One of the coolest features on early Rivian R1Ts was the camp kitchen, which was a massive modular kitchen that slid out from the R1T’s gear tunnel between the pickup bed and passenger compartment and contained a cooktop, a sink, and a full set of pots and pans. Unfortunately the camp kitchen remains vaporware, but Rivian recently showed its new travel kitchen which isn’t anywhere near as cool as the camp kitchen, but will be compatible with R1, R2, and R3 models.
YouTuber Brian Tong attended a Rivian event where the company debuted the new travel kitchen design, which is a wide, flat surface, with half of it dedicated to being a two-burner induction cooktop, and the other half as counter space with a pull-out drawer for some storage of small items. Unlike the camp kitchen which had a sink and large item storage, the new travel kitchen is much more compact, but doesn’t offer a sink or any large item storage space. The sliding drawer does have enough space for a set of utensils, a cutting board, and space for other shallow kitchen accoutrement.
Another benefit of the travel kitchen is its price. Where the camp kitchen was supposed to cost $5,000 and never went on sale, the travel kitchen will be available starting this week for a price of $1,400. Though the Rivian employees wouldn’t show Tong how the travel kitchen will fold, it looks like it would fold in half right down the middle. The camp kitchen is powered by plugging it into one of the power outlets located in the rear of Rivians, it rests on the tailgate, and has two deployable poles that have a string of dimmable LED lights across the top to illuminate your cooking surfaces.
While the new travel kitchen is nowhere near as impressive as the camp kitchen concept was, it’s significantly cheaper, and most importantly it’s closer to being available for Rivian owners to purchase. Could you just buy a two-burner induction cooktop and a folding table? Absolutely, and it would be significantly cheaper than Rivian’s travel kitchen, but it wouldn’t be on-brand. Despite the disappointing lack of the gear tunnel camp kitchen, Rivian still deserves props for offering the travel kitchen as a nifty option for outdoorsy types.