EV startup Rivian quietly establishes foothold across Texas as states compete for its next plant

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As a nationwide competition for the next big electric vehicle manufacturing plant from Rivian heated up this summer, the startup was quietly kick-starting developments in major cities across Texas.

Rivian will invest at least $7 million in facilities planned for Dallas, Austin and Houston, and it also plans to put charging stations in El Paso, Columbus, Houston and Waco, according to documents filed with the state dating to February.

The Irvine, Calif.-based EV startup received a permit to start work on a $2.1 million, 27,500-square-foot facility in Houston that will be near a rail yard and a Toyota processing center, according to state documents. The project is described as a renovation of an existing site that will include auto service equipment for electric vehicles.

It’s investing another $2.1 million to renovate a 23,000-square-foot facility at the intersection of Lamar Boulevard and Highway 183 in Austin. The site will include office and auto repair space as well as a car wash.

Rivian also received a permit to perform $2.8 million in renovations to 42,000 square feet of warehouse space near Love Field in Dallas, just across the street from a Tesla service center, according to the documents. That site will be an automotive service center and will include space for a shop, parts storage and offices.

Electric vehicle startup Rivian received a permit for renovations on the 42,000 square foot...

And the company is investing more than $500,000 to build charging stations at Sunland Park Mall in El Paso and on H-E-B parking lots in Columbus, Houston and Waco.

“At H-E-B, we’re always looking for new, innovative ways to support the needs of our customers while being responsible stewards of our environment,” H-E-B spokeswoman Mabrie Jackson said in a statement.

All of Rivian’s Texas projects are slated to be completed by the end of December.

Officials at Rivian have not responded to requests to comment on the plans.

The Amazon-backed startup has raised around $11 billion in funding to date and is expanding its manufacturing footprint in the U.S. Economic development teams in multiple major cities have put together massive incentive packages to lure the company’s next $5 billion production plant.

The city of Fort Worth approved a $440 million tax incentive package for the manufacturer, and at least two other states are reportedly preparing their own packages for Rivian. If Rivian chooses Fort Worth, the economic development deal would be the biggest in state history — eclipsing that of Toyota North America’s corporate relocation to Plano.

The factory — code-named “Project Tera,” according to city documents — would be able to produce 200,000 vehicles a year and would create at least 7,500 jobs by 2027. Rivian would ensure minimum average annual salaries of $56,000.

According to Reuters, Rivian may also be eyeing a plot of land east of the greater Phoenix metro area in Arizona and has already had discussions with Gov. Doug Ducey. The company has a test center in Wittman, north of Phoenix.

Atlanta may also have the weight of the state behind it as it, too, is putting together a plan to entice the electric vehicle company to bring thousands of jobs to the Atlanta and Savannah regions, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Missouri Department of Economic Development has said that its state would be a “competitive location for the plant” but stopped short of confirming that it was in talks with Rivian, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Rivian is expected to announce the location of the new factory in the coming months. The company revealed Friday that it filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering valuing the company at $80 billion.

Rivian has thousands of pre-orders for its electric R1T truck and R1S sport utility vehicle, and the startup has emerged as one of the more serious competitors to Elon Musk’s Tesla. For the moment, the company’s largest customer may be Amazon, with which it struck a deal to produce 100,000 electric delivery vans by the end of the decade.

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