Rivian, the automaker who makes the quite-cool-looking fully-electric delivery vans for Amazon, has gotten its wish. The company has ended its exclusivity with Amazon and is ready to expand its van business to other customers. Now any company in the delivery business can nab one of these snazzy vehicles. Jameson Dow at Electrek has more.
Amazon ordered 100,000 of these vans in 2019, and Rivian has steadily been fulfilling that order, which goes through 2030. They’re starting to appear out and about, but the order will take years for the company to fulfill as it ramps up production. So far, Rivian has delivered 10,000 EDVs which have delivered over 260 million packages in more than 1,800 cities in the US, and even some in Germany.
But today, the company is following through on the planned end of its exclusivity agreement with Amazon, and is now making the vans available to any other company that wants to order them.
Electrek
It was only earlier this year that Rivian announced it wanted to stop being an Amazon-only company in the B2B space. It makes sense, especially with Amazon still keeping its belt-tightening in place at the moment. To me, the Rivian design is fantastic. The light pattern on the rear makes it visible easily. Rivian purpose-built the van using feedback from drivers to optimize the experience. Oh, and it's an EV so putting around town delivering packages means it is perfect for the push toward electrification.
I could easily see the other big delivery companies such as FedEx, UPS, and DHL strike deals for these vans. They're great as-is and would need an only a simple paint job change to make it work for those companies. While it would be great for the USPS to embrace these too, I won't hold my breath.