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.

Tesla’s Senior Manager of Cybercab General Assembly at Gigafactory Texas, Jody Kerns, is leaving the company to become Rivian’s Director of General Assembly for the R2 in Normal, Illinois.

He’s the second Cybercab launch leader to leave Tesla this year. The head of Cybercab new product introduction walked out in April, before the vehicle ever carried a paying passenger.

Rivian is rolling out Pet Cam, a new feature in software update 2026.36 that lets R2 owners check on a pet left in the vehicle through a live video feed in the Rivian app.

It’s exclusive to the R2. R1T and R1S owners get new remote Pet Mode controls instead, and the same update brings the Rivian Assistant to the R2, four months after the SUV launched.

Rivian’s first R2s with LiDAR and its in-house RAP1 autonomy computer will go to employees before the end of 2026. Paying customers will have to wait until 2027. It could be interpreted as a delay compared to previous communications.

The automaker laid out the timeline at an investor conference in New York this week, along with updates on point-to-point driving, its Uber robotaxi deal, and what LiDAR now costs it: “a few hundred dollars.”

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe says the upcoming R3 crossover will come in “materially lower” than the R2 on price, and that a follow-up model, the R4, will push prices down further still.

He didn’t give a number. But it’s the clearest sign yet that Rivian plans to keep walking its lineup down toward the heart of the market after the R2 launch.