Rivian is close to securing a $6 billion loan to fund construction in Georgia of its second production facility, the company announced late Monday. This would give new life to a project that Rivian was forced to put on hold earlier in 2024, for financial reasons. The new facility is intended to accommodate the company’s expanding lineup, as it’s slated to build the new R2, R3, and R3X when they’re put into production in coming years.
Per the company’s announcement, it has received “conditional commitment” from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program for a total of $6.6 billion (the additional $600 million covers interest). With final execution of the loan still pending, Rivian is at the mercy of bureaucracy; the incoming Trump administration could potentially scuttle the deal—or even attempt to claw it back after the fact, AP reports.
Rivian currently operates a single factory in Normal, Illinois, where it builds the R1S, R1T and its commercial delivery vans. The Georgia plant was pitched as a supplemental production facility for Rivian’s existing models. It was originally projected to employ as many as 7,500 workers when fully spun up, and Rivian reiterated that figure with this week’s announcement.
“Rivian intends to build the facility in two phases, each resulting in 200,000 units of annual production capacity, for a total of 400,000 units of annual capacity–supporting the sale of American EVs in international markets,” the announcement said. “Phase 1 of the project is expected to start production in 2028. Rivian is expected to create approximately 7,500 operations jobs through 2030.”
Rivian says the loan allows it to more aggressively scale its U.S. manufacturing efforts, and it confirmed that this expansion will include the capacity necessary to build the new R2 and R3. The former is due in 2026. If Rivian keeps to that promise, we can expect the first production R2s to roll out of Illinois, rather than Georgia.
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