Rivian's Normal Plant Expansion Plans For R2 Production Backed By Town Commissioners

Rivian’s efforts to bring the highly-anticipated R2 to market are steadily moving forward. As per recent reports, the electric truck maker’s expansion plans for its Normal, Il plant have received unanimous support from the town’s planning commission.

On Thursday, commissioners voted unanimously in favor of Rivian’s plans to expand its current Normal, Il plant by 208,000 square feet. Documents filed with the Town of Normal also indicated that Rivian is planning to build a 1.14 million square foot building and four new parking lots with more than 2,700 spaces. 

With Rivian’s expansion plans for its Normal plant securing support from town commissioners, the town council is now scheduled to take final action on the EV maker's site plans in an upcoming meeting. The meeting is scheduled for August 19, 2024, as noted in a 25 News report. 

Rivian is reportedly looking at Normal and other competing communities to land a separate, potential $200 million project. Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council head Patrick Hoban reportedly noted that this project would extend Rivian’s footprint by 2.4 million square feet. It would also add about 600 to 700 employees to the electric vehicle maker. 

It would not be an exaggeration to state that Rivian’s real test as an automaker would start when the R2 enters mass production. Being significantly more affordable than the R1T and R1S, the R2 is a mass market vehicle that has the potential to turn Rivian into a mainstream automaker. Producing the R2 at scale will likely be challenging, however, as evidenced by the experience of fellow automaker Tesla when it started mass producing its first mass market car, the Model 3 sedan. 

The Rivian R2 does have a lot of potential. Less than 24 hours after its unveiling, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe announced on X that the company has taken over 68,000 R2 reservations. In late July, Rivian VP of Manufacturing Tim Fallon stated that R2 reservations have exceeded 100,000, and they are still climbing. 

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