Rivian posted a new video on its official YouTube channel where its chief operating officer Frank Klein offers some new details about the production of the company’s Enduro dual-motor drive unit, which was developed in-house and is manufactured at the EV maker’s plant in Normal, Illinois.
According to Rivian’s COO, after production started on February 3 on the new assembly line, the company managed to churn out more than 600 units of the Enduro powertrain, most of which were fitted to the Electric Delivery Vans (EDVs) that went to Amazon. In addition to the new drive unit, the EDVs also got a new and upgraded lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack.
But Rivian’s own dual-motor drive unit was also recently added to the R1S and R1T features list, and with the American EV startup planning on building as many as 85,000 of its passenger vehicles next year, it needs to massively increase the production capacity of its electric motors.
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To this effect, Klein says in the video embedded above that Rivian is planning to produce 44 units per hour, which amounts to 832 drive units per day with two shifts running at the Normal facility. That’s roughly 16,640 dual-motor powertrains per month when running at full capacity.
However, the company’s COO missed one crucial detail and that was the estimated date when the production facility would reach the aforementioned limits.
With this being said, Frank Klein mentions that the company’s in-house engineered and built Enduro drive unit will help drive down the cost and offers more efficiency compared to the quad-motor setup that’s also available on the R1S SUV and R1T pickup.
The dual-motor setup offers about 600 horsepower and can be selected in combination with the standard and large pack batteries for the R1S, while on the R1T customers can also pair it with the Max Pack for up to 400 miles of range on a single charge.
Rivian is also offering a Performance Dual-Motor variant for both of its R1 vehicles, which outputs roughly 700 horsepower, as well as the 835-hp Quad-Motor powertrain.
As always, we’d like to know what you think about this, so head over to the comments section below and give us your thoughts on the video embedded at the top of the page.
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Source: Rivian