Closer look at Rivian’s electric delivery van for Amazon

[hridge2020]

Amazon released a closer look at its upcoming new electric delivery van built by Rivian, who is supposed to produce 100,000 of them.
Last year, Rivian took a $700 million round of funding led by Amazon, and at the time, they were discussing opportunities to work together.

A few months later, we learned that one of those opportunities is building an electric delivery van for the online retail giant.
Amazon announced that they are going to buy 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian.
The project is one of the biggest of its kind, and would represent one of the largest deployment of electric vehicles in the world.
It’s also an order likely worth over $4 billion for Rivian, which is massive for a startup.
At the time, we didn’t know much about Rivian’s new vehicle for Amazon.
Now the company is releasing a closer look at the development of the electric delivery van, which Amazon claims will enable them to build the world’s most sustainable fleet.
Ross Rachey, director of Amazon’s global fleet and products, said:

We’re trying to build the most sustainable transportation fleet in the world. It also needs to be the most functional, the highest performing, the safest.

Amazon Van Vision


RJ Scaringe, CEO of Rivian, commented on the project:

We are focused on driving efficiency into every aspect of the vehicle design — everything from cabin heating to driver ergonomics to drivetrain design has been optimized for time and energy, And then the echo effect of this, of causing other logistics players in this space to also look at how they drive up efficiency within their fleet, will have a very large impact.

And while they are not releasing specs, they did mention some details about the technology that will be used in the vehicle to help the drivers:

That includes a digital instrument cluster and central display screen integrated with Amazon’s logistics management, along with routing and package delivery technology systems to make it easier for the drivers to focus on operating the vehicle. The system removes the need for extra devices that provide address and mapping information. Integrating Amazon Alexa will make it easy for drivers to ask for help or use simple voice commands in the cargo bay when sorting packages without having to manually enter commands or consult handheld devices.

They have also clarified the timeline to bring the electric vehicle to production:

Amazon’s new electric delivery vehicles will begin delivering packages to customers in 2021. The company plans to have 10,000 of the vehicles on the road as early as 2022 and all 100,000 vehicles on the road by 2030 — saving millions of metric tons of carbon per year by 2030.

This is a particularly impressive timeline, especially when you consider that Rivian has yet to bring a vehicle to production, and its first vehicles, the R1T and R1S, are only supposed to come to market in “late 2020.”

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additional info:

Rivian's delivery trucks will be built at the manufacturing plant in Normal, Illinois, which was formerly operated by Mitsubishi Motors. Rivian is not sharing details about the inner workings of the truck, other than the fact it shares components with the R1T pickup and R1S SUV models the company is planning to go on sale in 2020. There's also no word on the charging infrastructure that will be needed to power the enormous fleet of electric trucks.

Amazon’s vans will use the same battery, powertrain, and electrical network as the two consumer vehicles Rivian plans the $69,000 R1T pickup truck and $72,500 R1S SUV.

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[Camper Van Someren]

If Rivian put one of these bodies on a R1T chassis (complete with air suspension etc) I’d probably ditch the cybertruck.

 

[Saskateam]

That would make for a great camper van conversation.

 

[DMC-81]

It's awesome to witness the tipping point towards electric vehicles.

 

[Sirfun]

That would make for a great camper van conversation.

Lots of possibilities. Hmmm for that matter what about the used vans?

 

[Mule Ferguson]

Rivian/Amazon Pickup

 

[ajdelange]

It's awesome to witness the tipping point towards electric vehicles.

Yes, isn't it! I got my X at the end of December 2018 (that's 14 months ago). I used to see one or rarely 2 Teslas a couple of times a week. Now I see several every day. Fast chargers (Tesla and others) are popping up everywhere. My car (X100D) had EPA range of 295 miles. The same model today (14 months later!) has an EPA range of 351 miles and sells for $20k less.

Not that I think it was ever a really a threat but it appears that hydrogen is really dead at this point (too bad but just too many problems with it).

 

[Curacars]

Lots of possibilities. Hmmm for that matter what about the used vans?

As soon as all these electric vans come on the road a lot of parcel delivery vans will probably go to the scrapyard aka sell for cheap.
Not sure how often you go camping but if not much, an old step wagon might be the cheaper option for sure.