IRVINE, CA. – Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said his company’s upcoming EV charging partnership with Tesla won’t change how Rivian customers’ payment information and data are processed, a question on analysts’ minds as a growing number of electric carmakers adopt Tesla’s unique charging standards.
“There’s not any data transfer built into the relationship,” Scaringe said on a call with analysts on August 8 after Rivian reported second-quarter earnings. “It’s a charging relationship whereby our customers will access the network and ultimately pay for the charging, and that will flow from us through to Tesla.”
Rivian in June announced a partnership with Tesla that will allow Rivian owners to charge their vehicles at more than 12,000 Tesla superchargers in the U.S. and Canada starting next year. Tesla uses a special plug known as the North American Charging Standard (NACS) that’s incompatible with the industry-standard Combined Charging System (CCS), but a growing cohort of EV makers have come to embrace Tesla’s standards in the hope that Tesla’s vast charger network will make their cars more appealing.
In May, Ford and General Motors were the first to sign similar charging deals with Tesla. Rivian, Polestar, Volvo and Mercedes Benz quickly followed suit. Under their agreements, Tesla’s partner EV makers will provide certain existing customers with an adapter to access Tesla superchargers starting in 2024 and install NACS charging ports in new EV models in 2025. Rivian is the first company to clarify what paying for the service entails.
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