering controller match the Algorithms and the drivers eyes are on The road My job specifically is going on Adventures to meet people who are Mountain biking who are surfing who are Rock climbing I flew down to North Carolina and showed up at this over Landing conference with a couple of like Generative research tools which Basically allows the people that I’m Talking to to kind of co-create with me As we’re talking so you know it’s asking What are the tools that you brought Specifically for Overland what are the
Biggest problems working together on Those problems and then it’s also just Being a part of the community so because I was there alone there was a lot of People that invited me into their Campsite and we’re like hey you know do You want this ground beef burrito Everyone was making ground beef burritos On this trip I probably ate like seven But yeah I’m then just sitting and Having conversations about their vehicle What over landing means to them so give Me an example of or they either a design Element in the exist one of the two Existing models that you either Contributed to or came directly out of Your research I designed the crossbars one of the Biggest things is just realizing that It’s super annoying to like set up your Vehicle before every single trip because There’s a lot that needs to be attached And/or taken off so that you don’t have This huge rack on the back of your Vehicle or things like that and so one Of the things that we did was we made it A quick-release system so there’s ports On the entire vehicle or along the Entire vehicle space 36 inches apart the Crossbar system is modular so that you Can undo one of those crossbars Take it off throw it in your garage it Seems simple a lot of people at the Shows when I’m talking to them or like
Why has no one done this before Partly it’s because we have this really Great ecosystem of the vehicles but also Partly it’s because there’s very few Automotive manufacturers where the Process is ingrained this deep We’re no we before we design anything we Have to go out and talk to people who do Those things and understand it why Pursue level 3 why can’t that just be Achieved with level 2 because level 3 is Harder we want to embrace the challenge In a sense and OEMs you see that they’re There they’ve been adding some Automation to certain controls of the Car for years now with cruise control And then adaptive cruise control and Then lane departure warning and you’re Seeing these features come together and Provide more and more driving features Taken over by the vehicle we’re building A consumer product we want people to use It we want them to love it if we can Give back some of that commute time some Of that drive time to them to unwind or To engage in something else while the Vehicles kind of on that daily commute Or you know you want to hang with your Friends and check out pictures and swap Them while you’re driving home from a Climb or something like that we want to Enable that for for our customers and They’re our mobility companies working On level 4 and they’re looking at it
Kind of from the top down coming from 4 & 5 for more fleet applications possibly So we want to get a feature in our Customers hands sooner than possibly Some of those other systems might be Fully vetted for wide adoption [Music]
