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continued expansion at Rivian factory

Coast2Coast

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Thanks for the Pantagraph update. I didn't much care for this sentence, however.

"Rivian is also planning a 210,000-square-foot addition to the north side of the building for its production line. The project is planned for later this fall and has not accepted any contracting bids at this time." (bold letters added)

Bid solicitations will take a month, maybe more, and construction will likely run 3-4 months. (Hopefully, a firm already on site gets the bid, speeding things up.) The new transfer lines will have to be test run, adjusted, run at higher speeds, adjusted; rinse and repeat until everything works as it should. I don't think we'll see a production-ready Rivian until the end of Q1 2021.
 
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skyote

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Thanks for the Pantagraph update. I didn't much care for this sentence, however.

"Rivian is also planning a 210,000-square-foot addition to the north side of the building for its production line. The project is planned for later this fall and has not accepted any contracting bids at this time." (bold letters added)

Bid solicitations will take a month, maybe more, and construction will likely run 3-4 months. (Hopefully, a firm already on site gets the bid, speeding things up.) The new transfer lines will have to be test run, adjusted, run at higher speeds, adjusted; rinse and repeat until everything works as it should. I don't think we'll see a production-ready Rivian until the end of Q1 2021.
The existing building should churn out well over 100K large vehicles. Best guess is they are planning for the future, not first line of R1T/S.
 

jjwolf120

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"Rivian is also planning a 210,000-square-foot addition to the north side of the building for its production line. The project is planned for later this fall and has not accepted any contracting bids at this time." (bold letters added)
Based on the article, I think that expansion would specifically be for the Amazon vans.
 

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skyote

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Coast2Coast

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I can't imagine the proposed additions will be turned down. There are still parking spaces for 3,000 cars and, at peak production, the plant will employ about 1,000 folks. Also, Rivian is adding new landscaping and should be paying higher taxes, for newly added square footage. Everyone should be happy.
 

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I can't imagine the proposed additions will be turned down. There are still parking spaces for 3,000 cars and, at peak production, the plant will employ about 1,000 folks. Also, Rivian is adding new landscaping and should be paying higher taxes, for newly added square footage. Everyone should be happy.
Plus they declined to accept the originally negotiated $1M grant payment from the town when it came due.
 

KickRocksRiv

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Don’t worry about it sweetheart
The existing building should churn out well over 100K large vehicles. Best guess is they are planning for the future, not first line of R1T/S.
In what kind of time frame? a year ?
 

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Coast2Coast

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As a Mitsubishi Motors assembly plant, Normal churned out 250K vehicle per year. Mitsubishi vehicles were much smaller than Rivians, so reduce that number, but Rivian is expanding the size of the plant considerably, by 15-20%, so increase that number. End result? 200K or more when full production capacity is realized.

It will take a full year and probably longer to reach full production capacity. Estimates vary but Normal will likely assemble just 20-30K vehicles in its first full twelve months of production.
 

skyote

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I know they will start slow, which is what I hope is happening now with pilot production. I wonder how many vehicles will be part of the pilot production, number of lines, the production rate, etc. I doubt many details will be released in that regard, but who knows.

I don't have a factual or analytical basis for this (other than the factory expansion & RJ's comments about higher than expected demand/planning for additional capacity), but I have a feeling they will be able to produce 50K R1T/S in the first 12 months of true production.

It's all a guessing game until Rivian releases additional details, but it will be interesting to watch.
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