Seattle Amazon and Rivian are rolling out customized EV delivery vehicles to more than 100 cities, including Seattle, by late 2022, with plans to expand to 100,000 cities across the US by 2030. Rivians electric truck, the R1T, is becoming increasingly visible around the United States, and Amazon has now revealed that an electric delivery vehicle that it is purchasing from Rivian is poised to be deployed across the country.
Rivian started shipping its first car, a Rivian R1T electric truck, back in 2021, and as the manufacturing slowly ramps up, the early vehicles are still picking up speed. After being founded in 2009, and remaining somewhat secretive for years, Rivian announced in 2018 that Rivians first vehicle would be the Rivian One. In 2017, Rivian announced that Rivian was building electric sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and pick-up trucks on a platform which executives said could be modified for future vehicles or adaptable to other companies.
Now, EV startup Rivian Automotive says it will start shipping its first two products to customers in 2020. Electric car startup Rivian Automotive describes its first two products, called R1T and R1S, as high-end adventure vehicles you can take off-road or on-road. This week, the company is finally showing off what it is got, pulling back the curtains on its first two products, a fully electric pickup truck and an SUV, at the LA Auto Show. Ford, which has a plan to launch an electric version of its popular F-150 pickup next year, has also invested over a half-billion dollars in Rivian.
The 12 year-old EV maker, backed by Amazon and considered a major threat to Teslas Amazon Tesla, is seeking as much as $80 billion in valuation. Rivian Automotive, an electric car startup, has attracted interest for years by quietly securing some building blocks to scale up, including raising almost $500 million in funding and purchasing a 2.6-million-square-foot production plant in Illinois that once produced 200,000 cars per year for Mitsubishi. Rivian raised $2.85 billion during 2019, with four large investments, including an April $500 million investment from Ford, who plans to utilize Rivian skateboards for new battery-electric vehicles, and a US$ 1.3 billion investment round led by T Rowe Price announced in December for production of an R1T truck and an R1S SUV, with plans for an R1S SUV in late 2020.
Rivian-powered deliveries started in earnest last year, with several of the Rivians electric R1T trucks in Los Angeles, but they are spreading out now. The first deliveries of the Rivian R1S electric SUV went out late last year to employees, but it looks now that Rivian is finally preparing to deliver exciting new vehicles to real customers. Customers across the US The US is set to start seeing custom-built Rivian EV delivery vehicles The Rivian is shipping packages for customers all over the US, and electric vehicles are hitting the roads in Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, and St. Louis, among other cities. Amazon is beginning widespread deliveries with Rivian-designed electric cargo vans on Thursday, the next-generation logistics vehicles years in the making.
Amazon said it plans to deploy several thousand Rivian Automotive delivery vans to more than 100 cities later this year, a first step towards achieving the goal of having 100,000 EV delivery vehicles on U.S. roads by 2030. Rivian remains undeterred, though, telling media outlets this week that Rivian plans to have a total of 25,000 battery-electric vehicles delivered to customers by the end of this year. Rivian initially said it expected to produce 50,000 vehicles by 2022, but in March cut 50-fold, telling press the ongoing challenges in global supply chains have added an extra level of difficulty to its efforts to ramp up production. Rivian is still ramping up production for its consumer-focused, fully electric R1T, which has received amazing reviews and has seen a spike in demand, while also adding deliveries of the RS1, an SUV-based version of its consumer-focused, fully electric R1T.
Scaringe added that Rivian-designed electric car projects are not taking focus from its consumer vehicles, the R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV. Like Tesla, Rivian is taking a machine intelligence-focused approach with its trucks.
The futuristic R1T will be sold directly to consumers, though new American startup brand Rivian says it also will establish a network of service centers and stores similar to Tesla. The futuristic R1T is a fully electric pickup truck from new American startup brand Rivian, which promises driving ranges between 250-400 miles, with blazing-fast acceleration. The R1T pick-up proves that Rivian has what it takes to disrupt the EV industry.
With a design that has been likened to that of a kindly blue whale, Rivians van comes with big touchscreens and tech unavailable to conventional truck makers, who are only beginning to sell EVs for deliveries. Amazon and Rivian Automotive unveiled 100 of the vehicles, which will start using for deliveries to customers, in Chicago, on July 21, 2022. Later in September 2019, Amazon ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian, part of Amazons plans to transition its delivery fleet to 100% renewable power by 2030.
