Rivian spools up exclusive EV charging network to tackle Tesla Superchargers

After lots of teasing and hinting, Rivian made its Adventure Network EV charging station plans official on Thursday. The company plans to install not only this Adventure Network exclusive to Rivian vehicles, but also 10,000 chargers that will be open for public use. Why? Because Rivian is full of nice people, I suppose. 

Let's start with the Adventure Network. This bit of infrastructure will cross the entire US mainland and extend to include Hawaii and Alaska with 3,500 DC fast-chargers. A total of 600 stations will come online by the end of 2023 and the company said all Rivian owners will need to do is pull up and plug in. No membership cards or anything like that. The first stations will support 200 kilowatts of juice to start, but Rivian plans to amp things up with 300 kW and beyond after 2023. Future R1T pickup and R1S SUV owners will fill their battery packs with 140 miles of range in just 20 minutes, the company promised.

As for the public chargers, Rivian calls these Waypoints and plans to put 10,000 of them across the US and Canada by the end of 2023. They'll become common sights in shopping centers, restaurants, hotels, parks and other places. also operates a similar strategy, and interestingly enough, Rivian reportedly poached some former Tesla executives to help build out its charging infrastructure strategy.

Like the Adventure Network, Rivian owners will be able to charge their cars automatically by simply pulling up and plugging in. The public will need to jump through a couple of hoops, comparatively, though the company didn't go into detail about the process. These chargers will be rated at 11.5 kW, so expect to spend a little longer at these stations compared with the DC fast-chargers. Also note, they'll only work with EVs sporting the J1772 plug. The company also plans to cover at-home charging with its Rivian Wall Charger. The charger features identical specs to the Waypoints and should add 25 miles of range for every hour plugged in.

Rivian's gearing up to launch its first two vehicles in the R1T and R1S this summer, and so far, it looks like the company has its ducks in a row.

Charging the Rivian R1T off-grid with Power Innovations

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