Tesla rival Rivian halts planned $5B Georgia plant as it launches cheaper SUV
NY Post
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 to The Post — 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.
