Rivian puts plan to build $5B plant in Georgia on hold; economist weighs in

MORGAN COUNTY, Ga. - The Chicago-based electric vehicle maker Rivian has announced that it has put its plans to build a $5 billion production facility in Georgia on hold, according to Forbes.com. 

The announcement was made in a corporate event on Thursday. Forbes says the company is looking to cut costs following a major round of layoffs last month.

CEO R.J. Scaringe says the automaker will assemble recently unveiled EV models at the company's existing plant in Illinois instead.

Those models -- the R2 crossover and the R3 -- were supposed to be produced at a new plant Morgan County, about 40 miles outside of Atlanta.

Economist Tom Smith, professor of finance at Emory University Goizueta Business School, says he's not surprised by Rivian's actions.

Close-up of logo for electric vehicle company Rivian on a vehicle in San Ramon, California, August 13, 2022. Photo courtesy Sftm. (Photo by Gado/Getty Images)

"A lot of businesses often have to reevaluate what their short-term and long-term plans are," he said.

Smith added that Morgan and Walton counties could take a fiscal hit. 

"Definitely hundreds of jobs and probably hundreds of thousands of wages that aren't going to be obtained and hundreds of thousands of fiscal dollars that counties won't get their hands on," Smith said. "The fiscal losses could be in the millions, but it's not clear."

The company started the process of grading the 2,000-acre site for construction last year and previously planned to break ground in early 2024.

The decision to build the plant in Georgia was announced in 2021. It was projected to employ approximately 7,500 workers. It would have been the largest industrial plant in Georgia if it had been built.   

A judge dismissed zoning challenges to the 16 million-square-foot planned factory in January. The plantiffs had argued that the project would cause disruption to their properties and that the megasite is zoned "Agricultural Residential," meaning it could not be used for "heavy industrial use" according to the county’s ordinances. However, the judge wrote that "economic development" is a legitimate use for the land and does not meet any current exemptions. 

Gov. Brian Kemp's office would not comment on the hold.

"This is definitely a hit to the plan, but the economy in Georgia is still very, very strong," Smith said.

The company says that Rivian's Georgia plant remains an "extremely important part of its strategy to scale production of R2 and R3."

Story reported out of Atlanta.