Rivian fans rejoice! Just a few weeks ago, Rivian rolled out automated, hands-off driving for its second-gen R1 vehicles with a game-changing software update. Yet, the new feature, which is only operational on mapped highways, had left many fans craving for more.

Now the company, which prides itself on listening to and delivering on what its customers want, didnt wait long to signal a map-free upgrade will be available later this year.

Recommended Videos One feedback weve heard loud and clear is that customers love [Highway Assist] but they want to use it in more places, James Philbin, Rivian VP of autonomy, said on the podcast RivianTrackr Hangouts. So thats something kind of exciting were working on, were calling it internally Map Free, that were targeting for later this year.

Related The lag between the release of Highway Assist (HWA) and Map Free automated driving gives time for the fleet of Rivian vehicles to gather unique events. These events are used to train Rivians offline model in the cloud before data is distilled back to individual vehicles.

As Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe explained in early March, HWA marked the very beginning of an expanding automated-driving feature set, going from highways to surface roads, to turn-by-turn.

For now, HWA still requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road. The system will send alerts if you drift too long without paying attention. But stay tunedeyes-off driving is set for 2026.

Its also part of what Rivian calls its Giving you your time back philosophy, the first of three pillars supporting Rivians vision over the next three to five years. Philbin says that philosophy is focused on meeting drivers where they are, as opposed to chasing full automation in the way other automakers, such as Teslas robotaxi, might be doing.

We recognize a lot of people buy Rivians to go on these adventures, to have these amazing trips. They want to drive, and we want to let them drive, Philbin says. But theres a lot of other driving thats very monotonous, very boring, like on the highway. There, giving you your time back is how we can give the best experience.

This will also eventually lead to the third pillar of Rivians vision, which is delivering Level 4, or high-automation vehicles: Those will offer features such as auto park or auto valet, where you can get out of your Rivian at the office, or at the airport, and it goes off and parks itself.

While not promising anything, Philbin says he believes the current Gen 2 hardware and platforms should be able to support these upcoming features.

The second pillar for Rivian is its focus on active safety features, as the EV-maker rewrote its entire autonomous vehicle (AV) system for its Gen2 models. This focus allowed Rivians R1T to be the only large truck in North America to get a Top Safety Pick+ from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

I believe theres a lot of innovation in the active safety space, in terms of making those features more capable and preventing more accidents, Philbin says. Really the goal, the north star goal, would be to have Rivian be one of the safest vehicles on the road, not only for the occupants but also for other road users.

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