(Reuters) – A fire broke out in a parking lot at Rivian (NASDAQ:) Automotive's manufacturing plant in Normal, Illinois, on Saturday night, damaging many of its electric vehicles, the U.S. startup said on Sunday.
There were no reports of injuries and the cause of the fire is under investigation, a company spokesman told Reuters. The fire broke out in a parking lot on the north side of the 4 million-square-foot factory, located 130 miles (209 kilometers) south of Chicago, and the assembly plant was not affected, the Normal Fire Department said in a statement to Reuters.
Rivian did not confirm the number or type of vehicles affected. Rivian, known for its R1S SUVs and R1T pickup trucks, is expanding the Normal plant to produce its smaller, less expensive R2 SUVs, which are expected to launch in 2026 and are seen as critical to its success. The company shut down the plant for three weeks this year for a major restructuring that is intended to streamline manufacturing and reduce costs. The electric vehicle maker produces all of its vehicles at the Normal factory, with a second assembly plant planned in Georgia. Last week, it temporarily suspended production of its commercial delivery vans used by retail giant amazon.com (NASDAQ:) due to parts shortages, but it expects to recover all lost production.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
