The electric vehicle company Rivian has broken ground on a 2000-acre factory east of Atlanta, signaling the upcoming creation of job opportunities for 7,500 people.
Slated to produce its first cars by 2028, the factory build will be the fruit of a $5 billion investment, the largest in Georgia’s history at the time of its announcement, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB).
It was to be the greatest factory of its kind in the state not just in cost but in size, although it has since been surpassed in that measure by a planned new Hyundai factory.
Dubbed The Rivian Project, the EV plant will create Rivian’s retro-futuristic R2 and R3 models, with prices running a little under average. The R2 will have a starting cost of about $45,000, and the R3 is anticipated to be cheaper.
The Rivian Project will create “high-tech, good-paying jobs that stay in our communities,” said Jerry Silvio, chairman of the Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton and Walton Counties.
Silvio expects that the EV plant will help elevate the quality of life for people living in all four counties.
The factory will support jobs in more ways than one. Rivian founder RJ Scaringe told GPB the company is scouting for local car part sources to keep costs down.
“We’ve been working closely with the state in a number of cases to bring those suppliers either here to the state of Georgia or to work with new suppliers that are based in the state of Georgia,” said Scaringe.
The groundbreaking ceremony, attended by Governor Brian Kemp, comes on the heels of the detainment of suspected illegal immigrants at a Hyundai electric car manufacturing site in Georgia, prompting hopes and demands on social media that the Rivian factory hires Americans.
EV projects in the state are full steam ahead despite the cancellation of federal tax credits and other EV incentives, due to the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Rivian remains undeterred. “We did not build this company based upon federal tax incentives,” said Alex Hoffman, the company’s Chief Policy Officer.
