Rivian is preparing its powertrain test lab for “future 900 V platforms,” according to a job posting. That is double the “up to 450 V” rating Rivian gives the batteries in its current models.
The listing, for an Engineering Intern in Powertrain Testing in Tustin, California, was posted on Thursday.
The intern will “assist experienced test engineers with lab-readiness activities in preparation for testing future 900 V platforms,” the posting says.
It does not name a model, a program or a timeline and the internship runs full time from January to August 2027.
Rivian owner and content creator Chris Hilbert first flagged the job listing in a post on X on Friday.
The EV maker has not announced any vehicle with an 800- or 900-volt architecture.
Double Today’s Ceiling
Rivian rates the batteries in its current vehicles at up to 450 volts in its first responder guides.
“Rivian vehicles use a lithium-ion high-voltage battery (up to 450 V),” the company says in its first responder guide for the R2, dated April 24.
It uses the same wording in the May guide for its commercial vans, and its R1T guide gives the same maximum.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe described a move to 900 volts as early as 2018, before the R1 went on sale.
The pack could double the number of cells in series and halve the number in parallel, he said at the Los Angeles Auto Show that year.
“So we go from a peak of 450 volts to 900,” Scaringe said, according to Green Car Reports.
“As the world builds out 800-volt capability, everything’s architected so very quickly we can switch over to 800 volts,” he said.
In that interview he used both 800 and 900 volts for the same change. Eight hundred volts is the industry’s usual label, while 900 volts is the peak of a pack doubled from 450 volts.
Rivian has not said whether the “900 V platforms” in the posting refer to such an 800-volt-class system.
Rivian filed a US patent application in 2018 for a pack that switches its modules from 450 volts to 900 volts for fast charging. It was granted in 2020.
One Posting in 791
An EV search of the full text of all 791 open postings on Rivian’s careers site on Saturday found no other that mentions 900 volts.
A separate listing at Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies, Rivian’s software and electronics joint venture with Volkswagen, asks for experience with “HV battery systems (400V/900V).”
That role, a Test and Integration Engineer in Irvine, California, published on Wednesday, tests the venture’s zonal controllers and battery-management electronics.
A Rivian charging test role in Torrance, California, posted in April, asks for experience with “high voltage systems up to 1000VDC.”
800 Volts, Then Deferred
Rivian told investors in March 2022 that it was developing a “proprietary 800-volt architecture which includes a new in-house family of drive units for both Dual and Quad-Motor configurations,” in its shareholder letter.
The company has since kept the R2 at 400 volts.
An 800-volt system is “just not as critical” for the R2, Scaringe said at a roundtable with reporters in November 2024, InsideEVs reported back then.
“R2 we’ve optimized more around cost, to make sure we deliver great performance but [at] these price points. I don’t think it’s as important in a smaller vehicle,” he said.
“We think ultimately the charge times need to be sub-20 minutes for that 10-80 time. We’re 100% aligned on that. You can get there with [400v],” Scaringe said.
He said the larger R1 would “need to transition” to an 800- or 900-volt setup, without giving a date, according to InsideEVs.
The posting does not say whether its 900-volt platforms relate to the R1.
R2 Stays Below 450 Volts
The R2, which Rivian began delivering this year, charges from 10% to 80% in “under 30 minutes,” Rivian says in an R2 fast-charging guide published on Wednesday. The guide gives no peak charging power.
The R2 peaked at 229 kW in an ‘Out of Spec’ test last July.
Rivian had given a 29-minute 10–80% time when it revealed the R2’s full specifications in March, as EV reported.
“The chemistry we selected, we optimised around energy density, or I should say cost per kilowatt hour, versus fast charge,” Scaringe told Out of Spec in March.
“Future versions of R2, I will say, it will be faster,” he said, without saying how.
Vidya Rajagopalan, Rivian’s Senior Vice President of Electrical Hardware, told Design News in June that the R2 pack was a 400-volt system because the car was built to a target price and the extra benefit of 800 volts was marginal today.
Nothing in the posting refers to the R2.
A Rivian engineer said this week that the company had considered what a move to 800 volts would involve.
“It is not just 400 versus 800,” Dmitry Fudym, Rivian’s Principal EDS Engineer and Manager, told Automotive Manufacturing Solutions in an interview published on Friday. “You have to push on what is out there.”
Asked what would change first if Rivian moved to 800 volts, Fudym pointed to qualifying suppliers before insulation or cooling, the publication reported.
Rivian has stayed close to 450 volts in both the second-generation R1 and the R2, it wrote.
Rivian’s charging network already covers higher voltages than its own vehicles. Its next-generation chargers “will deliver rapid charging to both 400 and 800-volt packs,” the company said in April 2024.
Its current charging cabinet supports 200 to 920 volts, EV reported in June.
