Rivian buys UK team to rebuild real streets for AI testing

Rivian has acquired Third Dimension, a 15-person startup in the United Kingdom, to help rebuild real-world roads as three-dimensional test environments. The electric vehicle maker will use these digital replicas to train and validate its self-driving software. The deal was first reported by TechCrunch, and Rivian has not disclosed the purchase price.

The company behind the technology 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 spent five years as a senior director on Call of Duty at Activision and later led engineering at Parallel Domain. Sokólski spent four years at Wayve building photorealistic neural simulators. The entire team is now joining Rivian's autonomy and AI group, which is led by James Philbin. This move also increases Rivian's staff presence in London.

Philbin stated that simulation is central to how the company trains and validates its autonomous driving systems. He noted that the new team has built technology that turns real-world data into detailed 3D environments. The process relies on footage from owners of the R1S, R1T, R2, and commercial vans who opt into camera data sharing. According to Philbin, the fleet sends back more than 400,000 driving sequences every day.

Most of that daily material shows routine driving, while the rare situations that challenge autonomous systems are difficult to capture naturally. Examples include a mattress in the fast lane, a police officer waving traffic through a red light, or a child running between parked cars. Instead of waiting months for these events to occur, engineers can recreate specific scenes in 3D and alter variables to test system responses.

Other major players are pursuing similar strategies. Waymo unveiled its 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.

The acquisition comes as Rivian faces strict deadlines for its autonomous vehicle rollout. In March, Uber agreed to invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian to deploy R2 robotaxis. Only $300 million is paid up front, with the remainder tied to autonomy milestones. These milestones include placing 10,000 driverless R2 vehicles on Uber's network in San Francisco and Miami starting in 2028.

Consumer features are also on a shifting timeline. Rivian's point-to-point driving feature is expected to reach a small group of invited Autonomy+ owners later this year. Those testers must sign a nondisclosure agreement. The company has moved its target for eyes-off driving from 2026 to 2027, a promise originally made by CEO RJ Scaringe in January 2025. Level 4 capability is planned for 2028 on Gen 3 hardware.