Rivian which is one of the most well capitalized electric car startup’s has been making waves with its R1T and R1S electric pickup and SUV. But aside from this on the bedrock of a huge investment from e-commerce giant Amazon and Ford, Rivian has also been making an electric van which is meant for logistics operators that were originally meant just for Amazon. Now it has been revealed that it will be opening up sales for the electric van in 2023 after an order of 100,000 vans from the e-commerce giant.
Rivian is slated to go public later this week with a valuation upwards of $60 billion. It quietly announced details about the plans for its fleet sales where it will even offer the R1T and R1S electric pickup and electric SUV and also has announced a new fleet management platform called FleetOS, alongside the electric van.
Rivian is slated to be delivering 100,000 to just Amazon alone by 2024 as a part of its efforts to decarbonize its fleet. Amazon owns around 20 percent of Rivian after participating in multiple funding rounds and many had assumed the electric van was exclusive to Amazon, but seemingly that situation has changed which could allow Rivian to unlock more value.
Rivian is slated to start production and deliveries of the electric van starting in December to Amazon.
Apart from Amazon, FedEx has a deal with General Motors for EVs with its BrightDrop subsidiary. Even UPS has a deal with EV startup Arrival – so there is a trend that many logistics players are looking towards EVs which certainly is a big market for the EV players around the world.