The vision of autonomous driving meets the test of real needs. Rivian's self-developed chips and software fail to make waves.

Rivian Automotive, the leader of electric trucks in the US with the title of "new nobility of electric vehicles," showcased a new self-developed autonomous driving chip and third-generation supercomputer for cars, as well as an "AI technology stack for Large Driving Model," and Rivian's exclusive in-car AI "Rivian Assistant" on its "AI and Autonomous Driving Day." As a result, Wall Street analysts are re-evaluating the actual value of the company. However, both the bullish and bearish camps are very firm in their logic, highlighting the huge disparity in Wall Street's outlook on Rivian's future prospects, with analysts tending to question demand prospects. Rivian announced that it will equip the upcoming R2 SUV with a chip called Rivian Autonomy Processor 1 (RAP1) and a new lidar sensor. The chip, combined with the new sensor and AI model, will drive Rivian towards achieving fully autonomous driving capabilities. Vidya Rajagopalan, Vice President of Electrical Hardware at Rivian, stated that the chip uses advanced chiplet packaging technology with "high memory bandwidth," which is crucial for in-car AI applications and fully autonomous driving. The bandwidth of Rivian's chip reaches 205GB per second. Two RAP1 chips will power Rivian's next-generation in-car computer, called Autonomy Compute Module 3. This system can process 5 billion pixels per second, four times the performance of the NVIDIA Corporation systems currently used in Rivian's vehicles. Rivian's SUVs and trucks currently offer driver-assist features that require the driver to supervise at all times. The company also detailed achieving Universal Hands-Free driving on over 3.5 million miles of roads in North America through the Autonomy+ paid subscription. It plans to incorporate lidar and radar technology in future models, aiming to achieve Level 4 autonomous driving capabilities and eventually introducing Robotaxi capabilities similar to those of Tesla and Waymo's fully autonomous vehicles. Needham, a Wall Street investment firm, reiterated its "buy" rating on the electric vehicle manufacturer after the AI and Autonomous Driving Day event and raised its target price to $23. This move boosted confidence in Rivian's unique market position as the automotive software ecosystem (now including AI big models) increasingly defines the industry's basic threshold for vehicles. The Needham analyst team pointed out that Rivian's vertical integration allows it to have better control over the operating system, enabling faster learning and feature iterations in driver interfaces and autonomous driving technology, providing long-term sustainable competitive advantages and strengthening the company's confidence in its long-term autonomous driving roadmap and differentiated competitive points compared to traditional OEMs. Analyst Chris Pierce of Needham emphasized: "Rivian showcased a full stack of technology covering self-developed silicon, autonomous driving computing architecture, foundational Large Driving Model, and a vertically integrated exclusive software platform; this sets it apart from traditional automakers that still rely on third-party suppliers. Rivian will be able to drive faster software platform iterations and cost optimizations, thereby forming an expanding competitive advantage and supporting stronger confidence in long-term performance prospects." Morgan Stanley, on the other hand, remains cautious about Rivian after the event. Senior analyst Andrew Percoco noted, "Rivian is developing a complete hardware and software product suite to remain competitive in the 'Electric Vehicle 2.0' world. However, there are still risks in terms of demand that may limit the massive data collection required to achieve higher levels of fully autonomous driving, and hence limit its path to long-term profitability." The firm has an "underweight" rating on Rivian stock, with a target price of only $12. Wells Fargo & Company has a "Equal Weight" neutral rating on Rivian's stock. Analyst Colin Langan stated that the bullish sentiment in the stock price reflects consumers and investors' optimism about the company's disruptive automotive software technology, product power, brand strategy, and high-level partnerships. "However, the company has very little margin for error in all aspects of its business. Its limited production volume and commercialization history still have many details to be observed. Rivian must prove that it can acquire a growing customer base while maintaining low advertising costs," the analyst cautioned. Rivian's stock price rose 1.3% in pre-market trading on Friday, after falling 6.1% at the close of trading on Thursday following its "AI and Autonomous Driving Day." The electric car stock has risen over 23% since the beginning of the year, hovering around $16.6 in pre-market trading on the US stock exchange. Rivian went public in 2021, making it one of the largest IPOs in US stock history. At that time, the company was seen as the "pearl of the American automotive industry," and it was viewed by Wall Street as Tesla, Inc.'s strongest competitor. Rivian was the first to launch full-size electric trucks and SUVs before the major traditional automakers. However, since then, the company has faced ongoing operational difficulties - its sole factory in Illinois is expected to produce less than 50,000 vehicles this year, far below its production capacity. Due to continuous cash burn, Rivian has been continually downsizing, and its stock price has fallen over 80% from its post-IPO peak. Nevertheless, Volkswagen, which has signed a long-term partnership agreement with Rivian, has committed to investing nearly $6 billion in the joint project to leverage Rivian's expertise in software platforms and automated vehicle manufacturing lines. Additionally, Rivian continues to recruit top talent from Tesla, Inc., Apple Inc., and Silicon Valley. The core of Rivian's current vehicles and the upcoming R2 SUV is a fundamental autonomous driving system called Large Driving Model. Similar to Tesla, Inc.'s FSD, this system can learn deeply from past and future driving behaviors, allowing Rivian to enhance the autonomous driving capabilities of its older models, such as the R1, which lack lidar and use NVIDIA Corporation's Orin chip, before launching a more complete R2 autonomous driving platform in 2027. The first-generation upgrade features of Rivian's software platform are relatively limited, far less than Tesla, Inc.'s current "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) feature.