Rivian has reworked its mortgage cope with the Division of Vitality and now expects to borrow $4.5 billion to construct its new manufacturing facility in Georgia, down from the original amount of $6.6 billion allotted underneath the Biden administration.
The corporate additionally introduced Thursday that it’ll draw on the mortgage earlier than deliberate, in early 2027, and expects to extend the full capability of the Georgia plant from 200,000 to 300,000 autos in its preliminary part of operation — one other signal that the corporate has excessive hopes for its upcoming R2 SUV.
The bigger capability — a 50% enhance over its preliminary plans — will assist decrease its per unit prices, whereas additionally offering important room for future enlargement of capability in later phases, the corporate mentioned Thursday.
A few of the manufacturing facility’s capability will probably be used to supply R2 robotaxis for Uber. Underneath a deal struck earlier this 12 months, Uber is making an preliminary $300 million funding in Rivian and is predicted to buy 10,000 totally autonomous R2 robotaxis forward of a deliberate rollout in San Francisco and Miami in 2028. That preliminary $300 million cost is predicted to shut within the second quarter, and one other $250 million funding is deliberate for later this 12 months, in line with Rivian.
The ride-hailing firm has the choice to purchase as much as 40,000 extra autonomous R2 SUVs from Rivian beginning in 2030. Uber has mentioned it can make investments as much as $1.25 billion in Rivian by 2031 if the automaker meets a collection of milestones.
Rivian broke floor on the Georgia manufacturing facility late final 12 months and is at first levels of doing so-called vertical building on the web site positioned exterior Atlanta. The corporate expects to start out making autos by the top of 2028. Till then, Rivian will construct R2 SUVs at its present manufacturing facility in Regular, Illinois.
The corporate recently started production of the R2 regardless of the plant struggling harm from a twister, and Rivian mentioned Thursday it has made preliminary deliveries to staff. Deliveries to prospects are anticipated to start out “within the coming weeks,” in line with Rivian.
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The modifications to the DOE mortgage come as Rivian revealed monetary outcomes for the primary quarter of 2026 on Thursday. The corporate generated $1.38 billion in income, with $908 million coming from automobile gross sales and $473 million from software program and companies. Rivian’s automotive income declined about 2% from the identical year-ago interval, due partly to a drop in regulatory credit.
The corporate misplaced $416 million within the quarter, down from a $541 million loss in the identical interval final 12 months. That web loss shrank thanks, partly, to a $506 million achieve in different earnings associated to the Sequence A capital increase and associated deconsolidation of CEO RJ Scaringe’s new startup Mind Robotics, in line with the corporate.
Rivian noticed its working bills and R&D prices develop year-over-year. Rivian’s R&D price range expanded 20% to $458 million because it elevated spending on R2 pre-production prices in addition to software program and cloud companies associated to the event of autonomous automobile expertise.
The mixture of those rising prices, plus a small uptick in capital spending, was a drag on Rivian’s free money stream, which is in unfavourable territory. The corporate reported a unfavourable free money stream of $1 billion, practically double from a 12 months in the past.
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