Electric vehicle builder Rivian Automotive Inc. is building a 1.2 million-square-foot “supplier park” adjacent to its manufacturing complex in Normal, Ill. The estimated $120-million installation will house Rivian suppliers that will conduct light assembly and manufacturing operations, to reduce the automaker’s shipping, logistics, and warehousing costs.
Components will be “kitted” and sequenced by suppliers at the park before they are delivered to the assembly plant through a tunnel, which will expedite delivery and reduce local traffic.
No individual suppliers have been identified for the new operation.
The Normal plant currently manufactures Rivian’s R1T electric pickup truck and R1S e-SUV. It also produces a line of electric light-commercial vehicles, including Amazon delivery trucks.
An expansion is underway there now to add more assembly capacity, for the R2 midsized e-SUV.
Late last year Rivian drew a $6.6-billion U.S. Dept. of Energy loan for its delayed project to build a new assembly plant in Georgia, where the R2 and R3, an electric crossover vehicle.
In addition to its financial support for the Normal plant expansion, Illinois is offering incentives for the supplier park project, and to cover some infrastructure improvements, plus job-creation tax credits.
Rivian estimates that the supplier park will bring 100 new jobs for its plant, and several hundred for the suppliers located there.
“We are excited to see this supplier park coming together so quickly,” stated Rivian founder and CEO R.J. Scaringe. “This will be a key enabler to increasing production at the plant in 2026 when we start to build R2 in addition to R1 and our commercial vans.”
