Amazon's Next Step Towards Carbon Neutrality: 100,000 Rivian Electric Delivery Vans
Rivian and Amazon’s partnership is beginning to pay off. (Photo Courtesy: Amazon)
By: Lucas Rostler
Rivian’s All-New Electric Delivery Vehicles
Amazon’s $1 billion investment into electric vehicle company Rivian is beginning to pay off. And if you live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Denver, it’s very possible that you’ve seen this firsthand in the form of Rivian’s electric delivery vehicles.
Last mile deliveries, which these electric vans are going to be used on, are deliveries from the transportation hub to the final delivery destination. Due to the many stops a driver has to make, and the inevitable idling during these stops, last mile deliveries are very bad for the environment. To combat this environmental impact, and to help Amazon achieve their goal of carbon neutrality by 2040, Amazon has ordered 100,000 of these electric vans set to be delivered by 2030. (10,000 are going to be delivered by the end of 2022.) Currently the vans that have already been delivered are operating in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Denver, with the goal of adding an additional 15 cities to that list by the end of this year.
These vans come in three sizes: 500, 700, and 900 cubic feet of cargo space. Each van gets 150 miles of range, but Rivian is open to extending or reducing the range of specific vehicles depending on their routes. Counterintuitively, the bigger the vehicle, the less range is necessary. This is because generally high density routes have more packages but stop more frequently than low density routes. Think of places like New York City, where drivers rarely exceed 10 mile routes because they are stopping every quarter mile or so and delivering many packages to an entire apartment building.
To help streamline their business plan, Rivian designed their vans using the same battery packs and electrical infrastructure as their soon-to-be-released R1 lineup. But other than that, there are no similarities between Rivian’s mainstream fleet and their vans.
Because these vans are set to be delivered over the next decade, and are going to be used in Amazon’s business plan for the indefinite future, Rivian and Amazon had to come up with an aesthetic design that will never change. The result is a boxy and benevolent-looking van that appears amusingly cartoon-ish. The front of the van looks like a face with two big round headlights, set into a shiny black rectangular grille, with the iconic Amazon logo front and center. At Borrow, we joke that it looks like a whale with two conspicuous Amazon smiles tattooed on either side of it!
Beyond being all-electric, the Rivian vans differ from traditional Amazon delivery vans in that they are tailor-made for driver comfort. In the development process Rivian interviewed thousands of Amazon delivery drivers to determine where they thought their vans could improve in the areas of safety and comfort.
The result is a van that has a full range AC system, heated/cooled seats and armrests, as well as a touchscreen infotainment system. Additionally, Rivian made sure that the steps to get in and out of the vehicle were slip resistant and that the arm bars to help get in and out of the vehicle were placed in convenient locations (many of the current combustion delivery vans are missing both of these seemingly obvious features).
The actual vehicle has gotten safer as well. Each van is equipped with an arsenal of cameras and sensors that provide front end collision warnings, automatic emergency braking, and lane-keeping assist. While these features might point to an automated delivery van in the future, it’s important to note that both Amazon and Rivian made it clear that they have no plans to fully automate their last-minute delivery fleet anytime soon.
The Rivian delivery van is a major step in the right direction for the EV market. It proves that EV’s are beginning to seep into every corner of the once-dominated combustion engine sector. Whether personal vehicles, commercial vehicles, or even aviation, it is clear electric motors are beginning to take hold of the world!
Borrow is an electric vehicle subscription company with one goal: to make driving an EV as simple and accessible as possible. Borrow is the only electric vehicle subscription service of its kind with a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonizing the everyday drive.