Rivian will delay construction of a $5 billion factory in Georgia

“Our Georgia location remains very important to us,” Rivian’s CEO, RJ Scaringe, said Thursday at an event where he unveiled two new SUVs. “It’s the core of scaling up all these vehicles.”

One of the SUVs, called the R2, is a five-passenger vehicle expected to be available in the first half of 2026. Originally, the R2 was to be the first vehicle produced in Georgia. By moving production to Normal, Ill., where the company has a factory, Rivian can deliver the vehicle to customers sooner, Mr. Scaringe said.

The R2 will have a starting price of about $45,000, he said, which is $30,000 less than its larger SUV, the R1S. The R2, Mr. Scaringe said, “combines capability, performance, usability, storage and functionality in a way that we think really fits 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 say when or where those models would be produced.

Delaying construction of the new plant is a setback for Georgia and its governor, Brian Kemp, a Republican, who had promoted the construction as the largest economic development project in the state’s history. Rivian had said it expected the plant to create 7,500 jobs and eventually produce 400,000 vehicles a year.