Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, or St. Louis: If you order something from Amazon in these US cities, the package will probably be delivered by a Rivian electric van. The number of cities in which the Rivian EDV ( Electric Delivery Van ) is in service is expected to increase to 100 by the end of the year.
The Rivian delivery vans were already in operation on a trial basis in February 2021, and the first was officially integrated into the Amazon fleet in autumn 2021. It is not known how many IT delivery vans are already driving for Amazon. But in 2030, no fewer than 100,000 of them should be rolling on the streets of the USA.
In 2019, Amazon ordered the 100,000 vans mentioned from Rivian; they should be delivered by 2030. However, it is not yet certain whether the startup can produce so many. After all, Rivian has only built relatively small numbers of the R1T and R1S so far. In March, Rivian halved its expected production for 2022 from 50,000 to 25,000 electric cars (EDV, R1T, and R1S together).
But Rivian boss RJ Scaringe is already planning the next step towards mass production: After the EDV-700 for Amazon, he wants to bring more delivery vans onto the market. From 2030, millions of electric delivery vans are to be built in several Rivian plants every year, the manager now told Reuters. The new models should all be based on the RCV platform, which is also the basis of the Amazon transporter. We have already had discussions with various customers.
In particular, Rivian is planning smaller commercial vehicles that could share components with the electric crossover called R2. This electric crossover is set to be built at a new Rivian plant in Georgia starting in 2025.
Scaringe said he still expects Rivian to build a million electric vehicles a year from 2030, and significantly more thereafter. It will be about several vehicles, of different platforms and sizes. And ultimately, there will be more plants, not just the existing Normal plant and the announced one in Atlanta.
