According to foreign media reports, electric carmaker Rivian has hired former Volvo executive Javier Varela as its chief operating officer to help the company expand production and prepare to launch low-cost models for the mass market.
Varela, former chief operating officer and deputy chief executive of Volvo, will join Rivian in August, Rivian said in a statement.
He will succeed Frank Klein, who will step down after two years as chief operating officer of Rivian.
Varela, 59, will be in charge of Rivian’s operations, procurement, production and logistics, and will work to help the company meet its gross profit target in the fourth quarter of this year.
Rivian has been grappling with volatile consumer demand in the increasingly competitive electric vehicle market with low production, falling inventories and increasing competition.
Rivian, Varela was responsible for R & D, manufacturing, procurement, supply chain and quality work during his time at Volvo.
He played a key role in the opening of Volvo’s US plant in 2018, the investment of 1.
2 billion euros in a new European manufacturing plant in Kosice, Slovakia, and the conversion of large aluminum bodies into integrated casting.
Rivian, headquartered in California, has the support of well-known investors, including Amazon, and is the largest independent pure electric vehicle manufacturer in the United States after Tesla.
In March, Rivian surprised investors by postponing plans to build a new plant in Georgia and moving production of its first affordable model, R2, to an existing plant in Normal, Illinois.
Rivian revealed on May 2nd that it had received a subsidy worth $827 million from Illinois to expand its plant.
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