Rivian acquires UK team to process 400,000 daily driving clips

Rivian has bought Third Dimension, a 15-person startup based in the United Kingdom, to help build 3D test environments for its self-driving system. The company did not reveal the price of the deal. TechCrunch first reported the acquisition.

Third Dimension was founded in 2024 by Tolga Kart and Piotr Sokólski. Kart previously worked on Autopilot simulation at Tesla for more than two years. He also served as a senior director on Call of Duty at Activision for five years and later led engineering at Parallel Domain. Sokólski spent four years at Wayve building photorealistic neural simulators for self-driving cars.

The startup raised a $7 million seed round in October 2024 led by Felicis. It described itself as a generative AI tool that creates 3D environments compatible with game engines. Its potential customer list included game studios, film companies, the US military, and autonomous vehicle firms.

The entire team is joining Rivian's autonomy and AI group. James Philbin, who leads that group, said simulation is central to how the company trains and validates its driving systems. He noted that Third Dimension has built technology that turns real-world data into detailed 3D environments. The acquisition also expands Rivian's presence in London, where most of the new staff are based.

The new process relies on video data from Rivian owners who opt in to camera sharing. These drivers operate R1S, R1T, R2, and commercial van models. Philbin said the fleet sends back more than 400,000 driving sequences every day. Most of this footage shows routine driving. Rare events that challenge autonomous systems, such as a mattress in the fast lane or a police officer waving traffic through a red light, are hard to capture in real time. Engineers can now recreate these specific scenes in 3D and alter variables to test system responses.

Other automakers are pursuing similar goals. Waymo unveiled its Waymo World Model in February, which is built on Google DeepMind's Genie 3 to generate scenarios its vehicles have not encountered. Tesla has also demonstrated a neural world simulator for its Full Self-Driving software.

Time pressure is driving Rivian's autonomy strategy. In March, Uber agreed to invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian to deploy R2 robotaxis. Only $300 million is paid upfront. The rest depends on meeting autonomy milestones. These include placing 10,000 driverless R2 vehicles on Uber's network in San Francisco and Miami starting in 2028.

Consumer timelines have already shifted. Rivian's point-to-point driving feature is due to reach a small group of invited Autonomy+ owners later this year. These testers must sign a nondisclosure agreement. CEO RJ Scaringe originally promised eyes-off driving for 2026 in January 2025, but that target has moved to 2027. Level 4 capability is planned for 2028 on the Gen 3 hardware shown at Rivian's AI & Autonomy Day.