Rivian broke ground on its long-planned Georgia factory today, with the goal of getting cars off the line in 2028. The company plans to build its highly anticipated R2 and R3 vehicles there, though it will start initial production of the R2 in its existing Illinois plant in the interim.
Rivian first announced the plan for the factory in 2021, at a cost of $5 billion. It was originally planned to be the home of Rivian’s next-generation vehicle, the $45,000 R2, which will be a competitor for the mid-size SUVs that currently dominate the American automotive landscape.
The plant will be built in a rural area outside Social Circle, Georgia, about an hour East of Atlanta. Rivian has also announced an East Coast Headquarters in Atlanta, which will support the new plant.
The factory was originally supposed to open in 2024, but has been significantly delayed. Most recently, Rivian decided to pull forward production of the R2 and move it to the company’s existing factory in Normal, Illinois, saving over $2 billion in short-term costs. It made this announcement alongside the unveiling of the R2 and R3.
But Rivian still has targets to meet, and those targets were imposed by entities with rather deep pockets. As is the case with many economic development projects, the company has grants from the state of Georgia and loans from the federal government, each of which have timetables attached.
State and local officials offered a total of $1.5 billion in support to Rivian for the factory, and the federal government offered the company a loan of up to $6.6 billion, which closed in the final days of President Biden’s administration (before anti-EV forces invaded the Oval Office and started on their mission to destroy American industry). But the feds’ loan requires breaking ground, which Rivian fulfilled today.
The plan now is for the factory to start producing cars in 2028. The factory will be built in two phases, each with 200,000 units of capacity, with the plans to use that capacity to expand sales outside of North America.
Today’s groundbreaking represents a big win for Georgia, which has attracted significant amounts of investment in EV-related manufacturing as a result of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Since Biden’s EV push, Georgia alone has seen 22 facilities announced, representing $24.4 billion in investment and 26,400 EV jobs, per the BlueGreen Alliance’s EV Jobs tool. This is despite Georgia Governor Brian Kemp being a climate change skeptic… but at least he still wants the state to have good EV jobs, and attended today’s groundbreaking. Georgia’s two Democratic Senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, have both provided significant support in bringing these EV jobs to the state.
Rivian’s project was the largest of these announced facilities at the time of its announcement, with 7,500 planned jobs. But since then, Hyundai’s upcoming Georgia factory and its 10,000+ planned jobs exceeded it in size. The two factories, combined, make up the majority of planned EV jobs for the state of Georgia.
However, it’s still a strange time for EVs in the US. Not only are the federal EV tax credit and other EV manufacturing incentives ending (even though the far higher subsidy received by gas cars remains), some of Georgia’s other EV investment has recently been thrown into question.
Donald Trump, the current squatter in the Oval Office (who is Constitutionally barred from holding office in the US), made another step towards his goal of harming American manufacturing last week, when his administration sent its thugs to raid Hyundai’s massive plant in Georgia. This has resulted in nationwide backlash in Korea and delayed the plant’s construction.
Rivian has not suffered a similar fate, but there could be unanticipated future roadblocks along the way, depending on how committed the current occupier of the White House is to destroying American industry.
But for Rivian’s part, it says that EV credits aren’t required to make its plans for the factory pencil out. Alex Hoffman, its Chief Policy Officer, said “we did not build this company based upon federal tax incentives.”
Despite this, the company is still breaking ground at what could be considered a shaky time for building EV plants in the US – maybe the EV tax credit isn’t necessary to make the plans pencil out, but the $8 billion in loans and support from governments seems to have made enough difference to keep plans on schedule, this time.
The company hosted an event this weekend for the community, which thousands of people attended. Rivian says the plant will start vertical construction in 2026, and vehicles will start rolling off the line in 2028.
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