- Rivian, the EV startup, will deploy 100,000 delivery vans for Amazon by 2030.
- The first of these vans are expected to be on the road by next year at this time.
- Rivian’s electric skateboard platform is also being used for the company’s own vehicles and an upcoming electric Lincoln SUV.
Rivian is thinking big and making news lately: the electric-truck startup has famously secured huge investments from Ford and Amazon, and the first electric Lincoln will be based on Rivian’s platform. Meanwhile, according to Amazon, the automaker will deploy 100,000 electric delivery trucks by 2030, and some will be already out on American roads a year from now.
Today the company took the wraps off the initial design of the vans in all their clay and small-scale glory. At Rivian’s Plymouth, Michigan, headquarters, the two companies are creating a custom van to meet the online retailer’s needs. While designers are smoothing the edges of the clay van, drivers are trying out the delivery vehicle via a virtual-reality simulator to help figure out the best way to outfit the vehicle.
When it goes into production, the van’s dash will sync with Amazon’s logistics management system and will offer up routes to streamline deliveries. And, naturally, it’ll also have Alexa integration with voice commands to help expedite the task of finding packages in the vehicle.
Rivian says it will build three different sizes of delivery vans for Amazon and that they’ll begin deliveries in 2021. It also hopes to have 10,000 vehicles dropping off your purchased items as early as 2022 and eventually have all 100,000 promised vans on the road by 2030.
Rivian
Working on vans for Amazon and Lincolns for Ford will not be all Rivian’s up to. The startup’s own R1T pickup for the consumer market is expected to make its debut by the end of 2020, with the R1S three-row SUV expected after that.