We’re hosting another SOW community AMA on 2023-05-30 with Kenton Harris, the Director of Battery Manufacturing Engineering at Rivian, the EV company producing electrified trucks, SUVs, and delivery vans. Kenton is an Illinois-based mechanical engineer and SOW Member who spends most of his time talking about lasers, glue, and data. Ask him anything about EVs, batteries, American manufacturing, or solving really hard problems.
Here are some quick facts about Rivian to spark your curiosity:
- Founded in 2009, they’re a newcomer in the automotive space that builds cars in the midwestern US. Rivian owns a 240,000 square meter ex-Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Illinois that employs over 7000 workers. This video tour (with a peek at battery back assembly around 3:30) shows the dizzying scale of the plant. You can see inside the battery test lab here.
- See what goes into a Rivian battery pack in this Munro & Associates video teardown and how they got to the battery pack in this teardown video.
- The Rivian vehicle I’m most excited about is the electric delivery van (EDV) that it produces for Amazon Logistics. The EDV is full of thoughtful design decisions that aim to make workers’ jobs safer and more comfortable.
We’re always excited to talk about electrification, and this AMA will be an excellent opportunity to dig into the nuts and bolts of EV manufacturing. Members are invited to join in on Slack and Supporters will get access to the full conversation when it’s published. If you want to talk about batteries (and so much more), join us!
