Libian is officially broken at a long-standing factory near Atlanta, Georgia, and one day it will be able to build as many as 400,000 next-generation electric vehicles a year.
The company held a shovel ceremony on Tuesday, with CEO RJ Scaringe being joined by Georgia officials, including Governor Brian Kemp. However, as TechCrunch first reported in July, the company was focusing on the first quarter of 2026 when its official construction began in 2028, with production of the vehicle beginning in 2028.
The Libian Project will eventually create 7,500 permanent jobs and create 2,000 construction jobs during the construction process. As of June 30, the company had created 47 full-time jobs and invested around $80 million in the project.
In addition to his work at the factory, Libian said Tuesday that he hopes to create “nearly 8,000 indirect jobs” with local suppliers and vendors, according to an external analysis. A TechCrunch email obtained earlier this year shows that Rivian is already asking if existing suppliers would set up operations near the Georgia plant.
The event was a bit of a pageantry, but it represents an important milestone for the project. This has been surrounded by a lot of uncertainty over the last few years.
Libian first announced plans to build a factory in Georgia shortly after the 2021 IPO. At that point, the company had spent years renovating its usual old Mitsubishi plant in Illinois to begin production of R1T trucks, R1S SUVs and commercial vans. However, the size of the Illinois factory constrained how many vehicles could be built there. Libian wanted something bigger.
Libian promised to invest around $5 billion in the Georgia factory, but wanted to move quickly. The company was originally about to begin construction in 2022.
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But with local opposition to the factories and supply chain challenges caused by the pandemic, Libian was forced to distract Georgia for a while. In March 2024, the company officially delayed the Georgia project in support of expanding its Illinois plant, and announced that it could begin production of its next-generation vehicle, the more affordable R2 SUV, on time.
Libian announced that it would be close to securing $6.6 billion in loans from the Department of Energy to help fund the construction again in late 2024. The deal was completed on the last day of Joe Biden’s presidency, but funds will not be distributed to Libian until a certain milestone is reached.
In the weeks leading up to Donald Trump’s second term, some of the president’s allies soon targeted the Libian factory as a project that could be targeted by the upcoming administration. At one point, Vivek Ramaswamy, who was supposed to jointly lead Elon Musk’s government efficiency, said the administration might try to hold back the loans.
However, Libian’s loans remained intact, and the company has once again promoted its operations and worked closely with the Georgia Governor’s office. The company has big plans for a new factory, and Scaringe told CNBC on Tuesday it hopes to build a vehicle for the 2028 global market.
