The administration said the loan would support the construction of a facility where Rivian will make up to 400,000 “mass-market” electric SUVs and crossovers.
Specifically, it will support construction of Rivian’s R2 and R3 models, which the company says will be sold at a “significantly lower price point” than its flagship R1 vehicle, which is considered to be a luxury car.
The announcement comes as the incoming Trump administration is poised to take aim at EVs. President-elect Trump has pledged to roll back standards that were expected to force traditional automakers to make a greater share of their fleets electric or hybrid.
The funds for the conditional loan to Rivian come from the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, which lends money to support the development of new technologies.
That office, which also gave funds to Tesla in 2010, has doled out billions of dollars under the Biden administration.
The incoming Trump administration is expected to be much less interested in delivering loans for emerging low-carbon energy technology.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-run a new nongovernmental commission aimed at improving government efficiency, slammed the loan in a post on social platform X.
“Biden is forking over $6.6B to EV-maker Rivian to build a Georgia plant they’ve already halted,” Ramaswamy wrote. He said the “justification” that it creates 7,500 jobs implies spending $880,000 per job, which he called “insane.”
Read more at TheHill.com.
