The electric automaker Rivian officially broke ground Tuesday on its second manufacturing plant, this time in Georgia.
“This is a big day for Rivian, and it’s a big day for Georgia,” said Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe.
The stakes are high for Rivian in Georgia. The plant will make new lower-cost models, called R2 and R3, that will be key to Rivian’s long-term ability to turn a profit. And it’s being built at a time of increased hostility toward EVs from the Trump administration.
“For us, this is a key part of our growth as a company. This is an inflection point for us,” Scaringe said.
Georgia’s plant will be built in two phases on nearly 2,000 acres east of Atlanta. When done, it's expected to employ more than 7,500 people and be able to make 400,000 EVs a year. Capacity in Normal is expected to peak at 215,000 per year; it’s making 40,000-50,000 today.
And Georgia will be bigger than the company’s first plant, in Normal, where Rivian makes pickups, SUVs, and commercial delivery vans. Scaringe acknowledged the thousands of jobs created in Normal since the company resurrected the former Mitsubishi auto plant.
“We’ve built … an economic engine for the community, and we see that here [in Georgia] as well,” he said.
In addition to the 7,500 direct jobs, an additional nearly 8,000 indirect jobs will result from the Rivian project, according to an analysis conducted by IMPLAN. Together, those jobs are expected to generate over $1 billion in labor income annually, according to the study.
That promise of economic impact is one of the reasons Rivian earned billions of dollars in loans and other incentives for the Georgia plant. That includes a $6.6 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy — secured during the waning days of the Biden administration and apparently still on track during the second Trump administration.
“The way we’ve designed the plant layout is to build it across two phases. The first phase is the first 200,000 units, and there’s a second phase that comes in. We’ve been really clear on making sure we have the right financing structures in place. Part of that is the Department of Energy,” Scaringe said Tuesday when asked about the loan.
“And when you look at the administration’s objectives in terms of business in our country, it’s driving U.S. manufacturing, U.S. technology, U.S. technology that supports global business, and leading in all those areas. We’re very aligned with the administration’s objectives there.”
Rivian also has attracted opposition from some Georgians who argued the plant is an inappropriate neighbor to farms and will pollute the groundwater.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said it’ll win them over.
“The vast majority of people support this project. Those that don’t, I think at the end of the day they’ll see the benefits of the opportunities they’re gonna see for their children and grandchildren over the next several decades,” Kemp said.
The first vehicles are expected to come off the Georgia production line sometime in 2028.
WABE, the NPR member-station in Atlanta, Georgia, contributed to this report.
