Owen Klinsky
Contributor
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. (RELATED: Biden’s Green Loan Office Offers Up A Staggering $22 Billion In Admin’s Final Hours)
“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
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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People are incredibly excited to get behind the wheel of our new models
Maybe so, but are you the right people to run the company? You kinda suck at meeting production goals and making a profit to stay in business long enough to deliver models to those excited customers.
Well FORD has Rivian beat
Ford Lost $130,000 on Every EV It Sold in the First Quarter 2024.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a60621256/ford-ev-revenue-losses-q1-2024/
$100,000 to $130,000 loss per Ford BEV is Total BS. 100% higher than reality.
The company posted a loss of $1.1bn for its electric vehicle division, Ford E in 2023 – equivalent to about $47,600 per car. It sold 23,957 electric vehicles (EVs), an increase of 61pc from a year earlier
The sales number used for the false Q1 2024 loss per vehicle claim was less than half of reality. Typical conservative BS that never gets corrected.
Ford sold 20,223 EVs in Q1, making Ford America’s second best-selling EV brand behind Tesla for the quarter. The $100,000 to $130,000 BS was based on sales of 10,000 Ford BEVs in Q1 2024, A conservative fantasy attack on EVs.
Give me some truth
All i want is some truth
So Robert, you are saying, based on 20,233 sales in Q1, 2024 instead of 10,000, that Ford lost $50,000 to $65,000 per vehicle sold? That is up from their loss of $47,600 per vehicle in 2023. It seems then that however many they sell, they still can’t make money and the losses keep climbing. Is that close enough to “truth” for you?
Yes, but they will make it up in volume.
Richard,
Can you provide the latest on Ford’s T3 project and the status of the BlueOval City near Stanton Tenn? Truth, please?
Call it what it is, Bai Dan just pumped up Rivian enough for his buddies who own stock in that loser can try to cash out before the whole thing collapses.
I think you might be on to something there
But not excited enough to buy them in any significant number.
Rivians are the ugliest battery cars out there, bar none, they look like something out of Looney Tunes (although that Tesla armored personnel carrier is close).
I think Cybertruck has them beat for “Sheer Ugly”
The Department of Energy (DOE) has provided loans to several auto companies, including:
Ford
Received a $5.9 billion loan to upgrade factories in five states. The loan helped Ford produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, including the Escape, Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus.
Nissan
Received a $1.6 billion loan to build advanced electric vehicles and batteries.
Tesla
Received a $465 million loan to manufacture its new electric sedan. Tesla repaid the loan nine years early.
Rivian
Received a $6.57 billion loan to build an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing facility in Georgia. The facility will produce mid-sized electric SUVs.
BlueOval SK
Received a $9.63 billion loan to build three manufacturing plants to produce batteries for Ford’s EVs. The plants are located in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Ultium Cells
Received a $2.5 billion loan to build new lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing facilities in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan. Ultium Cells is a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solutions.
The Rivian loan was approved in November 2024
I wonder if there will be a loan to Biden Motors next?
Joe probably already got his 10 percent.
“The facility will produce mid-sized electric SUVs. ”
But will it be able to sell them? And at what loss?
Since when has it been in taxpayers’ best interests to provide financing for selective speculative product development and manufacture?
Shouldn’t all these kinds of propositions be presented to Shark Tank type forums?
Normally Robert, industrial loans are offered by banks to firms making products or planning to make products that enough people want so the company can make money. And most of the time, the loans are paid off through the company’s profits. This economic system is called capitalism. The Governments loans are a form of socialism or even fascism if you choose. Neither of those two economic systems have been successful anywhere they have been tried. So just why are you so supportive of these loans?
and such loans distort free markets that are founded on willing buyers buying from willing sellers at prices and conditions that both parties find satisfactory –
utility and value for money for the buyers, and profits for the sellers.
It would have been smarter to use that cash to buy carbon credits.
W O W
Rivian $99,000 and still ridiculously under priced by almost $40,000
Rivian trucks have cool looking headlights
That’s something
Tesla Cybertrucks look like a dork mobile for people with excess incomes. They do get attention. But so does walking in public with your fly open.
Yeah, the Tesla Cybertruck is an ugly vehicle.
They are supposedly bullet-proof so that might be a good reason to buy one, but I can’t think of any other reason to get one.
So far I’ve seen one Cyber truck on the road. And over the years I’ve seen about the same number of Volkswagen’s Thing
There are at least two of them in my small town. One of them is parked in an apartment complex I pass frequently. Never seen it on a charger.
The Best looking Tesla Truck I’ve seen is the Truckla made by Simone Giertz.
But that doesn’t make them worth $99,000 or their per unit break even $139,000. Those are Damned Expensive “Cool Headlights” aren’t they.
A typical Democrat scheme which results in no jobs, no benefit and no products.
Anything to start a debt crisis ..
Presidentissimus Biden builds his legacy, fast. And Kabul was a success.
There ya go. Simply said and accurate.
“no benefit“
Come on, man! A lot of people will benefit. As yet, we don’t know who, and we may never learn.
But wealthy principals.
… and no future.
Nice of Joe to handout loans to a company that has never made a profit on its products in 16 years.
Wait! Aren’t loans paid back by shareholders who invested expecting to make a profit?
Or is this another Solyndra charity thing?
Call me old school but this is not a governments job. Giving a loan to an insolvent company doesn’t sound smart. Yes but it creates jobs. So did communism, how did that work out? I’m also exited to drive a Ferrari, but I’m not buying one as in too expensive. With a loss of $40k on each vehicle good luck turning that into profit.
Government loans don’t create jobs, at best, they move jobs from one part of the economy to another. At worst, the number of jobs lost exceed the jobs created.
The money for that loan has to come from somewhere.
If they raise taxes, that costs jobs.
If they borrow it, that raises interest rates, and that costs jobs.
If they print it, that increases inflation, and that costs jobs.
I wonder how much Ol’ Joe Brib’em and the rest of his crime family get in kickbacks from this company? Will they get as much as people in the Obama Admin got from Solyndra? And this comes right on the heels of news of the Commifornia Unreliable Battery-Pack self-immolating and polluting the beautiful riverine estuary at Moss Landing. I fondly remember driving through there regularly on our way to the Monterey Bay Aquarium; family membership entitled us to skip the lines and enter through the hoity-toity VIP gate!
There was a company in Moss Landing that used warm effluent water from the old FF power plant to raise abalone for restaurants and, I hoped, replenish wild stocks. That displayed a level of wisdom and care for the environment that is sadly lacking in today’s Green Blob and the politicos of the Golden-Brown State! Apparently, so many residents there have gotten toasted on medical marijuana and other drugs that they’ve decided to cook the state to match!
I wonder how much damage the marshes and estuary will experience; and how it will effect the numerous species that live and reproduce there? The Commifornia voter leans back on the couch, eats another edible cosmic brownie, and says; “Bummer, dude!”
This loan will help us accelerate the launch of our next failure before it is written off.
Hey! Don’t worry, It’s just money…
I wonder when any of this money is due to be paid back.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
April 15, from you and me!
But not their money, this is our money.
Sure, all seven of them.
We kind of expect them to say things like that, don’t we.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so much money.
I think one could build a decent nuclear reactor for the amount of the Rivian loan.
Trump should have DOE terminate the loan immediately. ‘Nuff said
I’m not sure of the legalities involved, but I think Trump is going to cancel everything Biden did, within Trump’s legal ability to do so.
I think Trump has been making a to-do list for the last four years.
All it takes is refusal to actually disperse the funds, cancel the loan, and let them sue, which will take years to resolve, in which case SCOTUS is most likely to decide that any President has the power to overturn any other President’s decisions as long as Federal law is complied with. The loan is obviously a violation of Congress’s intent to not fund failures at taxpayer risk. Rivian doesn’t have years to litigate the matter given the rate at which they are losing money.
There’s no way that dementia Joe has the cognisance to make these decisions. This should be terminated on the basis of the “Big Guy’s” mental impairment.
In fact, all of the sign-offs by the White House should be declared null and void since the time he withdrew from the presidential elections on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Well that’s $6.57b the American taxpayer will never see again, but I’ll bet the CEO has a sparkling new Ferrari
And don’t forget, 10% to the Big Guy.
The EV car company, Canoo is filing for bankruptcy. Does Joe know about this? Perhaps he could give them a loan.
Battery-power canoes, this sounds like a super idea.
But, but …. They told us . . .
“Canoo has developed breakthrough electric vehicles that are reinventing the automotive landscape with bold innovations in design, pioneering technologies, and a unique business model that defies traditional ownership …”
Defying traditional ownership alright.
A community pedal car?
The vehicle they were making looked like a stainless steel Volkswagen Van.
Canoo bilked Oklahoma out of millions of dollars.
I say bilked because their operation doesn’t seem to have been honest.
Oklahoma’s Attorney General will probably get involved. He is not a fan of windmills and solar or the federal government right-of-way for new transmission lines. I don’t know his opinion on electric vehicles, but I’m pretty sure he is against fraud and against Oklahoma losing money on a dishonest deal.
And he is also running for governor of Oklahoma (I’ll probably vote for him) so we will probably hear from him soon. 🙂
In a documentary about riding a Harley electric M/C from tip of South America to LA a Rivian was an escort vehicle. Both the HD and Rivian had to be charged by a fossil fuel generator on the back of a fossil fuel truck. Both don’t do well in cold or going over mountains.
Along with all those jobs, the loan will permit Mr. Scaringe, Rivian founder and CEO,to collect his $1 million salary (up from $200,000 two years ago) for a while longer. The positives from this loan just keep rolling in!
Criminal. That’s $6.6 billion of taxpayer money given to an absolutely failing company. No bank would have made this loan. Trump – get our money back.
You can bet the ;oan is a huge relief to all the Rivian execs. It means they, personally, will walk away with large nest-eggs when the company finally collapses.
Move the National Labs to the Department of the Interior and shutter the DOE.
All is not lost. Stanton Springs is just 45 minutes from Atlanta. Money spent there on infrastructure will be helpful for a viable company to acquire at a discounted price.
U. S. taxpayers will absorb the loss and move on. The loss will be a redistribution of wealth from middleclass to rich, but what’s new about that?
It’s only $20 per person.
How long are governments going to continue using taxpayers’ money to prop up green products that few people want because they’re overpriced in the first place? In addition, when they (EVs in particular) have bad records regarding reliability, resale values, unpredictable battery safety, undependable cruising ranges, sky-high repair costs, etc. and it’s no wonder they aren’t selling well and manufacturers are are cutting back on their production. Yet governments can’t seem to see that they’re nowhere near to making a major dent in carbon emissions but continue to subsidize them. Talk about throwing good money after bad.
This is all the proof you need, government does not belong in the energy business or the transportation business. I can’t think of a business it should be involved in. All it does is screw things up.
These loans look to me as extremely unConstitutional.
The feds have the job of regulating interstate commerce.
The feds are allowed to fund development of new technologies.
The feds are not supposed to deal in commercial enterprises except where clearly defined as national security investments.
No climate emergency declared means no national security objectives with financing commercial businesses to manufacture commercial products.
So ends the nightmare of the Biden Crime family.
FYI, the Supreme court ruled in 1915 that accepting a pardon was admission of guilt.
Chew on that a moment.