Rivian’s point-to-point driving feature will first reach owners through an invitation-only “Autonomy Early Access Program,” and the owners it picks will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to get in.
The program, laid out on a new Rivian support page, covers US R1 Gen 2 and R2 owners who pay for Autonomy+. Rivian says point-to-point launches to that group in late 2026 and won’t expand broadly until 2027.
Who gets in
Paying isn’t enough. Any Autonomy+ subscriber can raise their hand through an Autonomy Early Access tile in their Rivian account, but Rivian says invitations go to owners with an active paid subscription (trials don’t count), heavy use of its Autonomy features, and a clean recent safety record. It’ll also balance picks by region and vehicle model, starting in select states.
Gen 1 R1 owners are out. So are Canadians.
Rivian rechecks eligibility every 30 days and says membership is revocable at its discretion. Cancel Autonomy+, sell the vehicle, or fail one of those checks, and you lose access.
What testers sign up for
This is more work than a typical software beta. Participants have to use the preview features every week, log issues when it’s safe to do so, fill out monthly surveys, and be available for interviews or focus groups. They also have to enable data collection, including location and Camera Data Sharing.
And they have to keep quiet about it. Selected owners sign a Participation Agreement that includes an NDA covering program details, and the primary owner has to tell any secondary drivers that the vehicle is enrolled.
In return, testers get new Autonomy features early over the air, plus a newsletter. That’s the list. Rivian says participants aren’t paid.
Autonomy+ costs $2,500 one-time or $49.99 a month, and Rivian started charging for it in April after a free trial period. So the testers are paying customers doing unpaid product research for Rivian on top of their subscription.
The timeline keeps sliding
Point-to-point is the next big step for Rivian’s driver assistance. Universal Hands-Free, which Rivian rolled out with software update 2025.46 last December, lets drivers go hands-free on roads with painted lines, which Rivian puts at 3.5 million miles of roads in the US and Canada. But it won’t stop or slow down for traffic lights and stop signs. Point-to-point is supposed to handle the whole trip.
On Rivian’s Q2 earnings call in July, CEO RJ Scaringe described the first version as “Level 2++,” with hands off the wheel and eyes still on the road. He said hands-off, eyes-off driving comes in 2027, and Level 4 in 2028.
That’s a slip. In January 2025, Scaringe said Rivian would launch an “eyes-free” system in 2026, and that attention-free highway driving would be available on the R2. Now eyes-off is a 2027 target, and the hands-off feature that was supposed to come before it is arriving in late 2026 as a limited, invite-only beta.
Rivian is also targeting the end of this year for its third-generation autonomy hardware, with its in-house RAP1 chip and lidar. We reported in May that Rivian was even considering building its own lidar. The early access program, though, runs on the R1 Gen 2 and R2 vehicles already on the road.
Rivian is taking a page from Tesla here. Tesla’s early “Full Self-Driving” Beta testers also signed NDAs, and Tesla later used its “Safety Score” to decide which paying owners got access, before eventually opening the beta to nearly everyone who bought the package.
Electrek’s Take
Picking drivers who actually use the system, who have a clean safety record, and rechecking them every month is the responsible way to put a beta driver assist feature on public roads. Tesla started out similarly and ended up handing FSD Beta to pretty much anyone who paid, and we’ve spent years covering what came after that.
As for timing, “late 2026” for a small group of invited owners in select states is a soft launch at best. Most R1 Gen 2 and R2 owners paying for Autonomy+ are looking at 2027, and eyes-off has already moved a year. Rivian has about 11 weeks to get point-to-point into anyone’s hands in 2026. Will it make it?
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