By Thaler
Rivian Automotive said Thursday that it’s halting plans for a yet-to-be-constructed $5 billion plant in Georgia – the same day it launched a budget-conscious electric vehicle designed to rival Elon Musk’s Tesla.
Production of its forthcoming R2 model – an electric, midsize SUV that can rev to 60 miles per hour in less than three seconds – will be diverted to the California-based automaker’s existing facility in Illinois.
Rivian said the shift will allow it to start delivering the $45,000 vehicle as early as the first half of 2026.
Though Rivian’s latest model has been touted as a cheaper EV offering – “pricing that makes them accessible to a lot of people,” Rivian said in a statement – it rings in a bit more than a 2024 Tesla Model Y, which the automaker’s website says starts at $36,490.
Rivian had previously said only that the R2 would launch sometime in 2026, though didn’t specifying when until Thursday, when it touted that a first- or second-quarter of 2026 delivery date was accelerated from what the company had anticipated.
“We’re able to achieve that accelerated timing by leveraging our production capabilities in Normal, using our Illinois site to launch R2 and get that into market as quickly as we can,” CEO RJ Scaringe said.
The midwestern plant is where Rivian also makes its its electric delivery vans.
The manufacturing site can reportedly produce as many as 150,000 vehicles a year, a Rivian spokesperson said.
With the addition of R2 – the five-seater version of the automaker’s larger R1 SUV – Rivian said it expected total annual capacity of 215,000 units at the plant.
The move was also touted as a way to save the automaker $2.25 billion in capital expenditures, the company said amid a slowdown in demand for EVs – which garnered some bad press earlier this week after an analytics firm exposed how their tire emissions pollute the air, making them not as eco-friendly as consumers originally thought.
“This certainly takes some pressure off the continued massive cash investment needed for the Georgia plant,” said Vitaly Golomb, a Rivian investor and an electric and autonomous mobility expert.
“I would also hope that they are being conservative and will be able to pull forward the delivery dates even further.”
The company has assured that it has sufficient capital to fund operations through the launch of the R2.
Shares of the automaker jumped as much as 16% after the announcement, their biggest gain since July, according to Bloomberg.
Rivian’s shares closed at $12.51, marking a 13% gain.
But the stock is down more than 45% year to date on concerns over Rivian’s cash and consumer demand for its products.
Rivian produced 57,232 vehicles last year and said growth this year would be flat as it tackles a slowdown in the sector, as well as multiple weeks of production downtime to make upgrades intended to cut costs and improve margins.
Despite the immense popularity of SUVs and pickups in the United States, ramping up production and generating demand beyond the initial wave of enthusiasts has been an uphill battle.
Even more popular EV makers like BYD – which dethroned Tesla as the top EV company in the quarter ended Dec. 31 – haven’t experienced notable gains so far this year.
Analysts have attributed the slide to concerns of waning demand in the EV market, which could push companies to cut prices and lower their profit margins.
Still, Rivian says it plans to move forward with its Georgia factory, set to be located just outside of Atlanta, only with a delayed timeline.
The planned facility in Georgia “remains an extremely important part of its long-term strategy,” the company said.
