Tesla challenger Rivian is postponing the construction of a factory in the US costing around $5 billion until further notice.
The move will initially save Rivian $2.25 billion, company boss R.J. Scaringe said on Thursday at the presentation of new models.
The new plant in the US state of Georgia was originally intended to build the cheaper future R2 electric SUV, which will now be produced at the existing plant in the town of Normal in Illinois instead. This will enable the model to be delivered more quickly.
With a price starting at around $45,000 in the US, the R2 will be around $30,000 cheaper than the larger Rivian first model R1. Rivian was long regarded as one of the strongest challengers to Tesla among pure electric car manufacturers - but is still much smaller.
Last year, Tesla built almost 1.85 million vehicles compared to Rivian's 57,000. This year, the Californian company intends to build roughly the same number of cars instead of increasing production, citing high interest rates.
The planned factory in Georgia is expected to have a production capacity of up to 400,000 vehicles per year in the future.
The at times rapid growth of the electric car market has cooled noticeably of late. Even Tesla has not yet ventured a sales forecast for the current year.
Rivian builds electric delivery vans for Amazon and is active in two car segments that are generally very popular in the US: pickups and SUVs.
However, even US car heavyweights such as GM and Ford have recently realized that consumers tend to opt for the cheaper combustion engine and hybrid versions rather than their large electric models.
Rivian ended last year with a loss of $5.4 billion on revenue of $4.4 billion.