5 ms·

TIL Rivian has a charging network

by bdcravens 2y ago

pbreit 2y ago
~90 locations?
- bdcravens 2y ago
  Yeah I've just never seen one, and don't have a Rivian, so it never came across the media I consume. I'm in the Houston area, and they only have 3 in Texas, none of which are near me. Only one is on a freeway that I may likely encounter.
  - Rebelgecko 2y ago
    They're more common further west, especially around national parks and other outdoorsy areas
  - mikeryan 2y ago
    I've got a Rivian and have only used their chargers on a road trip to Whistler from the Bay Area. One was in Shasta behind a little hotel—you'd not see it if you weren't looking for it. The other was at a Homewood Suites lot somewhere in Southern Oregon. Unsurprisingly, these were back-to-back stops. So, I think they were specifically put there to help bridge a gap between Northern CA and Southern OR.
    - recursive 2y ago
      If you were going to use it, your car's navigation would probably route you there, and you wouldn't need to look for it. FWIW.
      - mikeryan 2y ago
        Agreed. That comment was just a response to the parent who commented that they hadn't seen RAN chargers often. Of note, right by the Shasta station was a large Supercharger bank, so the planning for this was probably done before the Rivian deal to use Tesla chargers and the free adapter program Rivian implemented. They may have kept that one anyway, considering the Shasta Area is probably underserved and fits Rivian's target market for their stations ("adventure" areas)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  The key is that they are mostly in remote areas, not the cities.
asynchronous 2y ago
They must not have one, because they’re ALWAYS taking up two stalls at the Tesla supercharger ones.
- menthe 2y ago
  Take this to daddy Elon - this has absolutely nothing to do with Rivian.
  - ggreer 2y ago
    Rivian placed their charging port on the front left corner, while Teslas have ports on the rear left corner. So to charge a Rivian at a Tesla Supercharger, you have to park in the adjacent spot and plug in.[1] More Supercharging stations are adding "trailer compatible" spots, so this should become less of an issue over time. I would also bet that EV manufacturers will standardize on a port location similar to how gas vehicles have. (Early gas vehicles often put the fill hole in places like the dash or under the seat.) 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comments/1f0wt4v/okay_is_there_actually_a_way_for_us_not_to_esse/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comments/1f0wt4v/okay_is_the...
    - Schiendelman 2y ago
      Rivian designed their vehicles long before Tesla offered them access to superchargers.
      - averageRoyalty 2y ago
        Globally, Tesla chargers have been available to most EVs for many years. America moving to a standard shouldn't have shocked anyone.
        vel0city 2y ago
        The chargers shouldn't have been made so short as to only ever accept 2-3 models of cars with identical charger placements. But they were designed to only work with a few Tesla models, so they weren't designed with flexibility in mind. Even Cybertrucks towing have a big issue with the vast majority of existing deployed chargers. Lots of ICE vehicles have their gas inlets in a number of different spots. Some even have them behind the rear license plate! And yet people don't seem to have an issue getting gas in their cars. IMO having the vast majority of chargers at the head like that was a bad decision. Putting them on the side of the spots makes a ton of sense and really opens up a lot of flexibility.
Animats 2y ago
Rivian's R&D center is in Palo Alto, but their charger map doesn't show a public charger anywhere near there. They have zero chargers of their own in Silicon Valley. There's a standards group at SAE working on making US charger payment compatibility work.[1] BP Pulse, General Motors, Ford, ChargePoint, Electrify America, Tesla, Toyota, and Rivian are on board. It's good to see more higher-powered chargers. When and if solid state batteries with 9 minute charge times ship in volume, they'll need big chargers. QuantumState and ProLogium announced "breakthroughs" again this week. They do that a lot. Samples of solid state batteries do exist. It's quantity production that's hard. Ehang, the flying car company, demonstrated a 48 minute flight using prototype solid state batteries recently.[2] As I've said before, I think the future is one for one replacement of gasoline pumps with fast chargers. Once charge times drop below 10 minutes, a charging station doesn't have to look like a parking lot. [1] https://www.sae.org/news/2024/12/sae-itc-plug-and-charge-framework https://www.sae.org/news/2024/12/sae-itc-plug-and-charge-fra... [2] https://www.ehang.com/article/ https://www.ehang.com/article/
- judge2020 2y ago
  > Rivian's R&D center is in Palo Alto, but their charger map doesn't show a public charger anywhere near there. They have zero chargers of their own in Silicon Valley. Similarly, Tesla chargers in the New York area were the first to receive Magic Docks because their Energy manufacturing facility is there including the engineering aspects of it.
- ac29 2y ago
  > Rivian's R&D center is in Palo Alto, but their charger map doesn't show a public charger anywhere near there. They have zero chargers of their own in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley has one of the highest density of EV chargers in the world, why would Rivian need to build more? Their goal appears to be covering areas poorly served to expand the places EV owners can go. This seems much more valuable than adding another plug to an already well served urban area.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
Yeah, and they have chargers in outdoorsy places where others don't. Great news for other EV owners who like to get into the great outdoors (national parks, etc.)
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  Rivian's brand identity was trying to push the off-road/nature usage of their trucks/SUVs, so that focus made a lot of sense. They announced a big partnership with the Parks Department to have chargers at major National Parks. I hope that partnership will continue even as the network opens up to more users, because that was an interesting focus for a charger network.

TIL Rivian has a charging network

pbreit 2y ago

~90 locations?

bdcravens 2y ago
Yeah I've just never seen one, and don't have a Rivian, so it never came across the media I consume. I'm in the Houston area, and they only have 3 in Texas, none of which are near me. Only one is on a freeway that I may likely encounter.
- Rebelgecko 2y ago
  They're more common further west, especially around national parks and other outdoorsy areas
- mikeryan 2y ago
  I've got a Rivian and have only used their chargers on a road trip to Whistler from the Bay Area. One was in Shasta behind a little hotel—you'd not see it if you weren't looking for it. The other was at a Homewood Suites lot somewhere in Southern Oregon. Unsurprisingly, these were back-to-back stops. So, I think they were specifically put there to help bridge a gap between Northern CA and Southern OR.
  - recursive 2y ago
    If you were going to use it, your car's navigation would probably route you there, and you wouldn't need to look for it. FWIW.
    - mikeryan 2y ago
      Agreed. That comment was just a response to the parent who commented that they hadn't seen RAN chargers often. Of note, right by the Shasta station was a large Supercharger bank, so the planning for this was probably done before the Rivian deal to use Tesla chargers and the free adapter program Rivian implemented. They may have kept that one anyway, considering the Shasta Area is probably underserved and fits Rivian's target market for their stations ("adventure" areas)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
insane_dreamer 2y ago
The key is that they are mostly in remote areas, not the cities.

asynchronous 2y ago

They must not have one, because they’re ALWAYS taking up two stalls at the Tesla supercharger ones.

menthe 2y ago
Take this to daddy Elon - this has absolutely nothing to do with Rivian.
- ggreer 2y ago
  Rivian placed their charging port on the front left corner, while Teslas have ports on the rear left corner. So to charge a Rivian at a Tesla Supercharger, you have to park in the adjacent spot and plug in.[1] More Supercharging stations are adding "trailer compatible" spots, so this should become less of an issue over time. I would also bet that EV manufacturers will standardize on a port location similar to how gas vehicles have. (Early gas vehicles often put the fill hole in places like the dash or under the seat.) 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comments/1f0wt4v/okay_is_there_actually_a_way_for_us_not_to_esse/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comments/1f0wt4v/okay_is_the...
  - Schiendelman 2y ago
    Rivian designed their vehicles long before Tesla offered them access to superchargers.
    - averageRoyalty 2y ago
      Globally, Tesla chargers have been available to most EVs for many years. America moving to a standard shouldn't have shocked anyone.
      - vel0city 2y ago
        The chargers shouldn't have been made so short as to only ever accept 2-3 models of cars with identical charger placements. But they were designed to only work with a few Tesla models, so they weren't designed with flexibility in mind. Even Cybertrucks towing have a big issue with the vast majority of existing deployed chargers. Lots of ICE vehicles have their gas inlets in a number of different spots. Some even have them behind the rear license plate! And yet people don't seem to have an issue getting gas in their cars. IMO having the vast majority of chargers at the head like that was a bad decision. Putting them on the side of the spots makes a ton of sense and really opens up a lot of flexibility.

Animats 2y ago

Rivian's R&D center is in Palo Alto, but their charger map doesn't show a public charger anywhere near there. They have zero chargers of their own in Silicon Valley. There's a standards group at SAE working on making US charger payment compatibility work.[1] BP Pulse, General Motors, Ford, ChargePoint, Electrify America, Tesla, Toyota, and Rivian are on board. It's good to see more higher-powered chargers. When and if solid state batteries with 9 minute charge times ship in volume, they'll need big chargers. QuantumState and ProLogium announced "breakthroughs" again this week. They do that a lot. Samples of solid state batteries do exist. It's quantity production that's hard. Ehang, the flying car company, demonstrated a 48 minute flight using prototype solid state batteries recently.[2] As I've said before, I think the future is one for one replacement of gasoline pumps with fast chargers. Once charge times drop below 10 minutes, a charging station doesn't have to look like a parking lot. [1] https://www.sae.org/news/2024/12/sae-itc-plug-and-charge-framework https://www.sae.org/news/2024/12/sae-itc-plug-and-charge-fra... [2] https://www.ehang.com/article/ https://www.ehang.com/article/

judge2020 2y ago
> Rivian's R&D center is in Palo Alto, but their charger map doesn't show a public charger anywhere near there. They have zero chargers of their own in Silicon Valley. Similarly, Tesla chargers in the New York area were the first to receive Magic Docks because their Energy manufacturing facility is there including the engineering aspects of it.
ac29 2y ago
> Rivian's R&D center is in Palo Alto, but their charger map doesn't show a public charger anywhere near there. They have zero chargers of their own in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley has one of the highest density of EV chargers in the world, why would Rivian need to build more? Their goal appears to be covering areas poorly served to expand the places EV owners can go. This seems much more valuable than adding another plug to an already well served urban area.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

Yeah, and they have chargers in outdoorsy places where others don't. Great news for other EV owners who like to get into the great outdoors (national parks, etc.)

WorldMaker 2y ago
Rivian's brand identity was trying to push the off-road/nature usage of their trucks/SUVs, so that focus made a lot of sense. They announced a big partnership with the Parks Department to have chargers at major National Parks. I hope that partnership will continue even as the network opens up to more users, because that was an interesting focus for a charger network.