The mechanism: Every EV headline this year has fixated on the consumer tax credit fight. That's noise for Rivian. The signal is the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office (LPO), which in January closed a conditional commitment of up to $6.57 billion under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) program to finance "Project Horizon," Rivian's Georgia manufacturing complex. In April, Rivian and DOE renegotiated that facility down to roughly $4.5 billion, trading total capacity (300,000 units versus the original 400,000) for the ability to draw funds sooner — Rivian now expects to tap the loan starting in 2027. That renegotiation itself is the tell: this isn't a subsidy check, it's a live credit facility whose terms move with who's running LPO, how Congress treats ATVM's loan authority (chunks of which face expiration on the calendar), and how the executive branch feels about federal dollars underwriting a still-unprofitable automaker. A change in LPO leadership, an IG objection, or a rescission push moves Rivian's cost of capital more than any consumer-credit vote does.