Rivian has now hired 1,000 people in the past four months at its plant in Normal, with spokesperson Zach Dietmeier saying the total number of workers is about 1,900 — and hiring continues.
"By the end of the year we expect to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500 employees on site in Normal. Full projections at the Normal Production Facility is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 to 4,000 people by the end of 2022," said Dietmeier.
Dietmeier said hiring and onboarding continues in batches of 30 to 50.
"That starts to take into account things such as production control, material handling, the Health and Safety Team, HR, and facilities maintenance. It really runs the full line of what is incorporated into a fully functioning auto plant," said Dietmeier.
Dietmeier said Rivian has added about 800,000 square feet to the plant since it bought the place from a salvager for a total of one million square feet. He says the company has spent north of $1.5 billion on the facility. New vehicles will start to roll off the line next month as the company starts production models of its R1T pickup trucks. The company's electric SUV will debut late this year.
The first production vehicles won't actually be the first vehicles. Dietmeier said workers have made several hundred pre-production vehicles for a variety of reasons.
"With the validation phase of vehicle manufacturing some are dedicated to cold weather testing. Others are dedicated to learnings about long ranges. And the majority have been in crash validation," said Dietmeier.
Dietmeier said Rivian is still working with certification agencies on crash tests, adding the company has yet to decide what will happen to with the remaining pre-production vehicles.
"One of our early discussions has been with our engineering team on utilizing electric vehicles for EMS testing. Everyone will want to know how to handle and process those vehicles," he said.
