Rivian is redesigning a camp kitchen with an integrated grill?

The Rivian R1T sliding camp kitchen is a clever EV accessory, but may soon see a new iteration.

A patent application filed by Rivian in 2023 and published by the USPTO on July 18 shows an alternative camp kitchen design. The cookware still slides out of a gear tunnel pass-through behind the cab, but now includes a grill.

The grill appears to be a smaller version of the standard cookware, designed to fit in the gear tunnel and mounted on the same shuttle mechanism as the original version of the Camp Kitchen, powered by the R1T battery pack.

Rivian began showing off the original Camp Kitchen in 2019, advertising it for $5,000, but kept delaying its launch before removing the Camp Kitchen from the online configurator entirely in 2023. Thus, the usual caution that patented ideas do not equal production plans deserves special emphasis here.

However, this is not the only possible redesign of the camp kitchen that Rivian is trying to patent: in October 2023, another patent application surfaced showing a camp kitchen for the R1S SUV; since the R1S has no gear tunnel, the camp kitchen would be deployed from the SUV's tail deployed through the gate.

In addition to new accessories, Rivian has plenty of finished models: the $45,000 R2 SUV is slated to go into production in 2026, followed by the R3X and R3 hatchback. And Rivian just announced a partnership with the Volkswagen Group and teased four more EVs.