- Rivian confirms left rear charging port location on upcoming R2 models
- That changes from the right rear plan for roadside charging and Rivian’s own network
- R2 owners will have easier access to Supercharger stations
Front, rear, left, right? Automakers have yet to agree on where to put EV charging ports on vehicles. But it appears that Tesla’s long-preferred location on the rear left may have won over another U.S. EV maker—Rivian.
News of Rivian’s move to relocate future electric vehicle production broke Thursday via Rivian Forum. A contributor noted that when the R2 and R3X were on display at the Rivian Space in Pasadena, California, an executive confirmed the relocation of the charging port from its current location on the right rear of the brand.
“We can confirm the charging port will be located at () rear driver side of R2“We look forward to sharing more information and specifications about the R2 in the future,” a Rivian spokesperson told Green Car Reports on Friday.
Rivian R1T at Tesla Supercharger
Having trouble with your R1 charging port at Superchargers?
This change may have something to do with Rivian owners’ experiences at Tesla Supercharger stations using the current charging port location on R1S and R1T models—on the left side of the vehicle, directly in front of the driver’s door. At some Supercharger locations, in experiences well-documented on YouTube and in forum posts, Rivian drivers have had to get creative with parking to reach the charging port with the Tesla connector.
Rivian confirmed last June that it would adopt Tesla-based charging portAlso known as J3400, it is part of the North American Charging Standard (NACS). The R2 and R3 series were launched in March as prototypes. with the Tesla port located under the neatly minimized charging port doors on the rear right side of the vehicle, instead of the more cumbersome CCS port. Then in March, the company announced that it would begin shipping free NACS adapter for R1 customers, arriving in April, with Superchargers stations since then appearing in Plan your Rivian trip.
According to the US Department of Energy, there are currently 2,321 Tesla Supercharger stations in the United States, offering 26,217 charging ports.
Rivian NACS Conversion Kit
The right rear is for roadside charging, Rivian’s network
In March, at the launch ceremony Rivian R2 for $45,000as well as smaller, even The more affordable R3 and R3XAll are built on the same next-generation platform and are part of the same product line, Rivian officials say the charging port location on the right rear is a Ideal location for roadside charging. This is expected to become increasingly important in Europe, where Rivian hopes to sell more of these vehicles, and eventually more urban areas in the United States.
RivianR2
Rivian’s chief designer Jeff Hammoud then answered a few more questions about the charging port placement, showing that Rivian has put a lot of thought into the placement.
“We did a lot of research, and especially in left-hand drive countries in Europe,” Hammoud told a small group of people, including Green Car Reports. “We saw a lot of people charging their cars on the street, and you would see everything from charging cables wrapped around the hood to the other side, and we wanted to solve that problem.”
Hammoud summarized that placing the gate at the rear of the vehicle instead of the front means less wires, lighter and less expensive. What’s more, Rivian built its existing charging network for that purpose. front left position of R1And he added, “If you were to flip the car back into space, it’s essentially the exact same position.”
RivianR2
To emphasize what Rivian has confirmed and what it hasn’t, this location change is technically only confirmed for R2 so far, not necessarily R3.
Still, Tesla’s choice of location for the R2 suggests that the sheer volume of charging sessions on the Tesla Supercharger network could make it a worthwhile trade-off for customers, and perhaps for the brand’s image. Making these more mainstream, future cars more accessible on the Supercharger network means future traffic and revenue for those Tesla stations. Now, will any other automakers follow suit?
