ATLANTA – A California-based electric vehicle startup will invest $5 billion in a truck manufacturing plant east of Atlanta that will create 7,500 jobs.
Gov. Brian Kemp touted the Rivian deal Thursday as the largest single economic development project in Georgia history.
“Today is just the start of a generational partnership that will benefit not just this company but our great state,” Kemp said during a ceremony at Liberty Plaza across from the state Capitol. “We are so proud to welcome Rivian.”
Construction of the plant is expected to begin next summer on 2,000 acres known as the East Atlanta Megasite, located off of Interstate 20 in Stanton Springs.
Production is due to begin in 2024. When fully operational, the facility will produce up to 400,000 trucks per year.
Helen Russell, Rivian’s chief people officer, said Georgia’s educational system and talented workforce attracted the company to Georgia.
“The kinds of resources Georgia has at its disposal, we feel, will allow us to have an incredible partnership with the state,” she said.
Kemp said the Rivian plant is an outgrowth of work the state’s political and business leaders have been doing for years to make Georgia a leader in the automotive industry.
That track record goes back to the huge auto plant Kia built near LaGrange in 2006 and, more recently, two electric vehicle battery plants South Korea’s SK Innovation built in Jackson County.
The governor also cited the Electric Mobility and Innovation Alliance, an initiative he launched last summer aimed at strengthening Georgia’s status as a leader in the electric mobility industry.
“We have all been preparing for a project like Rivian for a long time,” Kemp said. “We knew we could land a project like Rivian. We just had to find the right fit.”
Russell said Rivian will be filling a wide range of jobs at the new plant. Open job postings in Georgia will be immediately available at www.rivian.com/careers.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Global Commerce division was involved in landing the project along with local partners, primarily the Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton, and Walton counties.
“Rivian’s decision to locate in Georgia will have a tremendous impact on the entire state,” said Pat Wilson, the state economic development agency’s commissioner.
“We will see more change in the automotive industry in the next 10 years than we have seen in the past 100, and with this announcement, Georgia will be home to one of the main drivers of this transformation.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.