Rivian's Georgia EV Plant Gets条件6.6 billion Conditional Loan, Opens in 2028

Livian has been granted conditional approval for a融資6.6 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund the construction of a plant in Georgia, the electric car startup said Monday.

Rivian said that certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions must be met to get a loan that is part of DOE's Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program.

Citing anonymous sources, Reuters reported that Rivian would not actively resist efforts to unionize at the plant as one of the loan terms 1.

The plant, located in Stanton Springs, east of Atlanta, was first announced by Rivian in 2021, at which point the company said it expected to start production by 2024. However, the company faces several hurdles in financing, including losing some tax incentives related to the plant.

With the approval of the loan, Rivian said it would build the plant in 2 phases, each bringing in 200,000 units of production capacity per year and achieving a total of 400,000 units per year. The first phase is expected to be ready in 2028.

The plant will initially build the vehicle on Rivian's medium-sized platform, which has been confirmed in the R2 and R3/R3X compact crossovers.

Rivian's current R1 model is manufactured at the company's plant in Normal, Illinois. We plan to start production of r2 around 2026 at our regular factory as well. Rivian has previously said that it plans to build 155,000 R2 units per year in normal.This will be more than the vehicles the company has cumulatively delivered since the arrival of its first customer vehicle in the fall of 2021.

The announcement of the loan came less than a week after the Volkswagen Group agreed to increase its investment in Libya fromド50 billion toリ58 billion from the previous22 billion. The two companies also plan to form a joint venture that will be responsible for the development and supply of electrical architecture and software systems, with features such as network hardware and software stacks that can be updated in the air throughout the vehicle's lifecycle.