Rivian 正全力以赴地开发其电动汽车的自动驾驶软件，甚至愿意推迟盈利。创始人兼首席执行官 RJ Scaringe 上周在 TechCrunch Disrupt 上表示，他认为自动驾驶将使公司能够打造与目前生产的户外风格 SUV 和皮卡截然不同的全新车型。
Rivian is going full steam ahead on developing autonomous vehicle software for its EVs, to the point that it is willing to delay profitability. Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said last week at TechCrunch Disrupt that he thinks autonomy will allow his company to build radically different kinds of vehicles than the outdoorsy SUVs and trucks it currently makes.
“当你超越 R2 和 R3，开始想象个人拥有的自动驾驶汽车应具备的形态时，事情才真正变得有趣。你知道，这将打开各种设计可能性。它能够创造截然不同的体验，”他在接受 TechCrunch 采访时说。“由于这项技术使我们能够梦想和思考未来，我对接下来十年交通的前景感到无比兴奋。”这当然不是一个新想法。十年前，自动驾驶汽车公司、传统车企以及许多其他机构曾承诺，自动驾驶与电池电动传动系统的普及（相比燃油前辈，电动传动系统更简单且占用空间更小）将催生一种“寒武纪大爆发”式的新型出行形态。
“Where it gets really interesting is when you think beyond R2 and R3 and start to imagine the form factors that you want to build for a personally-owned autonomous vehicle. You know, it opens up all kinds of design opportunities. It can create dramatically different experiences,” he said in an interview with TechCrunch. “I’m wildly excited about what the next 10 years look like in transportation because of what this enables us to dream and think about.”This is not a new idea, to be sure.
当时，各种奇思妙想层出不穷。梅赛德斯-奔驰曾大力宣传类似气泡舱的设计，以及装载大量科技配置的长轴距轿车。丰田等公司曾设想过“轮上房间”。现代汽车甚至曾展示过一种带有腿的汽车概念。
A decade ago, autonomous vehicle companies, legacy automakers, and many others promised that autonomy, combined with the proliferation of battery-electric drivetrains (which are simpler and take up less space than their gas-powered predecessors) would produce a Cambrian explosion of new mobility form factors. This led to all kinds of crazy concepts getting bandied about at the time. Mercedes-Benz touted a bubbly pod-like design, as well as a long sedan packed with tech. Toyota and others dreamed up “rooms on wheels.”
这一承诺中的设计革命始终停留在概念和原型阶段。自动驾驶技术的发展进度远慢于这些公司的预期，车企（无论新旧）在制造和销售全新车型类别方面遭遇了严峻的现实挑战。
Hyundai once even showed off its idea for a car with legs. This promised design revolution never escaped the concept and prototyping phase.
现在的不同之处在于，Scaringe 的言论是在全球多个城市街道上已经有真正的机器人出租车在行驶的背景下发表的。驱动它们的软件似乎已经发展到了能够在公共道路上安全、大规模运行的水平，尽管在将它们融入汽车、自行车、行人和紧急车辆的城市交通网络时仍存在一些需要解决的问题。构成电动汽车电机和电池的部件成本已经降低，特斯拉、Rivian（以及中国的许多其他公司）等企业在大规模生产方面也变得更加熟练。
Autonomy took longer than those companies anticipated to develop, and automakers (new and old) struggled with the harsh realities of manufacturing and selling an entirely new category of vehicle. The difference now is that Scaringe’s comments came at a time when there are real robotaxis roaming the streets of multiple cities around the world. The software that powers them has seemingly developed to a level that is capable enough to operate them safely on public roads at scale, even if there are still some issues to work out when it comes to integrating them into the urban fabric of cars, bikes, pedestrians, and emergency vehicles.
Rivian 在实现无人驾驶汽车之前还有大量工作要做。该公司正处于扩大R2 SUV产量的努力的初期阶段，它需要做好这一步，以扭转多年来为成为主要电动汽车参与者而产生的亏损。
The components that make up electric vehicle motors and batteries have gotten cheaper, and companies like Tesla and Rivian (and many more in China) have gotten better at building them at scale. Rivian has a lot of work ahead before it gets to driverless vehicles.
在自动驾驶方面，Rivian 距离完全重新审视其自动驾驶软件方法仅过去了几年，它仍有很长的路要走。
The company is at the beginning of its effort to scale production of the R2 SUV, which it needs to get right in order to reverse years of losses that it incurred to become a major EV player.
该公司已经推出了一套驾驶辅助系统，使驾驶员可以将手从方向盘上拿开，同时仍需注视道路。该公司承诺，到今年年底，该软件将能够实现从起点到终点的全程自动驾驶——公司称之为“点对点导航”——无需干预，尽管仍需在驾驶员监督下进行。此外，该公司正在朝着全自动驾驶迈进，计划将其应用于R2 SUV的机器人出租车版本，这些车辆将通过优步的叫车应用提供服务。
On the autonomy side, Rivian is just a few years removed from completely reworking its approach to self-driving software, and it still has a ways to go. The company has shipped a driver assistance system that allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel, while still watching the road. It has promised that, by the end of this year, that software will be capable of driving from start to finish — which the company calls “point-to-point navigation” — without intervention, though still under driver supervision.
但如果Rivian实现全自动驾驶，Scaringe 在接受采访时表示，大部分驾驶将发生在个人拥有的车辆上，这呼应了他之前的表态。
And it is working toward full autonomy, which it plans to deploy in robotaxi versions of its R2 SUV that will be available on Uber’s ride-hail app.
您知道，美国行驶的里程中有95% — — 也就是说，是万亿英里 — — 这些里程中有95%是在我们个人拥有的东西上行驶的，也就是说，就像您拥有它，或者您的家庭拥有它。因此，我们的观点是，即使具备第四级自动驾驶能力，我们也不太可能看到远离这种状况的戏剧性社会转变，”他说，引用了汽车工程师学会对在特定区域运行的自动驾驶汽车的分类。
But if Rivian achieves full autonomy, most of that driving will be done in personally-owned vehicles, Scaringe said in the interview, echoing previous comments he’s made. “You know, 95% of the miles driven in the United States — so this is trillions of miles — 95% of these miles are in things that we personally own, so like you own it, or your household owns it. And so our view is it’s unlikely, even with Level 4 capabilities, that we’re going to see a dramatic societal shift away from that,” he said, referencing the Society of Automotive Engineers’ classification for autonomous vehicles that operate in a specific area.
他说，这个数字“可能从95%降到90%，也可能从95%降到80%，但出于许多社会和心理原因，大量行驶里程的绝大多数仍可能保持不变。”
That figure “may go from 95% to 90%, it may go from 95% to 80%, but still the vast majority of the miles driven for a lot of societal and psychological reasons are likely to stay the same,” he said.
他说，正是这种信念让斯卡林格在梦想一辆完全自动驾驶、个人拥有的Rivian汽车的设计。至于它长什么样子，斯卡林格却守口如瓶。
It’s this belief that has Scaringe dreaming about the design of a fully-autonomous, personally-owned Rivian, he said. As for what that looks like, though, Scaringe was mum.
“我们先做了R1，然后做了R2，然后做了R3。R3之后的车型将被称为R4 — — 我们只是还没有展示它长什么样子，”他说。“它会很酷。它会很棒。”
“So we did R1, then we did R2, then we did R3. The thing after R3 is going to be called R4 — we just haven’t shown what it looks like,” he said. “It’s going to be cool. It’s going to be great.”