Amazon has started using the Rivian-made electric delivery vehicles for deliveries in the Los Angeles area.
The retail giant has said that it will bring these electrified vans to 21 additional cities by the end of the year.
As part of the deal signed between Amazon and Rivian, the latter is expected to deliver up to 10,000 units of this new van by 2022.

Online retail giant Amazon has officially started using Rivian-made electric delivery vehicles for deliveries in Los Angeles. It’s worth pointing out that we’ve already come across a few prototypes and test units of this electric delivery vehicle in the wild, but this is the very first time that Amazon has actually deployed it on the field to fulfill customer deliveries.

Amazon confirmed the development saying, “Amazon customer deliveries will look a little different in parts of Los Angeles. Just one year after announcing the purchase of 100,000 custom electric delivery vehicles as part of The Climate Pledge, Amazon has begun testing the new vans on delivery routes.”

Amazon has said that it will deploy these vans to 15 additional cities by 2021 towards realizing its goal of having 10,000 electric delivery vehicles on the roads by 2022. However, the company didn’t mention the cities. Amazon also posted a video showcasing the new delivery vehicle.

Though we’ve seen quite a bit of this van in the wild, Amazon and Rivian have been pretty quiet about its features or performance. However, the retailer announced today that this van will have a range of up to 150 miles, making it ideal for deliveries within the city.

When Amazon inked the deal for these vans, it set a target of having at least 10,000 of them on the road by 2022 and around 100,000 by 2030. Though ambitious, the pace at which the development of this delivery van has moved, it doesn’t seem like a big target.

This is based on the assumption that Rivian doesn’t face any bottlenecks with regard to the production of these vans in such a high volume, particularly when the company also has to focus on its own fleet of EVs such as the R1T electric pickup truck and the R1S SUV. Both EVs are scheduled to reach the markets by the second half of 2021, with the R1T being prioritized.

Via: Electrek