Electric truck company Rivian builds $5 billion factory in Georgia

Georgia will be the new home of the Rivian Electric Truck Company assembly plant. Related press reported that the $5 billion plant will employ 7,500 people east of Atlanta. This number may increase to 10,000 in the future.

Rivian is an auto manufacturer start-up from California. Their focus is on electric trucks and commercial vehicles, so they compete with companies like Tesla and Ford. If Rivian were to grow the factory to 10,000 workers, that would make it one of the largest auto plants in the US Some of the biggest factories now in the US include the BMW complex in Spartanburg, South Carolina and the Ford Motor Co. in Louisville, Kentucky. The BMW plant employs 11,000 people and the Ford plant employs 8,600.

The plant will be the largest in the history of Georgia. Before that, that title belonged to the Kia factory in West Point. Kia employs 4,400 people there. This is a win for Georgia, as they have a lot of broken down auto plants in the state.

Georgia isn’t the only option Rivian is considering. The startup has received numerous incentive offers from states such as Texas, Michigan, and Arizona. Fort Worth, Texas offered Rivian a $440 million package over the summer. Georgia’s incentive package isn’t clear yet, but the company could take advantage of the state’s “big project tax credit” available to companies that hire 1,800 workers or invest $450 million. If maxed out, that equates to about $118 million in state income tax credits.

Similar to Tesla, Rivian cuts out the middleman of dealers and sells directly to consumers. Georgia currently has a law that generally prohibits that, but it’s possible that placing a factory there will lead to a change in the law.

Is this a premature move?

Some are wondering if this is too big of a move for Rivian. The company already owns a factory in Illinois, with an annual capacity of 150,000 vehicles. They recently received an order from Amazon for 100,000 trucks, which has brought them into the commercial truck business. Their current market value is higher than that of Ford and General Motors. Amazon’s orders weren’t enough to keep them afloat, and they had to start attracting other retail and commercial customers.

Rivian is also about to have more competition in the electric pickup space. Both Ford and GM are planning production electricity trucks in the next few years. Not to mention Tesla’s plans for electric pickup trucks.

Rivian R1T Pickup Announced as Truck of the Year 2022

Motorcycle Trends recently crowned Rivian electric pickup 2022 Truck of the Year. This may come as a surprise, but Motorcycle Trends staff made sure the pickup was worthy of the title. The pickup combines the new and the old to create a truck that is comfortable yet surprisingly efficient. R1T costs $70,000, but Motorcycle Trends assert that it’s more than it’s worth.