Rivian has published a patent application for a wall-mounted charger that can send power from an EV’s battery back into a house, as the premium brand builds the hardware it needs to offer vehicle-to-home power.
The application, titled “Systems and Methods for Reducing EMI in a Bidirectional Charger Based on Layout and Packaging,” was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday and filed by Rivian IP Holdings in May 2025.
Rivian owner and X user Chris Hilbert first flagged the filing, posting pages from the document.
It describes a charger “mounted to structure 101 (e.g., a wall, frame, or other structure configured to provide mechanical support)” and connected to the power grid to move AC power in both directions.
The charger “may be configured to draw power from the battery of electric vehicle 190 and transfer that power” to the grid or another AC load, including “a breaker panel of a house,” the filing says.
The publication is an application, not a granted patent.
Quiet Two-Way Charger
The filing focuses on electromagnetic interference, or EMI, the unwanted electrical noise that a charger converting power in both directions can generate.
Fast-switching transistors, which the filing says can be silicon carbide-based, can “introduce EMI into nearby conductors, or even introduce harmonics” into the AC connections beyond their 60 Hz primary frequency, according to the application.
Rivian’s approach relies on how the charger’s components are arranged and packaged, rather than only on larger filters.
The charger has three stages. A filter conditions the incoming AC power. A first power circuit converts between AC and a first DC bus. A second power circuit, built around one or more transformers, converts between that bus and a second, higher-voltage DC bus that connects to the vehicle’s battery.
The switching devices can be MOSFETs, and the drawings show two transformer-based converters running in parallel in the second stage.
Two Filters
The main EMI filter, which sits nearest the grid, uses a nanocrystalline core, a magnetic material with “high permeability, and high frequency response” that keeps losses and heat low, the filing says.
A second filter with a ferrite core sits between it and the switching devices. Without it, high-frequency content from fast switching “may cause the filter to suffer relatively large losses,” leading to more heat, according to the application.
In one example, the nanocrystalline filter reaches its maximum impedance at around 10 kilohertz and the ferrite filter at around 1 kilohertz.
A U-Shaped Power Path
The filing lays out the path power takes through the charger as “an upside-down U-shape,” which it says addresses differential-mode EMI. Current on one side of the loop runs parallel to, and opposite from, current on the other.
Grounding terminals sit outside that loop, which the filing says lessens EMI propagated to ground.
The filter and power circuits connect through standoffs with integrated conductors “rather than wires, to lessen inductance and thus impedance.” The printed circuit boards keep high-voltage, low-voltage control and analog-to-digital converter layers separate.
Instead of a separate metal shield over the transformers, a layer of a printed circuit board can act as the shield. In one example, it is the sixth layer of a six-layer board.
“By omitting a separate shield, the spacing may be reduced (e.g., tighter packaging) because fasteners and additional shield materials are not needed,” the application says.
Second Filing on the Same Unit
The filing follows a separate Rivian application, published in April, for a wall-mounted electronics housing designed to manage two-way energy flow between an EV and a home.
That earlier application, filed on April 25, 2025, 10 days before the new one, described the enclosure, heat sinks and control boards, and how antennas were positioned within the housing. The new one details the power electronics that would sit inside such a unit.
Charger Still Missing
Rivian said in its third-quarter 2025 shareholder letter that the R2 includes “a bidirectional on-board charger” that “is designed to take power from the vehicle to power your home.” A footnote said bidirectional charging “will require additional equipment to enable home power usage from the vehicle.”
“Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) backup is a two-way street – the car handles the power export, but you still need the right companion hardware installed at your house,” Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid said in a Reddit question-and-answer session in June. He pointed to “a bidirectional wall charger and the correct metering hardware.”
Bensaid said vehicle-to-home backup would not be available at the R2’s launch and gave no timing for the home equipment.
Rivian’s deliveries rose 46% to 19,248 in the third quarter, the R2’s first full quarter on sale.
California Energy Commission
The charger in the new filing converts power inside the wall unit and connects to the vehicle through a DC interface and charging cable.
That differs from a separate Rivian project funded by the California Energy Commission, which approved a $2,144,780 grant to Rivian for a “Low-Cost Interoperable AC Bidirectional Charging Solution.”
That project pairs an AC charger with an islanding device installed between the utility service entry and the main electrical panel, which isolates the home during outages. Using the vehicle’s onboard hardware “eliminates the need for expensive off-board power conversion,” according to its scope of work.
It targets an installed cost “at least 35% lower than competing products” and compatibility with non-Rivian EVs capable of AC bidirectional charging. The grant runs from October 1, 2025, to March 31, 2029.
