“Our Georgia location remains very important to us,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said at an event Thursday where he unveiled two new SUVs. “It’s central to scaling all of these vehicles.”
One of the SUVs, called R2, is a five-passenger vehicle that is expected to be available in the first half of 2026. The R2 was originally intended to be the first vehicle produced in Georgia. Moving production to Normal, Illinois, where the company has a functioning factory, will allow Rivian to begin delivering the vehicle to customers sooner, Mr. Scaringe said.
He said the R2 will have a starting price of about $45,000, which is $30,000 less than its larger SUV, the R1S. The R2, Mr. Scaringe said, “combines power, performance, utility, storage and functionality in a way that we think really meets a huge customer need.”
Rivian also introduced the R3, a compact SUV, and a high-performance version of that vehicle, the R3X. The company did not disclose when and where these models will be produced.
The delay in construction of the new factory is a setback for Georgia and its governor, Brian Kemp, a Republican who promoted its construction as the largest economic development project in the state’s history. Rivian had said the plant was expected to create 7,500 jobs and eventually produce 400,000 vehicles per year.
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2024-03-07 22:32:29
www.nytimes.com
