Rivian is expanding its manufacturing presence to the East Coast, with construction of a new Georgia plant underway — along with the regional headquarters in the city of Atlanta.
Currently, the EV maker produces vehicles at its Normal, Illinois facility, which will soon shut down for three weeks to undergo upgrades in preparation for the upcoming R2 SUV.
Rivian said back in 2021 that the Georgia factory would employ 7,500 workers.
Starting from late 2027, the new plant is expected to support production of both the R2 and R3 models.
In a fireside chat with Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas this Thursday, founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said that Rivian will have an official groundbreaking cerimony with Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp in mid-September.
“We actually have a ceremony there next week with an official groundbreaking with the governor,” Scaringe said.
According to an email sent to Automotive Dive, Rivian will hold a community event on September 14 (Sunday), which will be followed by the formal cerimony on the 16th (Tuesday), as construction of the Georgia site is planned to restart in 2026.
The $5 billion project was set to be completed in 2024, however, construction was delayed as several land owners around the site protested the construction.
The State of Georgia is now seeking reimbursement for the legal fees it incurred in multiple citizen lawsuits concerning the plant, arguing that the litigation was merely intended to delay the construction process.
The new facility is expected to take approximately 36 months to build, with partial operations projected to begin in the third quarter of 2027 and sales of its production expected to begin in 2028.
The plant is set to provide an additional 400,000 units of annual capacity for R2 and R3, once fully built.
The CEO further mentioned this Thursday that the State of Georgia “has funded a full highway that goes right into the site,” and there’s a railway where the plant is going to sit.
“All the infrastructure is there, so that when we start to build the site, it will go up pretty quickly,” he added.
Scaringe said that the company has “done a lot of work to optimize how we laid out the plant, and the logistics in and out of the plant and have the advantage of it, of course, as being a greenfield site,” in which Rivian will build on for the first time.
Scaringe sees the start of production in the Normal plant as “a benefit,” as the company has “found opportunities at the vehicle level” to further improve production and “optimize the manufacturing design in Georgia.”
The company’s Normal plant will soon halt production for about three weeks, as it upgrades the facility for the upcoming $45,000 SUV — expected to launch in the first half of 2025.
Earlier this year, Rivian has secured conditional approval for a loan of up to $6.6 billion from the US Department of Energy to finance the construction of its electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Georgia.
However, the EV maker must restart construction of the facility before being granted access to the loan.
