Rivian Will Delay Construction of a $5 Billion Factory in Georgia

Rivian, a young electric vehicle company, said on Thursday that it was halting construction of a new factory in Georgia. The company also announced two new models, one of which will now be produced at its plant in Illinois.

The company had nearly completed preparing the roughly 2,000-acre site in Georgia that is about 50 mile east of Atlanta, and it was expecting to break ground on the $5 billion plant this year.

But the growth of electric vehicle sales has slowed in the past six months, forcing many automakers to reassess their plans for new factories and models.

Rivian said delaying the Georgia plant would save it about $2.25 billion, a large sum from a business that has been losing billions of dollars for several years. The company said it was committed to building the plant but did not say when it hoped to restart construction.

“Our Georgia site remains really important to us,” Rivian’s chief executive, R.J. Scaringe, said at an event on Thursday where he unveiled two new sport-utility vehicles. “It’s core to scaling across all these vehicles.”

One of the S.U.V.s, called the R2, is a five-passenger vehicle that is expected to be available in the first half of 2026. Originally, the R2 was supposed to be the first vehicle produced in Georgia. Shifting production to Normal, Ill., where the company has an operating factory, will allow Rivian to begin delivering the vehicle to customers sooner, Mr. Scaringe said.