Rivian’s head of software says the company is not trying to be like Tesla regarding automation [Video]

Rivian isn’t prioritizing autonomous driving, the company’s chief software officer said in an interview with Business Insider.

As Waymo and Tesla race to scale autonomous driving and usher in an era of self-driving cars and robotaxis, Rivian, the 15-year-old electric truck and SUV company based in Irvine, California, has different priorities for artificial intelligence, CSO Wassym Bensaid told Business Insider.

“We are not necessarily chasing full-self driving, we’re not chasing robotaxis,” he said. “Our goal is incremental improvements to the safety and convenience for customers.”

For Bensaid, who joined Rivian in 2019 as the senior director of the system architecture and integration team, AI is an opportunity to deliver a safer and seamless driving experience through improved software.

During a fireside chat at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San …