Rivian Automotive, Inc. (RIVN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
March 18, 2025
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Emmanuel Rosner
analystAnalyst here at Wolfe Research. I'm joined by my Wolfe Autos colleague, Shreyas Patil and we're very excited to kick off this next discussion with Rivian and with RJ. Rivian is an organization that has achieved something that very few have been able to do in the recent history of the auto industry, which is to start a car company from scratch and build a brand that resonates emotionally with consumers. And in that process, the company has really chartered its own course, vertically integrating in key areas, including software, electronic architecture, distribution and EV charging. In doing so, Rivian has demonstrated clear competitive advantages, especially in software and architecture. It has also clearly demonstrated -- been demonstrated again with the recent JV with Volkswagen, where the 2 companies will co-develop a next-generation form leveraging much of the work Rivian has already done, including in the recently designed R1. So now looking ahead, execution over the next few years is going to be very important. Rivian's mass market midsize SUV called the R2 is launching in the first half of 2026. Construction on your second plant in Georgia is also set to begin in 2026. And management expects to reach positive EBITDA by the end of 2027. So very much a lot on your plate here to discuss these targets and the evolving EV landscape is RJ. Scaringe, founder and CEO of Rivian. RJ, thanks so much for being with us.
Robert Scaringe
executiveYes. Thanks for having me. We're excited to be here. And as you said, there's a lot of things happening within the business. So I'm looking forward to discussing that with you.
Emmanuel Rosner
analystYes, same here. So maybe just to kick things off on some of the shorter-term dynamics and demand trends in particular. Near term, you talked about Q1 deliveries of just 8,000 units, as the quarter was being impacted by seasonality and unique demand challenges, including the L.A following the fires. At the same time, you're planning to produce 14,000 units. So it implies a pretty sizable inventory build. And then you're expecting 2025 deliveries of 46,000 to 51,000, which is down 1% to 10% year-over-year and partially impacted by planned downtime. So what, in your view, is the true underlying demand this year? And what tools are you using to keep it healthy.
Robert Scaringe
executiveYes. I mean we're -- as you said in your opening remarks, we're really pleased with the strength of the brand that we built and the excitement that we have for the products and not just R1, but also what's coming with R2. And so as we look at the remainder of this year, we intend to continue building on that brand strength and what we've guided to reflects sort of the view that with R1 given its high average selling price, the -- call it, 46,000 to 51,000 guide represents what we think is appropriate for demand this year and very realistic and, of course, achievable this year. In terms of Q1, we're -- the level of production being higher than what we're selling in this quarter is really us anticipating the shutdown that's coming in the second half of this year and wanting to build a healthy inventory level. The other thing that's happening is we're seeing a pretty profound shift from how we sell vehicles going from a world in which our vehicles are produced linked to a customer at the plant and then the vehicles are then sent to where the customer is to a model that's much more inventory based and need to have inventory close to where customers are. And as we think about customers coming in to buy a vehicle, they want to make the decision to buy the vehicle and then have the vehicle within 24 to 40 hours. And so we're also building out inventory within our distribution network to support growing sales. We've seen demonstrations of just how effective that is in Q4, and we're seeing that again as we speak now.
Emmanuel Rosner
analystNow there's been a lot of discussion around the Tesla brand recently and certainly some indications that maybe it is struggling a little bit that could presumably create an opening for Rivian. So I'm curious, have you seen any signs recently of either an uptick in orders or even indication of interest from current or prior Tesla owners in the last 3 to 6 months?
Robert Scaringe
executiveYes. I mean when we look at the overall landscape for what customers have in front of them for choices, particularly when you look at price points under $50,000, there's very few highly compelling choices. And I've said this a lot in the past. But if you're buying an electric vehicle, and say you want to spend $40,000 to $50,000, there's really maybe 1 or 2 highly compelling choices. One of those, of course, being tested with the Model 3 and the Model Y. But the lack of choice is a real -- essentially creates a real glass ceiling on how much EV penetration we're going to see. And so notwithstanding your question and just some of the sentiment that we're seeing a merger on Tesla, there's a massive amount of untapped demand that exists under $50,000. And when I look at R1, the R1S is the market share leading electric SUV in the premium segment. So vehicles priced over $70,000. And of course, our ASP is quite a bit higher than $70,000 you can back it out from our numbers, but it's on the order of $90,000. And that's a significant -- that's a signaficant amount of money, and there's just the size of that market is relatively limited. And even if we're #1 in terms of market share and we've got incredible brand appeal, consumer reports as an annual brand survey. We've come out for the last 2 years as the #1 ranked brand and the #1 rate of repurchase. But there's just not a product for where most customers are, which is under $50,000. So we -- I couldn't be more excited about what's to come with R2. And the benefits that R2 brings to the whole business in terms of increased scale, that drives cost down, not just for R2, but it also helps the cost structure in R1. So we're ecstatic about what's to come with R2.
Emmanuel Rosner
analystMaybe we can just touch on sort of the topic du jour, which I guess is tariffs and maybe even we can expand it a little more and think about IRA and emission regulations. There's a lot of moving pieces and I would love to get your take on a few of those. But just big picture, how are you and the team navigating through this environment where it seems like policy decisions are changing quite rapidly and each of which could have a pretty meaningful impact on the organization.
Robert Scaringe
executiveI mean there's a few categories to consider here. So there's -- in terms of policy. There is, of course, what we're seeing happen with the IRA and our view is we are going to see that diminish over time. We can debate when and how and to what degree. But I think it's a fair assumption to say that, that's going to reduce over time. And that's been built into our plans for a while, and we've recognized that even in the guidance we just talked about in terms in terms of 2025 numbers. But the more challenging long-term shift, macro shifts that we're navigating now is the potential of increased costs for parts coming, parts and systems coming out from outside the United States and very long-time trade partners between Mexico and Canada have had billions and billions of dollars of investment in production capacity in those countries. And so this isn't unique to Rivian. This is across every manufacturer in the United States. If you're building cars in the U.S., you're leveraging to some degree and generally a pretty significant degree of supply base that's built across NAFTA. So with that said, we're, of course, responding to it. It's very dynamic. We have a number of different contingency plans that allow us to adjust. And given that most of R2 has been sourced while these were discussion areas, a lot of our sourcing contracts, so the vast majority of R2 has been sourced. It's close to 100% of the vehicles sourced now. But that was done over the last roughly half year. And so that -- in that time frame, we've built contracts that had some protections for us in the event of tariffs going up. And we're, of course, now utilizing some of those protections. But I do think if tariffs for goods outside of the United States, we are going to see price of vehicles either go up or certain manufacturers more so than Rivian have hit on the margin structure.
Shreyas Patil
analystAnd then maybe, so then just thinking about the longer-term implications. Tariffs to some extent, we can -- I think kind of alluded to that. But if we see the IRA get repealed, if regulatory standards for emissions are rolled back, can Rivian still get to the long-term targets, like positive EBITDA by year-end 2027 in your view?
Robert Scaringe
executiveWell, first, we should separate medium and long term. So in the medium term, if a 20% tariff goes in overnight, there's nothing we can do the next day to shift our supply chain. We may have contractual protections that reduce some of that cost to us, but there's not a lot you can do. In the medium term, we can work with our suppliers to find production locations that are more advantaged from a tariff point of view. And then in the long term, this will all settle out. We'll optimize our supply chain around the tariff structure. The big challenge we have today is it's just solely unknown. So it's changing so dynamically, and so often that it's very hard to make large long-term commitments from a production location point of view, knowing where it is today. Now with regards to R2, I do want to just say because a lot of these discussions around a more protective tariff structure already happening. When we source R2, it's a very USMCA-centric supply chain. And so it's already contemplated a lot of what's happening today, and we made those decisions going back to somewhere 2024. And so we think we're relatively advantaged as we compare to other manufacturers in this way. Now if the consumer-facing credits go away, I think that in the short term, maybe creates a little bit of turbulence but in the long term, the shift to electrification is going to happen. The key for us is -- it's not -- it's strangely become like a topic of debate like as the world is going to electrified. Of course, it is the entirety of every vehicle produced on the planet will be electric. We can debate whether that's in 10 years or in 15 years or in 20 years. But it's going to happen. And of course, I tend to believe it's going to happen quicker than some of the more bearish points of view on this. Now as that happens, we need to have choice. It's -- when you look at the market as it is today with Tesla commanding around 50% market share, that's reflective of a market without choice. It's reflective of a market with a singular great option. And so we badly need choice. We need choice that looks different than each other, meaning R2 is intentionally very different than a Model Y. It's a similar price point, similar size, but they couldn't be norm different in terms of how they present in terms of design, in terms of features in terms of content. The overall brand presentation. And that's a very good thing. It's not to say one's better than the other. It's just to say that it gives customers a different perspective. And the scale that R2 brings will help us not only improve profitability of -- help achieve profitability on a much lower bill of material cost structure and a much lower non-bill of material cost structure. But that translates immediately over to R1. So there's a number of suppliers that are supplying both R1 and R2 and the capacity and volume we add for R2 helps provide another step change in cost structure on R1. And then the non-bill to material COGS. So that's the conversion costs, inbound logistics, everything associated with building the vehicle that's not bill of materials, not parts. We get a huge advantage of being able to spread those costs around more volume. So we'll see another benefit to R1 that comes with R2 there. And so Claire and I have guided to say 2027 is going to be positive EBITDA. We continue to maintain the guidance. We're very bullish on that. And these are relatively deterministic things meaning, we're not wishing for this or hoping for it. We've negotiated our bill of materials. It's nearly 100% negotiated for R2. We can contemplate medium to worst-case scenarios for tariffs and we very clearly understand our fixed cost structure for running normal -- from running our plants normal and understand what a additional volume will do to spread those fixed costs across more units. And so we maintain a lot of confidence there.
Emmanuel Rosner
analystSo maybe just before we dive deeper on the R2 economics, I wanted to briefly touch on the R1. So you launched the second-generation version of in the second half of 2024. Q4 I think the first full quarter with that version. And so you had previously noted there was a real focus on costs, including material costs, there were hundreds of engineering and design modification in that new gen. At a high level, obviously, the cost of goods sold per unit fell considerably. But part of that was DNA and the contribution margins remain negative. So how should we think about the road ahead for R1? And where do you see the biggest opportunity to further improve the return profile?
Robert Scaringe
executiveThat's a great -- it's an important question and a great question. So if we look at Q4 of 2024 relative to Q4 2023, we took about $30,000 in COGS out of the vehicles, just over. And as you pointed out, a big component of that was we resourced more than half of the bill of materials we brought in new suppliers. And along with those new suppliers, we also made changes to the component designs. So the one we've talked about a lot is the shift to a consolidated set of ECUs where we went from 17 in-house ECUs in our R1 Gen 1 to 7 in-house ECUs in R1 Gen 2 and took out a tremendous amount of wiring harness, but that extends until we integrated a heat pump. We completely redid the battery pack. We updated the drive units, brought everything completely in-house in the drive units. So I mean it's just like changes across the vehicles and that allowed us to take the cost out that I just referred to, that $30,000 in COGS. Now there's further changes that are coming. So there's further improvements that are going to be happening quarter-over-quarter. We'll continue to see those on the bill of materials and I talked about it a moment ago, but a further step changes the volume increase that we see with R2. And so the economies of scale that R2 helps provide to the business isn't just important for our R2, that's a foundational element for R1. And so I'll take even like the center information display screen. We're using the same supply between R1 and R2. You can imagine there's a lot of cost savings that we can negotiate in the R1 product because we're also sourcing R2 for a similar form factor and similar screen. That's on the BOM. The other big driver here is the non-BOM items. And -- we're sharing a paint shop. We're showing our stamping operation. We're sharing a bunch of the management infrastructure and quality infrastructure in the plant. And the ability to share not only on CapEx, which is tied to depreciation, which is a noncash item that we see in our COGS spreads that out evenly. But importantly, the cost of all the labor, the cost of our management infrastructure, the cost of the overall running of the site gets spread now across a much higher volume level. And so the combination is to support us, continue to be very bullish on the long-term gross margin trajectory. We've talked about the automotive business being north of 20%. We continue to be very confident in that. And what we're also beginning to see, which is an important point to know, two things is the structural advantages that come from this very high degree of vertical integration, which in the beginning, lower volumes are actually quite painful because you have a lot of fixed cost, it doesn't get absorbed across a lot of volume. But as the volume starts to come up, we make inflection point, we're suddenly these things that we're building in-house and developed in-house become a real profit driver. So that's one. And then the second, in a similar way, there's a bunch of aspects of our business that we have built in-house that don't exist in traditional car companies outside of Tesla. And that's essentially everything that exists downstream of the plant. So distribution, sales, service -- these are all heavy bills in the beginning to build out the infrastructure. And on the distribution sales side, our cost to deliver and sell a vehicle is far lower than using a third party, so paying a third party to do for us. And so we'll start to see the difference of us costing a couple of percent to sell in distributed vehicle versus paying a third party, let's say, 10% to 15%, that will start to show up. And then secondly, we'll start to see service become a real contributor to our profitability. And of course, I think it's well understood. The service side of the automotive business is very profitable. This is where a lot of dealerships make a vast majority of their profit in all the same way this is going to be a big source of profitability for us. We've seen that happen with Tesla, of course. We're going to start to see the same. But in the beginning, it's all OpEx and it's solely as it starts to be revenue-generating transitions to COGS and then, of course, it's highly thoughtful COGS.
Shreyas Patil
analystMaybe on that -- on the point of R2. So you talked about a pretty substantial reduction in material cost of 45% reduction versus R1. I wanted to touch on a couple of areas. One is the battery and the other one is the electronic architecture. It's on the battery that maybe talk a little bit about the decision to transition to a 4695 cell structure. I think you've been using 2180 previously. And I guess how you're thinking about the ramp curve for that cell? I mean we've seen Tesla, for example, building their own 4680 cells, and they have made progress, but it's taken a little bit of time.
Robert Scaringe
executiveYes, just to repeat something you said, just to make sure it's very clear. The R2 bill of materials is about half that of the R1 bill of materials. And that's our current state R1, meaning with all these cost reductions we've made, we've still been able to take roughly half of the cost out again to deliver on a similar, call it, as much as you can like-for-like, R2 to R1 in terms of content and range. And then in terms of non-bill of material COGS, it's well under half of what our R1 is. So the cost structure on R2 is just meaningfully more advantage than what we saw in R1. And a big component of that, which I've referenced a few times here, and I just want to reiterate this, is supplier leverage. When we negotiated the R1 bond the first time, this is in 2018, 2019, we had very little I mean it was unclear who Rivian was. We had no customers. We've just shown the products at the auto show, but that was really it. So there's a lot of risk impeded in the price that we paid to our initial suppliers and we anticipate being able to negotiate that down following launch and the success of the products being pulled from so much demand for our products. But with COVID and the supply chain crisis that hit it just made that process much more elongated than we anticipated. In contrast, if we look at R2, the amount of leverage we have in these negotiations is it's night and day in every way. We've seen R1 be highly successful in the U.S. market, where it's, as I said before, it's -- it's in terms of premium products, one of the best-selling products out there, the R1S being the best-selling premium SUV. So the suppliers recognize that, and we've seen that built into pricing -- of course, it was really helpful that we signed a $5.8 billion software licensing deal as part of our joint venture with Volkswagen Group. So that was a huge validation of our technology and, of course, a massive vote of confidence from the second largest car manufacturer in the world. And that all led to a bill of materials that's really advantaged relative to R1. Now saying that, there's also a bunch of design changes that have been integrated into the very core of how the vehicle is built. And so you asked about the electrical architecture battery. On the electrical architecture, we've taken what we did in the Gen 2 of R1 and we continue to push that further. And in fact, and our last earnings letter we put a few pictures of some of the computers, the PCBAs between our what we call Gen 1, Gen 2 and then R2. And just visually, you can see they're getting smaller and smaller and smaller. We're getting far more efficient in how we design those. We're putting more of their content onto the chip itself. And that's taking a lot of cost out. And we're seeing that across every ECU and every part of the vehicle. And of course, the Volkswagen partnership actually helps that as well. But in terms of the batteries, as you said, we're using a cylinderical cell, which is much larger diameter. It's a 46-millimeter diameter relative to the 21 that we're using in R1. And then it's a taller cell. So we're using a 95-millimeter taller cell, so it's 4695 instead of the 70-millimeter taller cell that we use with the R1 vehicle. And so that larger diameter, larger height -- taller height means that there's more energy need to sell, which means we need to really be thoughtful on how we manage those cells from a safety point of view. But the cylingical form factor is actually very safe in that it helps contain a large amount of energy quite effectively. We've designed a cooling system that really works around that. But importantly, it massively reduces the number of joints, so the number of cells that need to be attached in the system. Our Max pack of R1 has 7,776 cells. And depending on the configuration, R2 has -- depending on battery pack size, is low hundreds of cells. And so that's a simplification that allows the modules to be simplified. It allows the pack to be simplified. And then we've really got a lot of work on the high-voltage architecture within the pack and so we've integrated the DC/DC, the DC/AC, the AC/DC, all of that has been integrated into one housing that sits attached to the battery pack, which limits the amount of cable runs. And so it's just as -- I'm actually -- I'm going to -- I'll probably put a picture of this up on social sometimes because it's just so cool. It's like this beautiful integration of all these parts. It used to be separate boxes into one housing. It's a large high-pressure die casting housing that puts all that together. And I mean, it takes a huge amount of cost out of the high voltage architecture relative to what we have in R1 today.
Shreyas Patil
analystOkay. That's helpful. And maybe -- and this actually kind of dovetail on that. Just all of the changes you've made, obviously, you're bringing down the price point as well with R2 that's going to open up a bigger TAM. So how do you think about the -- how do you think about kind of scaling production at the normal plant and then also, is there a risk that normal could reach a factory constraint before your Georgia plant comes online, which will also carry it R2 as well as R3.
Robert Scaringe
executiveYes. Well, we hope that normal reaches a production constraint as soon as possible. And so that's the goal. And that -- and we do believe that's going to happen, which is why we've talked about this, but the importance of Georgia and bringing on additional capacity above and beyond what Normal can provide and just for everyone on the line, Normal has R1 today. It has our commercial van in it and we're adding R2. And the combination of those 3 will have a capacity of just over 200,000 units a year. And so we think of it like a nominal capacity without really stretching into heavy over time of 215,000 units a year. We're going to try to push that as much as we can to get beyond that. But of that 155,000 are R2. And again, these are opportunities for us to push harder, but that's what it's design capacity. And the reason we planned to ramp of this that's, I'd say, faster than what we did in R1, but very intentionally goes from -- starting with a single shift and then starting in 2026, early 2026 with single shift and then adding a second shift in the latter part of 2026. And the reason for that is the learnings we had around the importance of scaling the supply chain and scaling it in a thoughtful and predictable way. Some of the biggest pains we had in 2023 and even into the beginnings of 2024 were just the supply chain not all ramping at the same rate. And we often think about that as if you're short apart, you can't make the vehicle. That is a challenge. That's a downside. That's a problem with the supply chain that's not ramping consistently as fast as you want. But the other problem is you have a bunch of the other parts that are still coming. And so you have to consume all these parts in this inventory. While you wait for the constrained part to catch up. And so it's very challenging when you think about thousands of parts. If you think about like discrete components not sourced parts, it's tens of thousands of parts where any single one of those can stop production across hundreds of suppliers. It's a real orchestra activity. And so with R1, we were learning for the first time when we launched the R1T, R1S, and EDV we launched them all really close proximity and ingesting that much complexity was very difficult. So with R2 we're launching a very narrow set of build combinations, just R2, we're pulling in R3 after we've fully ramped. And then we're planning our supply chain and working with them very hard right now to make sure they're ready for this 1 shift to then 2 shift step that will happen in the latter part of 2026. Basically we needed to be a very smooth launch and we're busting our tails to make sure it's as soon as possible.
Emmanuel Rosner
analystYes, that makes sense. I wanted to maybe touch on the EDV and the commercial van business. You've got the partnership with Amazon. I think you delivered 20,000 vehicles so far. The order was for 100,000. So there's still more room to fill that out. And you do have engagements with other fleet operators that you've spoken about. I believe capacity is for 65,000, but that can be flexed down for R2. So how do you think about the addressable market now and the mid- to long-term opportunity there?
Robert Scaringe
executiveYes, Emmanuel, as you suggested, we're planning to adjust down the total output of EDV. And so when you think about the normal plant, R2 will represent the vast majority of production with 155,000 of the 215,000. And then the remaining the remaining capacity that's in the plant, we'll use that for us, a combination of R1 and the commercial van, but most of that will go towards R1. And so that's really reflecting the commercial vehicle space in the commercial van space, electrifying slower than we anticipated, and I think some of the macro headwinds that we're seeing, both in terms of policy. And I think also in terms of sentiment, mean that, that space isn't electrifying as fast as what we thought it would do. But as you call out, I mean, Amazon is a great anchor customer for us because of them as an anchor customer. We were the top selling by volume electric van in the United States in 2024, which just as that demonstrates that the market is -- we were the highest selling and we weren't selling 100,000 vans, we were selling a much smaller number than that. So it reflects just this space, even with us being the market share leader, it's just electrifying more slowly than we had originally thought and hoped. But it's an amazing product, and so we're starting to see more customers outside of Amazon start to use it, but we are seeing some of the bigger fleets be more, be more cautious in their own electrification plans relative to what they thought they would have done, let's say, a year ago.
Shreyas Patil
analystMaybe just switching over to software and services. Maybe we could just start with the Volkswagen JV. And we get this question a lot from in terms of the strategic perspective of the deal. And I guess when we think about Rivian and I think you talked about this a little bit earlier, one of the strongest attributes that you have is the ECU architecture that you've built almost entirely in-house, you own the entire software stack, including the base operating system and middleware. You design your own zonal controllers. So certainly, these are things that legacy OEMs have not done, and in some cases, may not have the ability to do. We're working with Volkswagen where they'll be -- you're co-developing an architecture that actually now will be going into their vehicles, I believe, in 2027. And they're also competing with you in North America via the Scout brand. So maybe just talk about the benefits that you see of this joint venture relationship beyond the capital injection part of it, which I think we all -- and also how you think about Rivian's ability to maintain a competitive advantage in software and network architectures.
Robert Scaringe
executiveYes, well, the partnership that we built with Volkswagen Group has been -- I referenced earlier, it's been, of course, focused and the deal is, of course, designed around our network architecture. So it's our zonal controllers, what we think of as like our experience management module, essentially what runs the infotainment platform. And then the various layers of software that exist on those platforms. And being able to deploy that at scale across many different price points, different vehicle form factors and across many different markets, of course, outside of the United States as well, is great for us because it sees our technology driving impact in other markets, and it's like very mission aligned to do that. What it also does is it -- think of it as like a front door into a really deep relationship where there's other benefits that come. Of course, there's any efficiencies from a supply chain point of view of having a lot more volume on some of those shared components. So you can imagine some of the SoCs that we're using across those compute platforms, having volumes that are much, much larger the volumes of building the PCBAs, the printed circuit board assemblies and the contract manufacturers now have a lot more volume. And extending beyond that into the items that are driven by that. So some of the electromechanical systems that come out of the electrical hardware, there's now likelihood of more alignment of sourcing and they're from more volume. And so -- we see it as a really helpful corporate partnership that we have that extends and builds beyond just the joint venture. And of course, Volkswagen also has equity ownership in Rivian now as well as part of this deal. And so that's helpful. It's really helpful. And I said it before and I'll say it again, I think far too often, we look at the market side of this and we -- it's not all why this keeps happening, but we sort of assume that there's like a 1 winner or 1 player take all. And I think maybe it's because we've been trained in tech and traditional tech that's how it works. So it's going to be a dominant search engine platform. That's going to be dominant e-commerce platform. But in transportation, we just really don't believe there's going to be a single dominant vehicle brand. And if there was, it would reflect a very significant shift in consumer behavior from what we've seen for the last 100 years, meaning in the United States market, there's 300 different choices of ICE vehicles in terms of name plates. And we think that level of product diversity is going to be necessary to go from 8% electrification to 100%. And so to date, it's largely been Tesla, as I talked about the lower price points, there's been other products, but they haven't been particularly compelling. So to the extent that like our technology helps Volkswagen Group make highly compelling products, which ultimately will give customers choice. We think that's great. We think it's going to be helpful to drive the overall shift in electrification. We think it's -- this is a very clear example of a rising tide will help all players in the space. And -- and so like as it pertains to Scout, we're, of course, part of that program, and that's part of our work with the joint venture. Does that feel like it's close to a in, maybe, but I think the reality is the products are being designed and differentiated and branded and positioned differently than Rivian products. And I think customers need that choice. I think it's going to be a really good thing for customers in the end.
Shreyas Patil
analystThat's helpful. And then maybe just -- we just have a minute left here, but I was curious about your opportunity in software and services across your own fleet, right? So I think about -- this year, you're talking about $1 billion of revenue and software and services that you can generate. About half of that, I believe, is coming from your own revenue you're going to generate through service and software across your fleet. How do you see that kind of scaling over the next few years? And do you think ADAS could play a big role in generating incremental software and subscription revenue for you?
Robert Scaringe
executiveWell, Shreyas I love the question. We just -- coincidently, about a week, maybe 2 weeks ago, we launched what we call a hands-free mode. Our Gen 2 vehicles have a massive shift to upgrade and the hardware on the vehicle. So we went and vertically integrated our camera stack. We have a much more powerful compute stack. And so the Gen 2 vehicles at 55 megapixels of cameras which is more than any of the vehicle in North America. We have 5 radars, including a front imaging radar in the 4 corner radars. And then we have a really robust compute stack, which is powered by NVIDIA in terms of the in-vehicle inference. And the headroom that, that gives us in terms of capability is just remarkable. And so the first sampling of that, and I used the word sampling intentionally because it by no means represents the end state, it's really the beginning is by hands-free capability where you get on the highway and previously, you'd have your hands on the wheel. You can take them off for 15 seconds, you have to put them back on. You can now have your hands out wheel for the whole ride. And that's going to -- that feature set will -- that capability will grow from a hands-free highway to increasingly approaching turn by turn so you can navigate from your house to the final destination in a hands-free, eyes-on environment. And then next year, in 2026, we'll start to go hands-free, turn-by-turn plus, hands free, eyes-off highway, which is a true level 3 highway, which means -- of course, your hands come off the wheel, but your eyes can also go anywhere. They can be on a phone, they can be in a conversation, they can be reading a book. And so the speed at which this is developing is just remarkable. And the big shift and I'm surprised this doesn't get more focused attention, but the way that self-driving was developed up until really only about 2 or 3 years ago was it was very rules-based. And it was very sequential meeting, you had cameras that identified objects, classified them associated vectors with those objects that collection of objects that went into a planner, the plan that made decisions that were all rules based around what to do those decisions would then get translated into a control strategy that the vehicle with an operator following the direction of the planers. And what's changed so much is we now use AI to build a much more robust large parameter model. I think of it as a foundation model for the real world. We've built out with lots of data coming off the vehicles, and that large prime model gets distilled down into a more, a smaller parameter model, something can be handled by the in-vehicle inference. And the vehicle is trained using that with this end-to-end process, and we no longer have to make all these individual steps between and the speed at which it develops that the capabilities develop is just remarkable. And it's the same shift that we saw in the LLM world where we've had voice assistance for years, but they were always a little bit clumsy. We started training end-to-end. We use modern transformer techniques. We thought about how we build these systems from a neural net point of view, and it was like a light switch on off. And so we think the same is happening in self-driving -- and so saying all that, the big question, which is your question is what could be charged for this. And I think in the long, long term, who knows, it could be built into the vehicle price, we think it's going to be table stakes. So if we say like in the 2030s, I think it becomes stable stakes that vehicles can do hands-free, eyes-off, turn by turn. But in the next 5 years, I do think there's an incremental ability to charge significantly for these features where customers are willing to pay because it is creating real value for them. And I think a few companies want differentiated capabilities here. Of course, we believe we're one of those. And because it will be a subset of the full breadth of product offering out there, we think there will be this differentiated ability to monetize that capability. And so we've talked about this with our customers. We said, look, we're going to -- today, our driver plus features is included. We'll start to charge for it, and we're going to we're going to wait until the capabilities are so strong that it earns the right to have customers pay additional money for us to deliver that feature.
Shreyas Patil
analystOkay. Great. I think we're just at time. So I think -- yes, so I'll pass it over to Emmanuel.
Emmanuel Rosner
analystYes. RJ, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time and insights. And thanks, everybody, for joining.
Robert Scaringe
executiveWell, thank you, Enjoyed it.
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