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EXCLUSIVE: ‘Rivian wanted what Georgia had’: How the Peach State became Rivian’s $5B match
In the Northern portion of Georgia, about 45 miles East of Atlanta, a 2,000-acre slice of land is covered in beautiful trees, hosting stunning landscapes of the rural sections of the Peach State. For several years, Georgia Economic Development Department Commissioner Pat Wilson has pitched this massive piece of beautiful real estate to various automakers, with nobody willing to bring another massive vehicle manufacturing facility to the heart of the Southeastern United States. That was until Rivian came to town.
“It was the perfect company for the perfect site.”
“We considered making it an OEM site,” Wilson, who has been the Commissioner of the State of Georgia’s Economic Development Department since November 2016, told Teslarati in an exclusive interview. He showed the property to Volvo and Toyota/Mazda, among others, over the past few years, but could not come to terms with them on the land. These large-scale, mass-market automakers were unwilling to join Kia, which has a massive $1.8 billion, 2.2 million square foot factory just miles away from the Georgia-Alabama border, to bring a sizeable manufacturing plant to Georgia. It just was not the right fit.
The right fit would eventually come along. While sifting through requests from various companies who were interested in the site and ultimately coming up with no buyers, Wilson knew the right company would eventually show up to build on the land. It would not end up being a car company with a long-standing history of successful automotive manufacturing. Instead, a company known as Rivian Automotive, which just rolled its first production units off of an assembly line in Normal, Illinois, and completed its first deliveries earlier this year, was requesting information. It would end up being the peach Georgia needed to secure its single most significant investment in state history — $5 billion, to be exact. “It was the perfect company for the perfect site,” Wilson said. “Rivian wanted what Georgia had.”
Rivian will build its next EV manufacturing plant in Georgia
CEO RJ Scaringe eventually drove around the 2,000-acre site in a Rivian R1T, plotting ideas and envisioning his young and scrappy company’s second U.S.-located automotive assembly plant. It is a beautiful landscape, and it needed to be preserved. “RJ was genuinely concerned about keeping the area environmentally stable. ” Wilson said. “You only have to look at their website and read a little bit of it to see that this is a company that cares about the world and sustainability. It was important to him to keep the area in its beautiful state.”
“RJ was genuinely concerned about keeping the area environmentally stable…It was important to him to keep the area in its beautiful state.”
Rivian wanted a property with a beautiful landscape, and Wilson said the company wanted to preserve its beauty and integrate its future automotive facility into the topography, which will hit its expected employment of 7,500 people in 2028. It also did not intrude on locals or nearby residents, who gave their blessing for the Economic Development Department to offer the area to large industries. “We don’t propose sites unless we are invited to do so,” Wilson clarified. Citizens welcomed projects with open arms, which solved half of the issue. The next was selling Rivian on the idea.
Selling Scaringe: Lofty Expectations
Rivian undoubtedly had its reservations, and its elevated expectations and accelerated timeline scared off plenty of other regions that were in the running for “Project Terra.” Like other high-tech electric vehicle startups, Rivian had lofty goals to begin production shortly after construction starts. Other states and areas might not have been as willing or able as Georgia to commit to the quick turnaround Rivian and Scaringe had described. Construction will begin in Georgia in Summer 2022, with production lines ramping up in 2024. Rivian hopes to have one of its non-negotiable terms met by launching production around two years after construction crews break ground. Evidently, Speed to Market was a real need for Rivian, and it needed the right State and the right team to make it happen.
CEO & Founder of Rivian, RJ Scaringe (Photo: Rivian)
Speed and efficiency of the construction process was not the only advantage Rivian saw with the site, however. The 2,000-acre land plot that the company locked up and subsequently announced during the company’s first quarterly earnings call as a publicly-traded entity last week also has a great location that could alleviate potential supply chain concerns. Sitting in the Interstate 20 corridor, the plant will have easy access to the Port of Savannah and the State’s 5,000 miles of railway to deliver manufacturing materials quickly. This solved logistical concerns relatively quickly.
There were other concerns too, however. Georgia has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the United States, which sounds like a good thing. Department of Labor statistics listed Georgia’s unemployment rate at just 2.8% for November 2021, the fourth-lowest rate federally, following Nebraska (1.8%), Utah (2.1%), and Oklahoma (2.5%). Interestingly and nearly counterintuitively, a low unemployment rate could actually bring some large-scale companies with sizeable employment needs problems down the road, and Rivian knew that Georgia had a reputation for keeping its people employed. Governor Brian Kemp kept the State’s workforce relatively operational through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. “He created structure for the State,” which ultimately kept Georgia’s people at work, eliminating widespread unemployment and furloughs, Wilson said.
Georgia committed to Rivian’s needs and essentially removed its concerns regarding employment by securing plans for a Quick Start workforce training program facility at the future automotive plant. Quick Start is a State-sponsored program created in 1967 that provides customized workforce training for expanding industries. It runs through the Georgia Technical College System and gives workers free, hands-on, in-depth training that contributes to the state’s economy. Wilson said the program essentially lets taxpayer dollars be funded back into local communities through job training. It keeps people at work, it invests back into the citizens of the State, and most importantly, it prepares them for the job they are about to start. It is a highly successful and proven program that resulted in the first car ever built at the Kia Factory in West Point being fully operational. This is an event that does not happen often, as most vehicles that roll off of production lines as prototypes in a facility’s early days are usually a result of training and are not close to production quality.
Quick Start does more than give employees comprehensive, hands-on training. It also gives Georgians the opportunity to stay in their communities and develop them. Wilson was adamant that the Quick Start program has retained indescribable amounts of talent in Georgia, keeping the State’s workforce and some of its most brilliant minds local. “It gives people a chance to help their communities, but it keeps Georgia talent in Georgia. It benefits the taxpayers because we are investing back into our people,” Wilson added.
While Rivian’s project is the most recent to enter Georgia, Wilson certainly hopes it is not the last. “I hope more EV makers come to our State,” he said. “There will be more change in the automotive industry in the next ten years than there was in the last 100. These are jobs for the future, and we are looking for them because it is generational for the State. These plants will create jobs 60 years down the road.”
I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
Tesla is now starting to ship a “Halloween Mode” that is filled with some creepy and fun features; the company says, “This spooky update turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels.”
The update is just the latest in a series of updates that Tesla typically ships out in a seasonal fashion. The Spring and Summer Updates provided some fun novelty items while also packing some cool features that are actually useful for the ownership experience.
This one seems to be more fun-forward, and there are not any updates to the Full Self-Driving suite or overall operation of the vehicle. Instead, these novelty features are geared toward getting you in the mood for the Fall and Halloween.
Halloween Mode now rolling out 🎃
This spooky update turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels
– Ghost costume on your car’s avatar
– Enable Trick or Treat to play spooky sounds & flicker the lights when visitors approach
– New haunting light show, wraps & lock sound
– A rather chilling Photobooth
– Frighten people remotely by speaking through the app…your car will say it in a voice of its own
Side effects may include neighborhood notoriety
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 6, 2026
New Ghost Costume on Car Avatar
Driver Visualization will now show your vehicle as a ghost, as an all-white sheet is draped over the vehicle. Pedestrians are turned into mummies or skeletons, and other vehicles are all a spooky green:
Credit: Tesla
Additionally, the Park Scene with your Tesla now displays that ghost costume draped over your vehicle in the foreground of a scary backdrop with Jack-o-Lanterns and a haunted house:
Credit: Tesla
Trick or Treat Mode
Trick or Treat Mode will enable the vehicle to play spooky sounds and flicker the lights as visitors approach. This might be a nice touch for when you’re handing out candy to kids on Halloween Night.
Other Features
Tesla is also adding a new Light Show, new Wrap Options, and a new Lock Sound with this update.
Credit: Tesla
Additionally, Photobooth has a new Halloween option:
Credit: Tesla
You will also be able to speak remotely through the app and transmit your voice to people outside, which is not a new feature, but the car will say it in a voice of its own, which is a new feature with that bullhorn-like feature.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
SpaceX reveals plans for one million Starmind AI satellites and calls out operators hiding maneuvers.
SpaceX has put the largest satellite count it has ever published into writing, and it says that plan only works if every other operator in orbit starts sharing what it knows.
In a new Space Safety page highlighted Tuesday morning by Sawyer Merritt on X, SpaceX said it “plans to operate up to 100,000 Starlink satellites and up to 1 million Starmind AI satellites to meet the growing demand for broadband and supercompute.” Starlink has a little over 11,000 satellites in orbit today, so the target alone implies roughly a ninefold expansion of the broadband network.
Starmind is SpaceX’s orbital AI compute constellation. Elon Musk confirmed the Starmind name in June after an xAI trademark filing surfaced, and in August SpaceX said it was working with Nvidia on the compute payload. The FCC accepted the filing for up to one million satellites back in February.
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
SpaceX also released a new render of what a full Starmind constellation could look like. Alongside it, SpaceX VP Michael Nicolls explained why the satellites will not operate on their own. “We need to operate clusters of satellites in tight formation to get enough coherent compute to run AI models efficiently,” Nicolls said. “A cluster will be 10-ish satellites connected with 10 terabits or so of bandwidth between them, and interconnected to the broader constellation.”
That is the most specific detail SpaceX has given on how Starmind will be built. Instead of a million independent servers, the network would work as tightly packed groups of about 10 satellites acting as one compute unit, with Starlink’s laser links carrying results back to Earth.
There is a bright and exciting future for humanity ahead – and space is fundamental to that future.
To achieve this, space safety must be done right. We encourage every operator to not only share ephemeris data proactively the same way Starlink already does, but to also adopt the high standards of space safety that SpaceX and Starlink use every day → https://t.co/QizAkQZvEm
— Starlink (@Starlink) October 6, 2026
Packing satellites that close together, at that scale, makes collision avoidance the central problem, and most of the Space Safety page is aimed at other operators. SpaceX said Starlink encountered collision risks with about 650 unique maneuvering third party satellites in 2026, and only about half of them shared data. Over six months, Starlink recorded roughly 164,000 more collision risks where the closest approach came within four hours of an unannounced maneuver.
Some operators keep maneuver plans private over proprietary concerns, while others cannot get government permission to share them. SpaceX called those policies “counterproductive,” saying they “largely only serve to create preventable collision risk between satellites.” Starlink is also offering a free ephemeris sharing and screening platform that returns risk results within a minute, backed by its Stargaze network of 30,000 optical sensors.
The push comes as the Starmind application draws opposition from astronomers and environmental groups. In a September filing with the FCC, SpaceX said each Starmind satellite could weigh up to 4,000 kg, nearly seven times the mass of a Starlink V2 Mini. Musk has brushed off crowding concerns before, telling viewers in June that “space is enormous” and that SpaceX already knows how to run very large constellations safely.
SpaceX’s Starmind page says its Gigasat factory in Bastrop, Texas, is designed to produce AI satellites at scale, with deployment of thousands of units starting as soon as late 2027.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is really good. I have used it for over 76 percent of my driving since FSD v14 launched around this time last year, equating to about 76 percent of my miles using the suite. It’s truly the only way I prefer to travel, but admittedly I save some of the more fun drives for myself.
Even with all of the great things it has done for me, including saving me from being involved in an accident, there are still a handful of things that it needs to improve on. These issues recur from update to update, and while there have been some improvements, they still give me reasons to either soft or hard intervene.
A soft intervention means an adjustment that is needed without disengaging the suite, like manually using a turn signal to change lanes while the car still operates on FSD. What I’d consider to be a “hard intervention” is anything that requires me to disengage the suite altogether, like missing a turn or performing a maneuver I’m uncomfortable with. Of course, some hard interventions will be subjective.
Here are the five things I’d like to see Tesla really focus on through the final versions of v14 and hope to see completely improved with v15.
Speed Limit Recognition and Adjustment
There are entirely too many instances of FSD traveling at a speed that is just totally outrageous. While some of these events can occur on Hurry Mode, I’ve even had issues with it on Standard from time to time, and despite wanting more aggressive maneuvers or a slight bit of urgency, I don’t want to worry about getting a ticket while doing it.
The two areas I notice it the most are in school zones and on local roads. When a Speed Limit changes from 45 to 35, FSD does not always slow down in a way that would appease local law enforcement. On Hurry, 52-55 is pretty standard for a rate of travel in a 45 MPH zone. When it changes to 35, FSD shows zero urgency to slow down to an appropriate speed.
School Zones have been a true pain point, and as recently as last week, I had an issue with it:
Threw FSD into Sloth to see how it handled this school zone. You can see well before I enter it, the car is traveling 34 MPH, one MPH under the limit.
Still not slowing down nearly enough.
@Tesla_AI, not 25, not 30…15 MPH in School Zones https://t.co/YQuQ8ydhKh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 29, 2026
Realistically, most Speed Limit issues are a soft intervention, as I simply scroll into a slower Speed Profile to get the car to slow down. School Zones are a hard intervention, as they require me to completely take over and travel at the posted 15 MPH limit. Even on Sloth, it simply does not get down to a low enough speed.
Parking
Parking is one thing that has really improved over time, but there are still some pretty considerable hoops Tesla needs to jump through to get it to a point where it can be unsupervised.
Parking preferences seem to be where a lot of these issues will be resolved, as most of my complaints come from the fact that the place FSD chooses to park are usually not where I would personally choose to park. This morning, for example, when I arrived at the gym, FSD chose to park next to a vehicle that was parked with its two tires in the spot that FSD picked.
This is a big reason Parking Preferences with Supervised FSD will be so valuable.
If possible, parking a little further away and being distant from people like this is worth it. https://t.co/3Ac71KQiQ3
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 7, 2026
There were three spots in between that car and the nearest car, so FSD could have chosen the spot that would have given a one-spot buffer between the two vehicles. In a parking lot full of empty spots, don’t be that guy who parks next to a car.
Generally, parking performance is vastly improved from where it was a year ago; I rarely am adjusting how it pulls or backs into a spot on v14.3.10, but in earlier versions, I definitely had my problems. It’s gotten really good since, and this version has been the best in terms of parking performance. It’s more about the places FSD choose to park, and not necessarily the parking itself.
There are also no options or map data to allow you to choose a charger at a place like a grocery store if it offers charging. These are things that are a bit more complex, but they will be needed for unsupervised FSD operation.
Navigation
Navigation was always going to be on this list, simply because it is one of the most inconsistent and mind-boggling things about FSD. Even after a year of intervening, sending voice notes, and overriding decisions, FSD still tries to take me out of my neighborhood the wrong way. You cannot turn left out of my neighborhood’s main entrance and exit, only right. Navigation still prompts a left turn out of my neighborhood’s main entrance and exit, instead of going around the neighborhood and exiting where a left turn is legal.
Tesla rolled out Preferred Routes with the Summer Update, and this has resolved some of the issues. I also found my own personal workaround:
🚨See if this cool Tesla Navigation Hack works for you!
I have used it to get out of my neighborhood legally with FSD, thus enabling completely hands-free drives! https://t.co/DlDsCQjxRI
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 16, 2026
Some of the more mind-boggling things that FSD used to do with Navigation have been remedied, but it is still a frequent complaint for me and many other owners. I’d just like to see it adopt those preferred routes more frequently and maybe learn them a little faster.
Certain Highway Behaviors
Highway travel is the most consistent and perhaps FSD’s best use case. There is nothing better than having FSD handle busy highway traffic or just long, monotonous, and boring drives. I love to use it for my trips to the Flight 93 Memorial where I volunteer. When I drove manually, I chose to get a hotel and stay overnight because it’s about a 2.5 hour drive. FSD lets me make the drive, put in a volunteering shift, and drive home, without much fatigue. I have found that this is where FSD is most valuable for me, personally.
However, there are a few things FSD does on the highway that are just weird.
One thing I’ve had issues with as of late is that there will be times when I’m about a mile from my exit, the car is in the left lane and is traveling faster than the traffic in the cruising late. Instead of completing a pass and then getting over with no traffic ahead, the car will sometimes drastically and suddenly slow down, switch to the slow lane, and get behind a vehicle — all with a mile until the exit. On average, I’ll have around one minute from the time I get to my exit if it’s a mile away, because in most cases, I’m traveling somewhere around 60 MPH on the highway.
There is no reason to not complete that last pass, then get into the right lane, and have an unobstructed path to the exit. This is one of the more strange behaviors I’ve seen it do, and it really does feel like a bug. Here’s an example of it from FSD v14.3.7:
🚨 Tesla FSD v14.3.7 did nearly the exact opposite — nearly 2.5 miles before the exit it got over into the slow lane and got behind much slower traffic.
Now, v14.3.8, anecdotally, waited til the last minute to get off the highway https://t.co/Lc9vAKDyQC
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 29, 2026
I ended up overriding the turn signal and using the accelerator to nudge the car to do what I wanted it to do. There was no reason to get in the left lane and add to the congestion in that lane.
Another thing that FSD does frequently is camps in the left lane, especially on Hurry. Cruising in the passing lane is illegal in Pennsylvania, and I know it is not a crime to do that everywhere. However, it is here, and I really wish the car was a little quicker to get over in the left lane when it’s cruising.
Here’s a pretty drastic example I had just a couple weeks back:
Recognizing Drastic Changes in Road Condition
I think anyone who has ever used FSD knows that potholes are a huge issue, but so are large bumps or sudden changes in road condition. At the intersection of Kreutz Creek Rd. and Rt. 462 in Hellam, PA the roads are nearly set up as a ramp, and going over it at a speed of over 35 MPH can send your head into the glass roof, your butt off your seat, and a brace for the sudden thud that is inevitably coming when you finally touch back down again.
You can see here I tried to change Speed Profiles quickly, but I did it a tad too late:
This is that big bounce that I mentioned in the quoted post.
It’s just a tad too drastic to take at the speed FSD wants to go over it. You can see me quickly swipe down into Sloth, but I intervened. https://t.co/81Oc82ZJcZ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 2, 2026
There are other roads in my area that should not be taken at even the posted Speed Limit because of the damage it could do to your car. Here’s another, where I disengaged FSD altogether:
🚨 I’ve talked in the past about my struggles with FSD when large bumps or sudden changes in sloping are approaching.
Today I tried switching down into Sloth from Standard but I did it a tad too late and I had to take over. You can see this isn’t a bump you take at 35 MPH https://t.co/f4tK13hsz1
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 6, 2026
The recognition of these bumps is so crucial for two main reasons: they can cause injury, and they can cause damage to the car. These are reasons why the suite is supervised and drivers should remain attentive. I could not imagine going over that bump at an excessive speed if I had back issues, or if I were older.
Potholes are rarely recognized and usually require a lead car to avoid them. I had FSD use a lead car to avoid a pretty sizeable manhole cover a few weeks back:
🚨 Interesting observation on FSD v14.3.8 – Make note of the van in front of me as it swerves out of the way of a sewer cover
FSD followed this behavior, but interestingly did not swerve for the next sewer cover
What do we make of this? https://t.co/RO19941AIP
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 2, 2026
Tesla says that there are improvements coming for potholes, so hopefully that means these bumps will also be recognized consistently.
Tesla ships ‘spooky’ Halloween Mode with creepy and fun features
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
