The Biden administration cut a multi-billion dollar check for struggling electric vehicle (EV) maker Rivian Thursday, just days before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The carmaker hemorrhaged cash in 2024 amid a widespread slackening in demand for EVs, losing roughly $4 billion in the first three quarters of 2024 alone. Now, lame duck President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy (DOE) has tossed the struggling company a $6.57 billion loan to finance the construction of a manufacturing plant in Stanton Springs North, Georgia, according to a DOE press release.
“This loan will help us accelerate the launch of our Georgia plant for R2 [SUV] and R3 [crossover], providing thousands of jobs in the state,” Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said in a Thursday statement announcing the loan’s finalization. “People are incredibly excited to get behind the wheel of our new models, and this additional capacity for our mass market products is key to U.S. leadership in the electric vehicle industry.”
Rivian $RIVN just announced it has closed its loan agreement with the
Department of Energy for up to $6.6 billion in financial support for the construction of its next manufacturing facility in Georgia pic.twitter.com/OhfOulaNms
— Evan (@StockMKTNewz) January 16, 2025
Department of Energy for up to $6.6 billion in financial support for the construction of its next manufacturing facility in Georgia The massive loan was allocated by the DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), which received calls from an internal federal watchdog in December to cease working on new deals due to a slew of potential conflicts of interest in its work. The LPO has drawn scrutiny from congressional Republicans in the past for its director Jigar Shah’s continued association with a green energy trade group he established before joining the Biden DOE, with a July Daily Caller News Foundation investigation finding the green energy loan czar shelled out $1.2 billion to an EV battery manufacturer that supported a “sister nonprofit” to the trade organization.
Rivian lost nearly $40,000 per vehicle in the third quarter of 2024, and hasn’t turned a profit in a single quarter since it was founded in 2009.
Rivian and the DOE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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