Rivian acquires 15-person UK team to build 3D test worlds from 400,000 daily fleet clips

Rivian has completed the acquisition of Third Dimension, a 15-person software company based in the United Kingdom. The deal adds a specialized team to Rivian's autonomy group, tasked with converting daily vehicle footage into three-dimensional simulation environments. The purchase allows the automaker to process the massive volume of driving data collected from its current fleet without waiting for rare events to occur naturally on the road.

Third Dimension was founded in 2024 by Tolga Kart and Piotr Sokólski. Kart previously worked on Autopilot simulation at Tesla and led engineering at Parallel Domain. Sokólski spent four years at Wayve building neural simulators for self-driving cars. The firm raised $7 million in a seed round led by Felicis in October 2024. It marketed its generative AI tools to game studios, film producers, and the US military before joining Rivian.

The new team will report to James Philbin, who leads Rivian's autonomy and AI division. Philbin stated that simulation is central to training and validating the company's autonomous driving systems. He described the acquired technology as a method to turn real-world data into detailed 3D environments. This approach enables engineers to recreate specific driving scenarios and alter variables to test system responses.

The simulation pipeline relies on video footage from owners of the R1S, R1T, R2, and commercial vans who opt into camera data sharing. Philbin noted that the fleet generates more than 400,000 driving sequences every day. While most of this material captures routine driving, the team focuses on rare and challenging situations. Examples include a mattress in the fast lane, a police officer waving traffic through a red light, or a child running between parked cars.

Rivian competes with other major players in this space. Waymo unveiled its Waymo World Model in February, which uses Google DeepMind technology to generate scenarios its vehicles have not yet encountered. Tesla has also demonstrated a neural world simulator for its Full Self-Driving software. The acquisition positions Rivian to process its own fleet data with similar intensity and specificity.

The move comes as Rivian works to meet contractual milestones with Uber. In March, Uber agreed to invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian to deploy R2 robotaxis. Only $300 million of that total is paid upfront. The remaining funds depend on autonomy milestones, including the deployment of 10,000 driverless R2 vehicles in San Francisco and Miami starting in 2028.

Consumer timelines for advanced driving features have shifted recently. Rivian expects to release its point-to-point driving feature to a small group of invited Autonomy+ owners later this year. Testers for this feature must sign a nondisclosure agreement. The company originally promised eyes-off driving for 2026 in January 2025 but has now targeted 2027 for that capability. Level 4 autonomy is planned for 2028 on the Gen 3 hardware shown at the company's AI & Autonomy Day.

The acquisition expands Rivian's physical presence in London, where most of the Third Dimension staff are based. The company did not disclose the purchase price. The team joins an existing structure focused on integrating AI and autonomy into the vehicle lineup. The strategy prioritizes the use of real-world data to create synthetic test conditions for software development.