Rivian Automotive and Tesla inked a deal for access to the Elon Musk-run company’s Supercharger network for electric vehicles (EVs).
Rivian, which is based in Irvine, California, said Tuesday morning that access to Tesla’s network will initially come through adapters for its EVs. Those adapters will roll out "as early as spring 2024," according to the electric vehicle maker.
That will be followed by the implementation of North American Charging Standard (NACS) ports "as standard" in new cars from its current range of EVs commencing in 2025, Rivian said in a press release. The company’s next platform, R2, is currently expected to take place in 2026, and it indicated Tuesday it will have the ports too.
The Rivian-Tesla agreement comes about seven months after Tesla said it was "opening our EV connector design to the world," publishing the specs for the design to its website.
The timeline for Rivian taking up the NACS port design in its EVs resembles those previously announced by Ford and General Motors.
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Earlier in June, General Motors identified 2025 as the year it intended to add the NACS design into its EVs as it unveiled its own Supercharger network agreement with Tesla. That is the same year Ford is targeting for kicking off the incorporation of Tesla’s NACS.
Over 12,000 of Tesla’s Superchargers are expected to open up to the automakers.
Musk said earlier in June at a conference that "opening up the chargers is morally right," as previously reported by FOX Business. He described the move as "something that will help the industry become more electric" and "help power sustainability."
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"The adoption of the North American Charging Standard will enable our existing and future customers to leverage Tesla’s expansive Supercharger network while we continue to build out our Rivian Adventure Network," Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said on Tuesday.
Rivian is working to make its Adventure Network hit over 3,500 fast chargers in the U.S. and Canada, according to its website. Those chargers will be installed at over 600 different locations.
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In April, Tesla reported it has seen its global supercharger network expand year over year.
For the first quarter of 2023, the company said the total number of Supercharger stations it had climbed 33% to 4,947. Its count of Supercharger connectors, meanwhile, was 45,169, a 34% increase from the 33,657 it had in the same three-month period the prior year.
Breck Dumas contributed to this report
