Rivian Boosts Initial Georgia Plant Capacity To 300,000 Units
The EV startup said production at its new factory is still on track to begin in 2028.
- Rivian's Georgia plant will have a capacity of 300,000 units initially.
- That's up from the 200,000 that Rivian previously planned.
- Production there will begin in late 2028, Rivian confirmed on Thursday.
Rivian's Georgia factory will produce more vehicles in its initial phase than previously announced. The EV startup said on Thursday that its second plant will have a starting annual capacity of 300,000 units, up from the 200,000 that it had announced earlier.
The announcement came as part of Rivian's first-quarter earnings release. The company also said it now plans to borrow $4.5 billion through the Department of Energy to build the facility, down from $6.6 billion. Rivian is also drawing on the loan sooner than before, starting in 2027.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe on the R2 production line in Normal, Illinois.
Rivian said it remains on track to start production in Georgia by the end of 2028. The factory will house production vehicles based on Rivian's midsized platform, including the R2 and a robotaxi variant that Rivian is making as part of a 50,000-vehicle partnership with Uber. Production of Rivian's first mass-market crossover kicked off in an expansion of its original Normal, Illinois, factory this month, and customer deliveries are set to begin later this spring. Rivian has enough capacity in Illinois to build 155,000 R2s annually.
With the combined capacity of 515,000 vehicles, Rivian expects to reach the scale it needs to achieve positive free cash flow, CFO Claire McDonough said on the company's earnings call on Thursday. In the first quarter, the company brought in $1.38 billion in revenue and posted a net loss of $416 million.
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Rivian is leaning on the R2 to bring it meaningful economies of scale that the higher-priced R1T and R1S couldn't manage. And evidently the company sees significant growth in the future from the R2, R3, and whatever comes next.
Rivian's initial plan for Georgia called for two phases of construction, each yielding 200,000 units of production capacity. On Rivian's earnings call, McDonough said there will still be room at the plant for future expansions.
Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com
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