Rivian Service Center in Shelton is Finally Open
After a lengthy legal battle, followed by the time necessary to build out the facility, the Rivian Service Center in Shelton, CT has finally opened. Rivian R1S owner and EV Club member, Jeff Manfredonia, sent us these pix after his recent service experience, which he characterized as “excellent” and which included a tour of the facility (no pix allowed in the service area).
The facility is located at 2 Mountain View Drive in Shelton, east of Route 8 and west of the Housatonic River. It was a long road to get to this point.
Dealerships Do Everything They Can to Interfere With Automakers That Use A Direct Sales Model
As we have seen happen with Tesla, a local dealership will step in with a lawsuit using the pretext that the company plans to violate the law. In the case of Tesla, East Hartford was successfully bullied into rescinding a permit, and South Windsor, after the dealerships showed up in force for a hearing, was afraid to grant one. The legal action in the case of Rivian was filed by the local dealership, Mario D’Addario Buick, and TD Properties. The complaint followed the same playbook with the same made-up accusation. The specific language in the filing said Rivian planned to engage in the “sale of new and used Rivian vehicles in violation of Connecticut law.” (For the record, the franchise laws apply only to new vehicles.)
After a favorable ruling and an unsuccessful appeal by the plaintiff, Rivian ultimately prevailed. We published multiple blog posts describing these events in this and two earlier posts.
Shelton granted zoning approval in October, 2022 and the subsequent 12 months were consumed by the litigation. The final denial of the plaintiff’s appeals and motions for reconsideration occurred on October 18th, 2023. Rivian then had to renovate the structure for its purposes.
The Facility
This is a service facility with a visitor lounge and service area. There is no showroom and no sales activity of any kind takes place there. The facility will not be used for the delivery of new vehicles. There were reports that Rivian was considering this. We don’t know definitively if that was true but if that were the case, it would skate close to the line drawn in the franchise laws.
Rivian Electric Van
Aside from the R1T pickup and R1S SUV, Rivian manufactures an electric van. The one in the photo is used for Rivian mobile service. The company has an order of 100,000 delivery vans from part-owner Amazon.
Looks like we the consumers finally prevail. That dealership should be ashamed; a well run business should not be afraid of competition.