Rivian has caved to pressure and will relocate the charger door on its upcoming R2 to the driver's side of the vehicle.
According to a poster on Rivian Forums, once of Rivian's Vice Presidents let news of the change slip at a showing of the R2 and R3X at the Rivian Space in Pasadena, California. InsideEVs was able to confirm that this change is, in fact, taking place.
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Why Haven't Automakers Standardized Charge Port Location?
Automakers seem to pepper the charge port at different locations. Some put it at the rear of the driver's side, others at the front fender. In Rivian's case, the automaker looked to place it at the rear passenger side. Now, as Tesla opens up its Supercharging network, the plague of small cables and random charger placement is biting automakers and charging networks alike.
To put it simply: if gas cars haven't done it in a century, do we really think that new EVs will do this any time soon?
"We can confirm the charge port will be located on rear driver’s side of R2," wrote a Rivian spokesperson in an email to InsideEVs. "We look forward to sharing more info and specs on R2 in the future."
Rivian did not share the reason that motivated the change.
When the R2 was revealed, many would-be buyers were perplexed: Why would Rivian put the charge port on the "wrong" side? After all, the automaker had just revealed that it would utilize Tesla's Supercharger network, requiring the R2 to double-park charging stalls like the R1.
Tesla is okay with double-parking, by the way, and even encourages it if done considerately. Tesla owners, however, aren't that thrilled.
Rivian's Chief Design Officer, Jeff Hammoud, said that the original charge location was on purpose and was meant to better accommodate charging while parking on the side of the street, as it is fairly common in Europe where Rivian also plans to sell the SUV.
"We did that for a couple of reasons," said Hammoud at the time of the R2's unveiling. "We did a lot of research and specifically in left-hand-drive countries in Europe we saw a lot of people charging cars on the street. You'd see charging cables like wrapped over hoods to get to the other side, and we wanted to solve that."
Now, Rivian also wouldn't comment on whether or not any other models would receive this change in the future. Its recently refreshed R1 series kept the charge port in the same location, which seems reasonable for a mid-cycle refresh on the truck.
However, its upcoming R3 and R3X seem like a perfectly reasonable candidate to receive this update. After all, if the R2 was far enough out on production that it could receive the change, surely Rivian will instill the same logic in its more mass-market commuter... right?
Rivian plans to launch the R2 in the first half of 2026 with the coveted oh-so-cute R3X hot hatch following shortly after.
