The Biden administration cut a multibillion-dollar check to struggling electric vehicle (EV) maker Rivian on Thursday, days before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The company shed cash in 2024 due to widespread weakness in EV demand. Lose almost 4 billion dollars In the first three quarters of 2024 alone. Now under lame-duck President Joe Biden, the Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded the struggling company a $6.57 billion loan to help build a manufacturing plant in Stanton Springs North, Georgia. According to Go to DOE press release. (Related: Biden’s Green Loan Office Offers Staggering $22 Billion in Administrator’s Final Hours)
“This financing will help accelerate the ramp-up of our Georgia facility for R2.” [SUV] and R3 [crossover]providing thousands of jobs across the state,” Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said in an article Thursday. statement Announcing the completion of financing. “People are very excited to get behind the wheel of our new models, and this additional capability for our mass-market products is key to America’s leadership in the electric vehicle industry.”
Rivian $RIVN Just announced that it has entered into a financing 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
The large loan was allocated by the DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), which in December was ordered by an internal federal watchdog to stop working on new deals, citing numerous potential conflicts of interest in its work. I received a request to do so. The LPO has come under intense scrutiny from Republicans in Congress in the past for its continuing relationship with a green energy industry group that Director Jigar Shah founded before joining the Biden DOE, and in July, The Daily Caller A News Foundation investigation found that the chief green energy lender paid out $1.2 billion. An EV battery manufacturer that supported a “sister non-profit organization” of an industry association.
Rivian lost That will be around $40,000 per vehicle in the third quarter of 2024; turned around Since its inception in 2009, it has turned a profit in a single quarter.
Rivian and the Department of Energy did not respond to requests for comment.
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