- Rivian confirmed rear left cost port location in upcoming R2 fashions
- Had beforehand indicated rear proper for streetside charging and Rivian’s personal networks
- Means R2 homeowners can have a better time utilizing Supercharger stations
Entrance, rear, left, proper? Automakers nonetheless can’t agree on the place to position EV cost ports on the car. However it seems that Tesla’s longtime most popular location on the left rear might have swayed one other U.S. EV maker—Rivian.
Information of Rivian’s change in location for future EVs got here Thursday by way of Rivian Boards. There, a contributor famous that because the R2 and R3X have been being proven on the Rivian Area in Pasadena, Calif., an government confirmed the transfer in cost port location from the model’s at present set proper rear location.
“We are able to affirm the cost port will likely be situated on (the) rear driver’s facet of R2,” said a Rivian spokesperson to Inexperienced Automotive Studies Friday. “We sit up for sharing extra information and specs on R2 sooner or later.”
Rivian R1T at Tesla Supercharger
Attain points with R1 cost port at Superchargers?
The shift might have one thing to do with Rivian homeowners’ experiences at Tesla Supercharger stations utilizing the present charge-port location of R1S and R1T fashions—on the left facet of the car, simply forward of the motive force’s door. At some Supercharger places, in experiences nicely documented on YouTube and in discussion board posts, Rivian drivers have needed to get artistic with parking with the intention to attain their cost port with the Tesla connector.
Rivian confirmed final June that it might undertake the Tesla-based cost port, additionally known as J3400, as a part of the North American Charging Commonplace (NACS). The R2 and R3 households made their debut in March in prototype kind with the Tesla port beneath neatly downsized charge-port doorways on the proper rear of the car, as a substitute of the bulkier CCS port. Then in March it introduced that it might start transport free NACS adapters to R1 prospects, arriving in April, with Superchargers since then showing in Rivian journey planning.
There are at present 2,321 Tesla Supercharger places within the U.S., providing 26,217 charging ports, in keeping with the U.S. Division of Vitality.
Rivian NACS adapter
Proper rear was for streetside charging, Rivian’s networks
In March, on the launch of the $45,000 Rivian R2, in addition to the smaller, even extra inexpensive R3 and R3X, all constructed on the identical next-generation platform and a part of the identical product household, Rivian officers recommended that the cost port placement on the rear proper was an very best location for streetside charging—anticipated to be more and more vital in Europe, the place Rivian is hoping to promote many of those automobiles, and ultimately extra U.S. city environments.
Rivian R2
Rivian’s head designer Jeff Hammoud then fielded some further questions in regards to the placement of the cost port, making clear that Rivian had already given the placement quite a lot of thought.
“We did quite a lot of analysis and particularly in left-hand-drive international locations in Europe,” Hammoud mentioned to a small group together with Inexperienced Automotive Studies. “We noticed lots of people charging automobiles on the road, and also you’d see something from charging cables wrapped over hoods to get to the opposite facet, and we needed to unravel that.”
Hammoud summed that placing the port on the rear of the car versus the entrance meant fewer wires, much less weight, and fewer price. Additional, Rivian has been constructing its present charging community for that entrance left place of the R1, and he added that “when you’re gonna flip the automobile again into the area, it is primarily the very same location.”
Rivian R2
And to underscore what Rivian has confirmed versus what it hasn’t, this shift in location is technically to date solely confirmed for the R2, not essentially the R3.
The selection of the Tesla location for the R2 does nevertheless recommend that the sheer quantity of expenses on the Tesla Supercharger community might make it a worthwhile tradeoff for patrons, and maybe for the model’s picture. And in making these future, extra mass-market automobiles simpler to make use of on the Supercharger community, it’s future site visitors and income for these Tesla stations. Now, will every other automakers observe?
