SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. (AP) — It seems like a terrible time to build an electric vehicle plant in the United States, but Rivian Automotive leaders say they're confident as the company starts long-delayed work on a $5 billion facility in Georgia.
The money-losing California-based company broke ground Tuesday east of Atlanta despite President Donald Trump’s successful push to roll back electric vehicle tax credits. Starting Sept. 30, buyers will no longer qualify for savings of up to $7,500 per car.
CEO RJ Scaringe said Tuesday that Rivian will sell its R2 sport utility vehicles not for environmental or tax incentive reasons, but because it's a superior vehicle.
“The description I’ll say for R2 is it isn’t an electric vehicle," he said. "I describe R2 as an incredible five-passenger offroad machine. And it happens to be electric.”
The Georgia plant, first announced in 2021, is Rivian’s key to reaching profitability. Now the company makes the high-end R1T pickup truck and the R1S SUV in Normal, Illinois, as well as delivery vans for Amazon and others. Its truck prices start at $71,000.
The Illinois plant will begin making the smaller R2 next year, with prices starting at $45,000. An expanded Illinois plant will be able to assemble 215,000 vehicles yearly. But if the R2 is a hit, and if Rivian successfully produces an even smaller R3, it will need more capacity. Scaringe said the Georgia operation, able to make 200,000 vehicles yearly starting in 2028, is the “foundation for our growth.” Rivian plans another 200,000 in capacity in phase two, volume that would spread fixed costs over many more vehicles.
The projections would be a big leap from the 40,000 to 46,000 vehicles Rivian expects to deliver this year, down from 52,000 last year. The company says it’s limiting production in part to launch 2026 models.
“For Rivian, it’s do-or-die time,” said Alex Oyler, North American director of auto research firm SBD Automotive. “We saw with Tesla that the key to profitability is scale, and you can’t scale if your cheapest vehicle is $70,000. So they need that plant online to achieve a level of scale of R2 and ultimately R3.”
Sales growth is slowing for electric vehicles in the United States, rising only 1.5% in 2025's first half, according to Cox Automotive.
Tesla accounted for almost 45% of U.S. electric vehicle sales in that period, according to Cox. But the giant is losing market share as others gain: General Motors' slice of American EV sales has climbed to 13%. By comparison, Rivian had a 3% share in the first half of the year, behind Tesla and six traditional automakers.
But excluding Tesla, Rivian is the most successful startup automaker.
The company initially tapped a largely unfilled niche: demand for electric pickups and SUVs. But competition now includes Ford’s F-150 Lightning and the electric Chevrolet Silverado.
After an initial public offering in 2021, Rivian shares have fallen by more than 80%, while automaker shares overall have outpaced the broader stock market. Rivian lost $1.66 billion in 2025’s first half.
At the same time, some automakers’ ardor for electric vehicles is cooling. Stellantis last week canceled Ram’s electric truck program. Ford has delayed production at a new Tennessee plant. And General Motors abandoned plans to build electric vehicles in suburban Detroit.
“With all the competition out there in this market and the slowing growth of EVs, it does not play in Rivian’s favor,” said Sam Fiorani, a vice president at AutoForecast Solutions. “However, there still is an EV market out there.”
Georgia has pledged $1.5 billion of incentives to Rivian in exchange for 7,500 company jobs paying at least $56,000 a year on average. Rivian can’t benefit from most incentives unless it meets employment goals, but the state is already spending $175 million to buy and grade land and improve roads.
Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, says he wants to make Georgia “the electric mobility capital of America,” but acknowledged Tuesday that “the road to get here has not been smooth.” He voiced confidence that Rivian can deliver “an innovation revolution” benefitting Georgians.
While Tesla has thousands of employees in California and Texas, some new electric vehicle plants have sputtered. Two separate EV makers that hoped to assemble vehicles in a former GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio, went bankrupt. Georgia’s Hyundai complex near Savannah is faring better, with production underway. However, a battery plant there has been delayed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arresting 475 people on site, including more than 300 South Koreans.
Rivian was supposed to be making trucks by now at the 2,000-acre (800-hectare) site near Social Circle, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) east of Atlanta. As the company burned through cash in 2024, it paused construction. But German automaker Volkswagen agreed to invest $5.8 billion in Rivian in exchange for software and electrical technology. And then-President Joe Biden's administration agreed to loan Rivian $6.6 billion to build the Georgia plant.
Despite the Trump administration's hostility toward EVs, Scaringe said Tuesday that Rivian has built “a very close relationship” with the U.S. Department of Energy and that the company's goals align with some of Trump's big ones, including “U.S. manufacturing, U.S. technology, U.S. technology that supports global business, and leading in all those areas.”
Kemp said he has urged Energy Secretary Chris Wright to back Rivian.
Rivian also faces opposition from some residents who say the plant is an inappropriate neighbor to farms and will pollute the groundwater.
“I planned on dying and retiring on the front porch and the biggest project in Georgia has to go next door to me, of all places in the country?” asked Eddie Clay, who lives less than a mile away. He says his well water turned mud-choked after excavation at the Rivian site.
There are other challenges for Rivian, including tariffs costing $2,000 per vehicle, the Trump administration ending a tax-credit program that will cost the company $140 million in revenue this year, and long-term threats from low-priced, cutting-edge Chinese EVs. But Scaringe said the start of construction shows Rivian is working through its challenges.
“These are not the kinds of things you start without having clear sight to be able to fully finish and launch,” he said.
St. John reported from Detroit.
FILE - A truck leaves the site of a planned Rivian electric truck plant Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Social Circle, Ga. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)
FILE - Gov. Brian Kemp smiles as he stands next to a Rivian electric truck during a ceremony to announce that the electric truck maker plans to build a $5 billion battery and assembly plant east of Atlanta projected to employ 7,500 workers, Dec. 16, 2021, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)
FILE - A long line of unsold 2024 R1S electric utility vehicles sits at a Rivian service center Nov. 26, 2024, in east Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.
Donald Trump isn't leaving it to future generations.
As the first year of his second term wraps up, his Republican administration and allies have put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships that's yet to be built.
That’s on top of the “Trump Accounts” for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website soon to offer direct sales of prescription drugs, the “Trump Gold Card” visa that costs at least $1 million and the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a transit corridor included in a deal his administration brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On Friday, he plans to attend a ceremony in Florida where local officials will dedicate a 4-mile (6-kilometer) stretch of road from the airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach as President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.
It’s unprecedented for a sitting president to embrace tributes of that number and scale, especially those proffered by members of his administration. And while past sitting presidents have typically been honored by local officials naming schools and roads after them, it's exceedingly rare for airports, federal buildings, warships or other government assets to be named for someone still in power.
“At no previous time in history have we consistently named things after a president who was still in office,” said Jeffrey Engel, the David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “One might even extend that to say a president who is still alive. Those kind of memorializations are supposed to be just that — memorials to the passing hero.”
White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said the TrumpRx website linked to the president's deals to lower the price of some prescription drugs, along with “overdue upgrades of national landmarks, lasting peace deals, and wealth-creation accounts for children are historic initiatives that would not have been possible without President Trump’s bold leadership.”
"The Administration’s focus isn’t on smart branding, but delivering on President Trump’s goal of Making America Great Again," Huston said.
The White House pointed out that the nation's capital was named after President George Washington and the Hoover Dam was named after President Herbert Hoover while each was serving as president.
For Trump, it’s a continuation of the way he first etched his place onto the American consciousness, becoming famous as a real estate developer who affixed his name in big gold letters on luxury buildings and hotels, a casino and assorted products like neckties, wine and steaks.
As he ran for president in 2024, the candidate rolled out Trump-branded business ventures for watches, fragrances, Bibles and sneakers — including golden high tops priced at $799. After taking office again last year, Trump's businesses launched a Trump Mobile phone company, with plans to unveil a gold-colored smartphone and a cryptocurrency memecoin named $TRUMP.
That’s not to be confused with plans for a physical, government-issued Trump coin that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said the U.S. Mint is planning.
Trump has also reportedly told the owners of Washington’s NFL team that he would like his name on the Commanders’ new stadium. The team’s ownership group, which has the naming rights, has not commented on the idea. But a White House spokeswoman in November called the proposed name “beautiful” and said Trump made the rebuilding of the stadium possible.
The addition of Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center in December so outraged independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that he introduced legislation this week to ban the naming or renaming of any federal building or land after a sitting president — a ban that would retroactively apply to the Kennedy Center and Institute of Peace.
“I think he is a narcissist who likes to see his name up there. If he owns a hotel, that’s his business,” Sanders said in an interview. “But he doesn’t own federal buildings.”
Sanders likened Trump's penchant for putting his name on government buildings and more to the actions of authoritarian leaders throughout history.
“If the American people want to name buildings after a president who is deceased, that’s fine. That’s what we do,” Sanders said. “But to use federal buildings to enhance your own position very much sounds like the ‘Great Leader’ mentality of North Korea, and that is not something that I think the American people want.”
Although some of the naming has been suggested by others, the president has made clear he’s pleased with the tributes.
Three months after the announcement of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a name the White House says was proposed by Armenian officials, the president gushed about it at a White House dinner.
“It’s such a beautiful thing, they named it after me. I really appreciate it. It’s actually a big deal,” he told a group of Central Asian leaders.
Engel, the presidential historian, said the practice can send a signal to people "that the easiest way to get access and favor from the president is to play to his ego and give him something or name something after him.”
Some of the proposals for honoring Trump include legislation in Congress from New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney that would designate June 14 as “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day," placing the president with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Jesus Christ, whose birthdays are recognized as national holidays.
Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube has introduced legislation that calls for the Washington-area rapid transit system, known as the Metro, to be renamed the “Trump Train.” North Carolina Republican Rep. Addison McDowell has introduced legislation to rename Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport.
McDowell said it makes sense to give Dulles a new name since Trump has already announced plans to revamp the airport, which currently is a tribute to former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
The congressman said he wanted to honor Trump because he feels the president has been a champion for combating the scourge of fentanyl, a personal issue for McDowell after his brother’s overdose death. But he also cited Trump’s efforts to strike peace deals all over the world and called him “one of the most consequential presidents ever.”
“I think that’s somebody that deserves to be honored, whether they’re still the president or whether they’re not," he said.
More efforts are underway in Florida, Trump’s adopted home.
Republican state lawmaker Meg Weinberger said she is working on an effort to rename Palm Beach International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport, a potential point of confusion with the Dulles effort.
The road that the president will see christened Friday is not the first Florida asphalt to herald Trump upon his return to the White House.
In the south Florida city of Hialeah, officials in December 2024 renamed a street there as President Donald J. Trump Avenue.
Trump, speaking at a Miami business conference the next month, called it a “great honor” and said he loved the mayor for it.
“Anybody that names a boulevard after me, I like,” he said.
He added a few moments later: “A lot of people come back from Hialeah, they say, ‘They just named a road after you.' I say, ‘That’s OK.’ It’s a beginning, right? It’s a start.”
FILE - A sign for the Rose Garden is seen near the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade at the White House, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as a flag pole is installed on the South Lawn of the White House, June 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Workers add President Donald Trump's name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, after a Trump-appointed board voted to rename the institution, in Washington, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - A poster showing the Trump Gold Card is seen as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
