Grading, road work, and utility installation are now visibly underway at Rivian's Stanton Springs, Georgia plant site, a four-county development authority reported this week. Vertical construction starts by year-end, with R2 SUV production still targeted for 2028 at a facility now planned for 300,000 vehicles a year.
Rivian's $5 billion electric vehicle plant in Stanton Springs, Georgia is no longer just a groundbreaking photo-op — it's an active job site. Grading crews are cutting roads into the property, water and sewer lines are going in, and construction trailers now dot the site off US Highway 278, according to an update a member of the four-county development authority overseeing the project gave colleagues this week.
"There's more excitement going on. There are more people up at the site than I've seen in a year," Bob Hughes, a Morgan County representative on the Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton and Walton Counties (JDA), told the board this week. "It looks like they're grading roads and installing water and sewer."
The 2,000-acre site sits at the edge of Social Circle, with two entrances off US-278 near Interstate 20. Grading is underway at one entrance, while construction trailers have appeared on a gravel road near the other. Both are marked with large signs reading "Building the future together. Right here in Georgia."
"There are more people up at the site than I've seen in a year."
— Bob Hughes, Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton and Walton CountiesThis site work follows years of stops and starts. Rivian first announced the Georgia project in December 2021, then paused construction in March 2024 to conserve roughly $2.25 billion in cash — shifting the first R2 and R3 production to its existing Normal, Illinois plant instead. The project came back to life after Rivian landed a conditional $6.6 billion loan commitment from the US Department of Energy in late 2024, finalized in January 2025 (the agreement's active value has since been adjusted to about $4.5 billion, combining principal and capitalized interest). Rivian formally broke ground on September 16, 2025, with CEO RJ Scaringe calling it "an inflection point for us."
Rivian has also upsized its ambitions for the site. The plant was originally planned to build 200,000 R2s a year in its first phase; the company has since said it will target 300,000 units annually instead. The facility is expected to eventually produce the R2 and, potentially, the R3 crossover, complementing the R1 line built in Illinois. Rivian projects roughly 2,000 construction jobs during the build-out and 7,500 permanent manufacturing jobs once the plant is running at scale by 2030 — among the largest industrial investments in Georgia history.
While Georgia's factory rises, the R2 itself is already real: deliveries began June 9, 2026 out of Rivian's Normal, Illinois plant, and the company's Q2 2026 results beat its own delivery guidance. Pricing currently spans three trims — the R2 Launch Package (available now) at $57,990, the R2 Premium (arriving by the end of 2026) at $53,990, and the R2 Standard (first half of 2027) at $48,490. Rivian doesn't run traditional dealerships; Georgia shoppers can see the R2 in person at company-run "Spaces" in Atlanta and Alpharetta today, well before the local plant ever turns out a vehicle.
The same JDA meeting that produced the Rivian update also touched on the surrounding Stanton Springs development: the authority is soliciting bids for a 22-acre "pad site" — graded land ready for construction — on the nearby Moore property, with a pre-bid conference set for July 9 and sitework proposals due July 27. It's a reminder that the Rivian plant is the anchor of a much larger industrial push in this stretch of Walton, Morgan, Newton, and Jasper counties, not a standalone project.
The bottom line: Two years after pausing the project to preserve cash, Rivian's Georgia plant is visibly, physically moving again — graders, utility crews, and construction trailers instead of just signage and press releases. Vertical construction is next, targeted for later this year, with vehicles not expected to roll off the line until 2028. Until then, the R2 story in Georgia is really an R2 story out of Illinois — but the site that will eventually build it at 300,000-unit scale is no longer just a plan on paper.
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