Before leaving for Christmas in 2019, I was told that I’d be designing the Rivian charging family and the strategy team laid out an aggressive timeline that had strategy parallel pathing with design and with the electrical system development until we kicked off production in June 2020. It was the perfect example of the Rivian saying “Building a plane while flying it.”

Despite the incredibly fast design timeline, I took time at the beginning to understand the customer needs and define a philosophy for the chargers that made sense for the Rivian brand. By identifying where we could install the chargers to best benefit our customers (recreation corridors and local recreation destinations) I was able to design chargers that looked like they belonged there instead of like a spaceship that accidentally landed at a trailhead. This (and the incredibly hard work of the rest of the team) has led to the adoption of Rivian chargers by state and national parks, REIs, and local business along recreational corridors. It was an honor designing chargers which help to challenge the idea that EVs are only city cars.