Cost was a reason for charge port location on R2 / R3 + other info in RJ interview with Electrek

[ohseedee]

Cost being the reason for the rear placement makes total sense. Putting it on the passenger side because it’s diagonally opposite of R1 port makes no sense. How many R1 owners plan on replacing g their R1 with an R2? The entire reason for the R2 is to get it into hands of the masses that dont want to spend the money on an R1. Most of those will either be new EV buyers (don’t have a charger installed and dont care where the port is) and Tesla owners (who have chargers installed for rear driver). Now add the fact that this makes it equally hard to charge at V3 super chargers just makes this decision extremely dumb. The R2 I reserved will be replacing a Model Y and it will be impossible for me to charge an R2 with my current install.

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[Dark-Fx]

Cost being the reason for the rear placement makes total sense. Putting it on the passenger side because it’s diagonally opposite of R1 port makes no sense. How many R1 owners plan on replacing g their R1 with an R2? The entire reason for the R2 is to get it into hands of the masses that dont want to spend the money on an R1. Most of those will either be new EV buyers (don’t have a charger installed and dont care where the port is) and Tesla owners (who have chargers installed for rear driver). Now add the fact that this makes it equally hard to charge at V3 super chargers just makes this decision extremely dumb. The R2 I reserved will be replacing a Model Y and it will be impossible for me to charge an R2 with my current install.

I'm tending to think Rivian's placement was sort of a social experiment, the longer I think about it.

Passenger side has utility for places where you are charging curbside on a busy road. I've done this a non-zero amount of times, and driver's side sure feels sketchy.

For me, passenger doesn't significantly complicate the equation for every day charging. For trips, having a bike rack will complicate it being at the rear. Odds are we won't be taking trips in our R2 though, so ultimately will end up not mattering to me.

 

[Watty]

So put it on the driver's rear, where I can reach it when I get out of the car.

I step out of the driver's side and plug my vehicle in every. single. day. Often 2 or 3 times in a day (every time I park.) The R1 is convenient because the plug is just a single step away from the door. On the passenger rear means I have to park and then walk completely around literally the farthest possible distance to plug it in, not to mention anything about the disappointment of still not standardizing with NACS. Stupidest idea in the whole thing. Maybe California will regulate charge port location before 2026 and save us all.

Passenger side makes sense for Europe where everyone charges on the street, but the US has virtually no street charging because we don't need it - we have trillions of acres of free parking lots because god bless manifest destiny, so the North American charging standard should focus on driver convenience for North Americans.

God forbid you have to walk an extra 6 feet. What’s above whatever is above a “first world problem?”

 

[Spaceball1]

God forbid you have to walk an extra 6 feet. What’s above whatever is above a “first world problem?”

You’re not reading into all the issues here. Sure it’s convenient to have it on drivers side since that’s where the driver is. But also, many people have or can only have a charger mounted in certain locations in their garages, especially if they’re coming from other EVs like Tesla or ones that charge in the front.

For example: I have a Rivian charger mounted to the front of the garage which is great for my R1. For an R2, I don’t think the cord would reach to the complete opposite side or if it did it would be tight and I’d probably have to manage the cord being over the car. I also have a weird curved driveway that would be a huge pain to back the car in every day. If they had put the port on the rear drivers side, it’d be still good for my setup. Yes the cord would stretch longer but my charger is already on that side so it’s a direct shot.

Secondly, for fast chargers, everyone is switching to NACS mainly to take advantage of Teslas superchargers. It makes more sense to optimize your new models to work better for those chargers. Not sure why people are hating on Tesla and saying Tesla should change their 50,000 chargers to support the multitude of charging port locations ?‍ They already are for V4, but the amount of investment needed to upgrade all V3 to longer cords would be absurd. RAN compatibility is the big issue here, and not sure there’s a good solution for that, but RAN is such a small network in comparison.

 

[Watty]

1. If you can afford an R1, you can afford to move your charger if it bothers you that much.
2. Since the R1 charger is on the opposite corner, you could simply drive straight in and it would be on the correct side.
3. The fact that #2 isn't incredibly feasible based on your driveway isn't something the engineers needed to take into account. And you're either backing down the driveway on the way in or the way out, so not sure how prioritizing one over the other matters that much to you?
4. The vast majority of charging sessions happen at home, so increasing the cost of the vehicle to charge in a minority use case is the wrong situation to be prioritizing for design.

 

[SoCal Rob]

its 5 extra steps, we'll live.

Rivian is working hard to keep costs down and get profitable while still trying to deliver a compelling product. im all for the change.

I actually think passenger side rear is best and believe it's a great decision. There's plenty of people that don't adopt EVs because it's inconvenient to charge. Street charging is a viable option moving forward and with that, the passenger rear or front location is probably best

1. If you can afford an R1, you can afford to move your charger if it bothers you that much.
2. Since the R1 charger is on the opposite corner, you could simply drive straight in and it would be on the correct side.
3. The fact that #2 isn't incredibly feasible based on your driveway isn't something the engineers needed to take into account. And you're either backing down the driveway on the way in or the way out, so not sure how prioritizing one over the other matters that much to you?
4. The vast majority of charging sessions happen at home, so increasing the cost of the vehicle to charge in a minority use case is the wrong situation to be prioritizing for design.

The problem with the passenger side for quite a few people who charge at home will be space and access. Many folks have just enough room for the width of the vehicle plus space for the driver to open their door. In those cases, you can’t charge if you leave room to open the door on the driver’s side. As a general rule, if there’s enough space to enter/exit the vehicle on the driver’s side there will be enough space to access and use the charge port on that side so you never cause the access problem that you can create by putting it on the passenger’s side, which can double the clearance requirement in a garage.

 

[Watty]

That’s the first criticism I’ve seen that I think is warranted, but still, not enough of a factor for the overall market to justify increasing cost to accommodate it IMO.

 

[Gene]

My vote would be for driver's side rear for two reasons.

1. I was in a parking lot where a child was killed by a car backing out of the parking space and crushed a young child. One of the hwy patrol men there told me this is common. He said, "backing into a parking space and then pulling forward when leaving is very safe due to good visibility going in and out:. Sadly, he told me that he has seen these sorts of backing up in parking lots deaths before. I think Tesla made the right choice regardless of their reason. Can you imagine in a single day how many Tesla's in their 6 million car fleet would be having accidents or deaths backing up into a parking area with people and cars whizzing by behind them?

2. Ok, now the R2 will have it on the rear, a good thing noting reason #1. Please locate it on the drivers side. The Rivian network will never be more than the tiny fraction that it currently is compared to Tesla Superchargers. Let's face it, over 90% of Rivian owner's road trip charging will be at Tesla chargers for years and years to come.

 

[SoCal Rob]

That’s the first criticism I’ve seen that I think is warranted, but still, not enough of a factor for the overall market to justify increasing cost to accommodate it IMO.

I’d say it is enough of a factor since it’s not a matter of cost, convenience, or anything else with a work-around. If that’s your situation and there is no way to work around it the solutions are:
1. Move
2. Buy a different vehicle

Most people won’t consider moving so they’ll buy a different EV or stick with ICE if it takes away one of the primary benefits of EV over other vehicles: charging at home.

 

[Grabs10]

Having the charge port on the passenger side rear eliminates a lot of DCFC that you can use. Drivers side rear opens up a bunch of DCFC opportunities. It’s almost if Rivian intends to sell a lot of these they are intending and intentionally trying to create chaos in the US DCFC charge opportunities

 

[Autolycus]

Remember, they do intend this to be a global model, not just a North American one like the R1. Curb-side charging will be a more important use case with R2 and I imagine especially R3 at some point.

I really like the current port location but am pretty sure I could make anything work in my garage. I pull front in, but the 25’ cable can reach any corner. Just a matter of hanging it from the ceiling so it’s accessible to the rear instead of the front.

 

[rhumbliner]

its 5 extra steps, we'll live.

Unless the R2 has any kind of towing ability. Then it will be a huge PITA. Not only will you be forced to walk around the trailer but you’ll have to enter the RAN pull thru in the wrong direction. This is a case where consideration of the Euro market makes a bad design decision for the US market.

 

[Autolycus]

Unless the R2 has any kind of towing ability. Then it will be a huge PITA. Not only will you be forced to walk around the trailer but you’ll have to enter the RAN pull thru in the wrong direction. This is a case where consideration of the Euro market makes a bad design decision for the US market.

Walk around the trailer? You could go around the front of the car, couldn’t you?

I think “wrong way” is all relative, isn’t it?

Long-term, DCFC sites will need to start being designed like gas stations. Covered spots that you pull through and that work better for all port locations should be the norm. I understand why most existing stations are in parking lots for strip malls, etc. but over time that will change. Those types of stations will continue to exist, but many Sheetz, Wawa, Bucees, Loves, etc. will have stations like they have gas pumps.

 

[Spaceball1]

1. If you can afford an R1, you can afford to move your charger if it bothers you that much.
2. Since the R1 charger is on the opposite corner, you could simply drive straight in and it would be on the correct side.
3. The fact that #2 isn't incredibly feasible based on your driveway isn't something the engineers needed to take into account. And you're either backing down the driveway on the way in or the way out, so not sure how prioritizing one over the other matters that much to you?
4. The vast majority of charging sessions happen at home, so increasing the cost of the vehicle to charge in a minority use case is the wrong situation to be prioritizing for design.

Cool assumption that R1 owners love to just throw away money ?

Anyway, I’m talking about the general public that would be interested in buying one of these. My BIL has a Kia Niro EV with charge port in the front. Many Tesla owners (like me) will convert to Rivian. They all likely have the chargers in a place to reach those vehicles. By 2026 especially, a significant portion of buyers of R2/R3 will be EV owners of other brands. Making the transition simple for those (and many will be middle-class, not unlimited income like apparently R1 owners have ?). Even EV owners can be resistant to change, so it could be little things like this that keep them with their current brand.

I never said they’d need it increase the cost. Putting it on driver’s rear would be cost neutral and seems like it’d be the best compromise.

Everyone is going to complain no matter where it is.

 

[Killer95Stang]

California is not the bee all and end all and should not regulate for the rest of the country.

If you let CA regulate the location, it will undoubtedly be mandated on the center of the roof. No thanks...

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