本文为原文前 6,000 字符的节选翻译，完整内容请查看原文。

Rivian’s CEO says autonomy will enable ‘dramatically different’ vehicle designs

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.

Rivian 正在全力开发其电动汽车的自动驾驶软件，甚至不惜推迟盈利。创始人兼首席执行官 RJ Scaringe 上周在 TechCrunch Disrupt 大会上表示，他认为自动驾驶技术将使公司能够制造出与目前户外风格的 SUV 和卡车截然不同的车型。

“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.”

“真正有趣的地方在于，当你跳出 R2 和 R3 的框架，开始构思想要为个人拥有的自动驾驶汽车打造什么样的外形时。你知道，这开启了各种各样的设计机会，能够创造出截然不同的体验，”他在接受 TechCrunch 采访时说道。“因为这项技术让我们能够去梦想和思考未来，我对交通运输业接下来的十年感到无比兴奋。”

This is not a new idea, to be sure. 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.” Hyundai once even showed off its idea for a car with legs.

当然，这并不是一个新想法。十年前，自动驾驶汽车公司、传统汽车制造商以及许多其他企业曾承诺，自动驾驶技术结合电池电动动力系统（比燃油动力系统更简单且占用空间更小）的普及，将引发移动出行形态的“寒武纪大爆发”。这导致当时各种疯狂的概念层出不穷。梅赛德斯-奔驰曾宣传过一种气泡状的吊舱式设计，以及一款充满科技感的长轿车。丰田和其他公司则构想了“轮子上的房间”。现代汽车甚至展示过一款带有腿的汽车概念。

This promised design revolution never escaped the concept and prototyping phase. 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 come at a time when there are real robotaxis roaming the streets of multiple cities around the world.

这场承诺中的设计革命从未走出概念和原型阶段。自动驾驶技术的开发耗时比这些公司预期的要长，而汽车制造商（无论是新势力还是老牌车企）都在制造和销售一个全新的汽车类别时，面临着严峻的现实挑战。现在的不同之处在于，Scaringe 发表这番言论时，真正的自动驾驶出租车已经行驶在全球多个城市的街道上。

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. 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.

驱动这些车辆的软件似乎已经发展到足以在公共道路上安全运行的水平，尽管在将它们融入由汽车、自行车、行人和应急车辆组成的城市交通网络时，仍有一些问题需要解决。构成电动汽车电机和电池的组件已经变得更便宜，而像特斯拉、Rivian（以及中国更多的公司）在规模化制造方面也做得越来越好。

Rivian has a lot of work ahead before it gets to driverless vehicles. 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. 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.

在实现无人驾驶汽车之前，Rivian 还有很多工作要做。该公司正处于扩大 R2 SUV 生产规模的初期阶段，它必须做好这一点，才能扭转多年来为成为主要电动汽车厂商而产生的亏损。在自动驾驶方面，Rivian 距离彻底重构其自动驾驶软件方案仅过去几年，仍有很长的路要走。

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. 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.

该公司已经发布了一套驾驶辅助系统，允许驾驶员在双手离开方向盘的同时仍需注视路面。它承诺，到今年年底，该软件将能够实现从起点到终点的自动驾驶——公司称之为“点对点导航”——无需人工干预，但仍需在驾驶员监督下进行。此外，它正致力于实现完全自动驾驶，并计划将其部署在 R2 SUV 的自动驾驶出租车版本中，这些车辆将通过 Uber 的网约车应用程序提供服务。

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.

但 Scaringe 在采访中重申了他之前的观点，即如果 Rivian 实现完全自动驾驶，大部分驾驶行为仍将在个人拥有的车辆中完成。“你知道，美国 95% 的行驶里程——也就是数万亿英里——都是在我们个人拥有的车辆中完成的，比如你自己拥有的，或者你家庭拥有的。因此我们的观点是，即使具备了 L4 级自动驾驶能力，我们也不太可能看到社会发生剧烈的转变，”他引用了美国汽车工程师学会对在特定区域运行的自动驾驶车辆的分类标准说道。

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. 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. “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.”

“这个数字可能会从 95% 降到 90%，或者从 95% 降到 80%，但出于许多社会和心理原因，绝大多数行驶里程很可能保持不变，”他说。正是这种信念让 Scaringe 开始构想一款完全自动驾驶的个人 Rivian 汽车的设计。不过，对于它看起来是什么样，Scaringe 保持沉默。“我们做了 R1，然后是 R2，接着是 R3。R3 之后的产品将被称为 R4——我们只是还没展示它长什么样，”他说。“它会很酷，会很棒。”