Rivian wooed by UK Government to build factory

Officials from the United Kingdom are in talks with Rivian to build a new factory on its shores, with a package of incentives offered to help sweeten the deal.

According to the Financial Times, Rivian is being lured to create a manufacturing base in the UK by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government’s ministers, as the American electric carmaker looks to choose a European site.

If the proposed Rivian plant was to go ahead, it would all but guarantee a right-hand-drive production line of the company’s fully-electric R1T pick-up and R1S SUV – a crucial step in bringing the models to the Australian market.

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It’s understood Serbia and at least one other unnamed country are also angling to be the home of Rivian’s new factory, which is said to be worth more than £1 billion (AU$1.88bn).

Representatives from the UK Government have put together a deal which includes training facilities and a new freeway junction, along with reinstating an old railway from the proposed site in Somerset.

But while a British Rivian factory is promising for Australian new-car buyers, it’s unlikely the vehicles would arrive onto the local market before 2024.

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That timeline matches with a recent filing Rivian submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which stated the company intends on pursuing “Western European markets in the near-term, followed by entry into major Asian-Pacific markets”.

The Rivian R1T and R1S offer up to 650km of range from a single charge, with four electric motors delivering up to 550kW and 1124Nm, allowing for a claimed 0-100km/h time of around three seconds.

Since the company was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange last month, the company has overtaken both General Motors and Ford to become the sixth highest-valued carmaker by market capitalisation, sitting behind Volkswagen and Daimler in fourth and fifth respectively.