A few weeks ago, there was a fire in a parking lot outside the Rivian factory in Normal, Illinois. It was estimated that about 50 new trucks were damaged, but thankfully no one was hurt and the fire never reached the actual facility. At the time of the fire, Rivian claimed that it was still working to determine the cause. However, a source claiming to be a Rivian employee told The Drive that the fire started from a vehicle with a “critical battery issue” placed in the wrong zone on the lot, near ready-to-ship EVs.
According to the source, who’s chosen to remain anonymous, the Rivian plant was understaffed that day, so some employees were put on different tasks than usual to help fill in. When an R1 (whether it was an R1T or R1S is unclear) needed to be separated from the herd and contained for having a potentially dangerous battery issue, the staffer who moved it was operating outside their normal duties. Instead of parking the defective Rivian in the lot’s designated containment area, they left it next to other cars that were purportedly awaiting “final OKs” before being delivered to customers.
That Rivian’s battery ended up igniting and spreading fire to many of the nearby ready-to-ship vehicles, the source told The Drive. Rivian employees then reportedly had to scramble to find replacement vehicles for customers awaiting their orders. Naturally, it was tough to match customers’ specific orders with vehicles already in inventory. According to our source, customers who received delivery from the factory within the last few weeks were given “Frankenstein replacements,” or vehicles with parts retrofitted to match orders as closely as possible. That isn’t unheard of in the industry, as sometimes certain parts become unavailable and customers will be given the option to either wait or take delivery of a car that isn’t the exact spec they ordered. We don’t know for sure, but it’s possible Rivian reached out to customers and gave them a similar choice.
The Drive reached out to Rivian to comment on this report, and was told only that “The investigation is ongoing.”
At the moment, there’s no reason to believe that what happened in August points to a widespread problem among Rivian batteries. Rivian hasn’t had any such recalls in the past, and this seems to be an isolated incident, identified off the production line. This also isn’t an indictment of electric vehicles, as data has shown that EVs don’t catch fire more often than internal combustion cars. Unfortunately, plant fires happen in the auto industry, and thankfully, no one was injured in this case.
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