A fire broke out at Rivian‘s Normal, Illinois, factory last night, but the factory itself was unharmed. Here’s what we know.
A fire damaged a number of EVs in the Rivian factory parking lot. It spread to an as yet unidentified number of Rivian EVs. The vehicles were severely burned, as shown in videos shared on social media.
Sergei Lebedev posted a video of the fire on Instagram – his caption wrongly stated that the plant was on fire – and it was reposted by EVguyZach on Twitter/X:
Central Illinois news channel WAND reported that Normal Fire Department spokesperson Matt Swaney said “fire crews were called to Rivian’s Normal plant just before 9:45 p.m. for a reported vehicle fire” on the north side of the factory.
As of midnight Sunday, Swaney confirmed that the fire was out by midnight, and that the fire’s cause is under investigation. There were no reported injuries.
BeastFire35, who stated that he works at Rivian, posted on the Rivian subreddit at around 10pm:
Photos taken and posted on the RIVIAN Electric Vehicles discussion Facebook page by Jack Hanson show an aerial view of the plant, and the damaged EVs are boxed off. My rough estimate shows around 60-ish burned EVs:
Rivian just last week got approval to expand the Normal factory to produce its R2 SUV.
It’s a good time to remind everyone that while EV fires are hotter and harder to put out than gas car fires, they catch fire far less frequently than gas cars.
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