Toronto, Ontario — This week, Rivian buckles down in a mission to meet 2022 delivery goals; Bentley allocates nearly CAD$4 billion to sustainability efforts and Uni-Select preps to unveil its Q4 2021 results.
Rivian’s rest
Rivian said it’s planning to ramp up its production to “almost 200 delivery-ready units per week,” according to sources from Automotive News.
The boost in production comes after Rivian failed to meet its initial 2021 target of delivering 1,200 electric vehicles across three model variations. From its initial R1T pickup production kick-off in Aug. 2021, Rivian said it averaged approximately 50 units produced per week, through the end of Dec. 2021.
According to Automotive News‘ sources, the automaker actually shut down production for about a week earlier in January with an effort to solve issues and bottlenecks.
As of mid-Dec. 2021, Rivian had approximately 71,000 pre-orders for its R1T and R1S models in the U.S. and Canada, in addition to a 100,000 electric delivery van order from Amazon, of which 10,000 units are to be delivered this year.
The company is expecting to produce 200,000 EVs per year following an impending update from its current potential of 150,000 per year.
Rivian is also on track to build a second production plant in Georgia, U.S. come 2024, which it says will be capable of producing up to 400,000 units per year.
Five alive
Luxury automaker Bentley has committed £2.5 billion—or approximately $4 billion in Canadian dollars—to sustainability investments over the next 10 years.
Bentley will also launch one new electric model each year, beginning in 2025 and ending in 2030, resulting in at least five electric models.
The automaker said it has secured a production site in the United Kingdom to produce the automaker’s first-ever battery-electric vehicle, which will reportedly be an electric SUV based upon Volkswagen Group’s electric vehicle platform, Artemis. The unpainted bodies of the new vehicles will be built in VW’s Hanover, Germany plant before being shipped to the production site in Crewe, U.K.
According to one of Bentley’s senior team members, the first EV in Bentley’s lineup will feature more than 300 miles (482 kilometres).
“We know the battery, the performance of the battery,” said Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark. “The final design is weeks to a couple of months away. [The car] will be an incremental product to the ones we have today and won’t compete with anything we do. We intend to create not just an EV but to shape a segment too.”
Eyes on Uni-Select
Uni-Select will release its results for the fourth quarter of 2021, the company announced Monday.
A conference call will be hosted at 8 a.m. ET. Results will be discussed on the call.
For more information, click here.
