New Rivian Factory Planned, Should Boost Output

AbleGuy

Officious Intermeddler


The federal government has announced plans for a $6.57 billion dollar loan to be made to Rivian Automotive, to fund a new 9 million square foot EV manufacturing plant in Georgia.

If this massive loan gets granted, the Department of Energy estimates that the new facility in Georgia could manufacture up to 400,000 Rivian electric vehicles.

But before the loan is locked in a slew of technical, legal, environmental and financial conditions have to be taken care of.

This means the current administration has a very short time within which to finalize this production boosting deal before the new administration takes office as there’s no guarantee the loan will still come forth later if it’s not inked by the parties before then.

If the deal does go through, it should be good news for folks thinking about getting one of these rigs, increasing supply and maybe stabilizing prices. The Rivian trucks do seem quite popular already, as I saw an inordinate amount of them on the roads in west coast states this summer.
 

LRNAD90

Adventurer
Hopefully it is not, but I'm sure it will. Lame duck period is being used to put as much burden on the incoming administration as possible..
 

tacollie

Glamper
Seems like Rivian likes to burn cash. I thought they were struggling to meet current sales goals. My understanding is the Georgia plant is to help with R2 and R3 production. The wife really like the idea of the R2 so let the cash burn!

Makes me a little curious about their stock prices.
 

lucilius

Active member
before the loan is locked in a slew of technical, legal, environmental and financial conditions have to be taken care of.
This could take years....or months. Unless it is an emergency, DC shuts down for most of December. It will depend largely on the economy, the health of the EV market and maybe most on whether or not folks decide they want to work&win together. It's hard to fault Rivian when the US goverment threw $70-80 billion to GM a decade or so ago...and I believe that was mostly paid back? I can't imagine the current (or future) administration is so inept/corrupt/incompetent that they would carelessly throw $6B+ to Rivian to see it go up in smoke (then again, US gov tossed obscene amounts of money into the fire with the Littoral Combat Ship, Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project and not a few other looked-great-on-paper doomed initiatives...win some lose some/what's another $6B of other people's money?/etc.) but we shall see. I do wonder if they last....and what one does with a 10 or 15 year old EV with old batteries and on top of that a lot of possibly expensive/difficult to repair/maintain high-tech electronics & features and how this impacts the market. Maybe this is well known to EV owners, and maybe they simply don't worry much because most EVs are quite expensive/"luxury"-level, not economy cars, and therefore this is largely a non-issue. Educating the hoi-polloi might make sense....for many, buying an EV is similar to growing your own salad greens: though it might make perfect sense to an enlightened few, most just don't yet see the logic. I haven't seen/read much about it other than public radio recently doing a lightweight piece about right to repair drama with EVs. Thankfully it is a free country and there is no law telling us what to think and what to buy. I also wonder why the manufacturers aren't making super simple EVs...every one I've seen is a relatively complex technological marvel that I (and most mechanics I know) wouldn't know how to fix on the side of the road/trail and likely to be a challenge when it comes to maintenance, especially DIY, but I imagine that will change over time if they become more popular. Personally, as a first time buyer, I'd rather test out the concept on a super affordable small pickup/4x4 with more of a "poverty pack" layout than anything I see available on the EV market today. They might really make sense when they have 300-400mi of reliable range, recharge in 5-10min and buyers understand them a little more....or it becomes moot as some better means of vehicle power storage/generation emerges that is even better.
 

NevadaLover

Forking Icehole
This could take years....or months. Unless it is an emergency, DC shuts down for most of December. It will depend largely on the economy, the health of the EV market and maybe most on whether or not folks decide they want to work&win together. It's hard to fault Rivian when the US goverment threw $70-80 billion to GM a decade or so ago...and I believe that was mostly paid back? I can't imagine the current (or future) administration is so inept/corrupt/incompetent that they would carelessly throw $6B+ to Rivian to see it go up in smoke (then again, US gov tossed obscene amounts of money into the fire with the Littoral Combat Ship, Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project and not a few other looked-great-on-paper doomed initiatives...win some lose some/what's another $6B of other people's money?/etc.) but we shall see. I do wonder if they last....and what one does with a 10 or 15 year old EV with old batteries and on top of that a lot of possibly expensive/difficult to repair/maintain high-tech electronics & features and how this impacts the market. Maybe this is well known to EV owners, and maybe they simply don't worry much because most EVs are quite expensive/"luxury"-level, not economy cars, and therefore this is largely a non-issue. Educating the hoi-polloi might make sense....for many, buying an EV is similar to growing your own salad greens: though it might make perfect sense to an enlightened few, most just don't yet see the logic. I haven't seen/read much about it other than public radio recently doing a lightweight piece about right to repair drama with EVs. Thankfully it is a free country and there is no law telling us what to think and what to buy. I also wonder why the manufacturers aren't making super simple EVs...every one I've seen is a relatively complex technological marvel that I (and most mechanics I know) wouldn't know how to fix on the side of the road/trail and likely to be a challenge when it comes to maintenance, especially DIY, but I imagine that will change over time if they become more popular. Personally, as a first time buyer, I'd rather test out the concept on a super affordable small pickup/4x4 with more of a "poverty pack" layout than anything I see available on the EV market today. They might really make sense when they have 300-400mi of reliable range, recharge in 5-10min and buyers understand them a little more....or it becomes moot as some better means of vehicle power storage/generation emerges that is even better.

Punctuation is desperately needed batman.
 

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