Rivian Shows They Know How To Do National Park Charging – CleanTechnica

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From the beginning, Rivian has marketed itself as the best provider of “adventure vehicles,” and vehicles like the R1T and R1S have lived up to that promise. All over social media, Rivian owners excitedly share their tales of heading out and seeing the outdoors. The upcoming R2 and R3 models do the same thing, but in smaller, more nimble packages.

But, the vehicles are only part of the equation, and through sad experience, EV manufacturers have found that charging is often the bigger half of the battle. Tesla figured out early on that if you want it done right (or want it to happen at all in many cases), you have to do it yourself. Other manufacturers and charging companies found out the hard way that building a reliable network isn’t easy, and that you have to be involved to make it work.

Like Tesla, Rivian has been working on its own network for some time. Unlike Tesla, the company has been focusing on building what it’s calling the “Adventure Network,” again with the promise of access to the great outdoors. The question that we haven’t been able to answer until recently is whether the promise has been kept.

Thanks to the recent opening of a flagship site in Joshua Tree, California, just outside of the national park with the same name, we now have our answer. And it’s a good one.

Here’s a video showing exactly what Rivian has done with this new site: (article continues after video)

Perhaps most importantly, the station is conveniently located near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, making it easy for visitors to charge their EVs before or after their visit. In some ways, it would have been nicer to have this on the south side of the park next to the interstate, but there’s just about nothing on that end of the park. Being close to the amenities in Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms makes it the obvious choice.

Being close to the park not only makes it easier for EV drivers to explore the park from the hotels and campgrounds outside of the park, but it also makes it easier to use an EV as a power source when camping inside the park. By heading in with a full battery, you can camp in full comfort for days without needing to go find a charge. This is especially important for people towing a camper, and the station has one pull-through stall that people can use without unhooking.

In addition to powering cars, the station also offers a variety of amenities for the vehicles’ occupants, such as restrooms, a shop, a lounge, and Wi-Fi, making it a comfortable and convenient place to wait while your vehicle charges. Bathrooms are available 24 hours, which is important not only for drivers, but for Rivian because finding piss bottles every morning isn’t fun. What about vagrants occupying the stalls at night? They’re locked until someone there to actually charge gets a code from the app, so that shouldn’t be a big problem.

Rivian is also opening its charging network to all EVs, not just Rivian vehicles. This is a smart move that will help to accelerate the adoption of EVs and build a more inclusive charging infrastructure, of course, but there’s more to it than that. For Rivian’s interests, it’s good to let everyone else driving EVs see that the company is serious about adventure and the practical things needed to achieve it. For everyone else, a damned good beachhead for EV charging would attract other companies to invest in more charging.

The station also has an “adventure lab” where training, events, sales, and other things can take place. So, getting other EV owners in the door can have a big impact on sales going forward.

Rivian Proves Itself A Second Time After Making A Mistake

Planning for sustainable business is great, but you have to be ready to roll with the punches. Nobody knows everything, and researchers are coming up with new things to know about the environment all the time. So, in some ways, seeing how a company responds to inadvertently getting something wrong shows us how committed it is to the cause.

The great news is that when Rivian got called out on light pollution, the company proved that it wants to do the right thing.

Just spoke to some of them about this onsite. They’re doing a light pollution study this evening

— Kyle Conner (@itskyleconner) December 17, 2024

Joshua Tree National Park and surrounding communities have something really cool going for them: they’re the closest place to the LA metro area and the wider California Coast that has dark skies at night. On the north side of the park, away from Palm Springs and Indio, it’s possible to see the Milky Way. But, this will only be true as long as everyone in Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms keep the lights dimmer and better aimed at night.

The effects of light pollution reach into the national park. Light pollution is largely wasted light pouring into the atmosphere and then reflecting off dust particles and refracting in the gases of the atmosphere. This sky glow can affect views of the stars for dozens of miles at night, and larger cities have huge areas around them where one can only see a few stars. Joshua Tree national Park has sections toward the east end with Bortle class 2 darkness, which isn’t perfect, but still pretty good.

Sadly, Rivian’s normal charging practices weren’t great for the community’s light pollution. Bright lighting that isn’t pointed at the ground may look cool and futuristic, but it needed to be toned down to avoid spoiling views of the stars.

Instead of ignoring the problem or making a token effort to dim the lights, Rivian went as far as to have the light pollution from the new Joshua Tree charging site analyzed by experts to be sure that efforts to clean it up would actually work. I haven’t seen any information on what changes the company is making, but armed with that information, it should come up with some great answers not only for charger lighting, but lighting for the whole facility.

Featured image by Rivian.