Amazon has offered a look at the Rivian-designed van that will electrify its delivery fleet. In addition to ordering 100,000 vans from Rivian, Amazon is also an investor. In a blog post, Amazon showed one of three different models customized with Rivian to “enhance the driver experience and optimize safety.” “When we set out to... READ FULL ARTICLE
Does anyone have any link to more info? I'd love to know how big the battery is and how quickly it can charge. I love my Model S, but I've got to say that Rivian is better aligned to my desires than Tesla right now. I would LOVE to have one of those delivery vans and turn it into an RV!
Delivery vans spend a great amount of time idling while the driver gets out and drops the package off at a customer's front door. So it makes perfect sense to have electric delivery vehicles, plus they're most likely all wired with telemetry to Amazon so they can provide more precise ETA for customer package deliveries.
Precise ETA? This is Amazon here...they just need a little time to develop [steal] a full self driving capability. Then it's "Alexa, drive to next delivery address" "Alexa, deploy robotic hand truck" "Alexa, unload cargo" "Alexa, drop off driver and pick up next driver" Set Routine, Sun-Sat, 12:00 am-11:59 pm.
I think EVs will take majority market share for delivery vans well before they take over passenger cars. They also have a good 10 square meters of flat area on the roof for solar panels. You could get an extra 10-15kWh/day of solar juice per van, covering the first 10-20 miles of city driving for free.
Seems they already have that. Once they start shipping and get somewhat close, I can look at my order and see that my package is 11 deliveries (approx 25 minutes) away from my house. I think going beyond this with any accuracy is going to be difficult, because of traffic and drop off location factors.